Redstate

is a good conservative and a great strategist. I feel its important to remember that he was at least partly responsible for turning OK "red" by helping J.C. Watts, Steve Largent, and Tom Coburn get into congress. He holds Watts' district now and earned Watts' endorsement in the race to succeed Watts.

He has also helped Pickering win in MS and Lingle become GOV in HI (the only moderate on this list).

Finally, it's important to note that all polling and exit polling support this statement: "People who argue that we lost because we weren't true to our base, that's just wrong."

Conservative support stayed at the same level as 2004. Conservatives did turn out. For a more in depth look at these numbers, see here. The highlights are:
"1. Republican turnout did not falter significantly. The partisan makeup was 38D/36R compared to 2004 when it was 37D/37R. The overall vote in the House was 53D-45R. The shift in results from 2004 where President Bush won 51-48 came from independents and moderate Republicans who voted for Bush switching to vote Democratic in 2006....

3. Swing groups took a swing against Republicans. Let's compare the full house exit poll numbers for certain constituencies in 2004 and 2006: Hispanic support of Ds went from +11 to +39. Indepedents support for Ds went from +3 to +18. Catholics went from not supporting Ds -1 to supporting Ds +11. And those who report "no religion" went from supporting Ds by +34 to +51 (although these are not generally a "swing group")."

Now the leap to thinking spending was not important is odd. But reading Cole as favorable as possible, his statement was "I don't think spending was the problem." My analysis would be that spending was a problem. And it alienated moderates and independents because the R no longer stood for good government and anti-pork efforts. Rs "went native" and that cost them support. In that case, spending along with other issues made Rs look like they were no longer representing the will of the people but rather their own reelection and a "I get my share" mentality. Thus spending wasn't the problem, the out-of-touch nature of the R caucus was.

If Cole were a Chafee or Wittman, then maybe a charitable reading would not be accurate. But given Cole's record (and libertarian-conservative leanings), it's hard to see Cole as calling for an abandonment of conservative ideals.

______________________________________
Bobby Jindal Saves Louisiana

http://www.redstate.com/stories/archived/this_is_for_all_you_way_to_cool...

How could anybody described as "libertarian" vote for that?

Kevin Allen

or "getting out the message" should be required to help Hillary squeeze in and out of her elastic pants suits. First you're up against the free advertising provided by a media intent on seeing America suffer, therefore a liberal media.
Second, it's the type and content of the message that counts,messages that should include exposure of absurd and ugly Democratic statements, policies, and corruption.

Attack ads work and work better when grounded in fact and the issues. Look what they have done for the Dems who don't care what they say.

As for the independent vote, I don't know just what a moderate is, common sense tells you that this is who the Republicans have to hold on to. Spending and a notable weakening of principles achieved for them what the base held it's nose and supported. So the theory concerning loss is made viable by an application to the swing vote, most of whom follow politics like I follow the submarine races up the Hudson River.

Elect moderates ,whatever they are, and the Democrats will always beat you at whatever game you play, which more often than not, will be their game.

"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville

if that's not a banable comment it should be. If I was a moderator, I'd take out your whole zip code.

Yeech.
____
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

Convincing Mississippians to vote for Pickering in '96 was as difficult as convincing a dentist to brush his teeth. Although the seat he got was a democrat's (Montgomery) Mississippi wasn't all that enamored with democrats on the national stage since the mid 60's (see Goldwater receiving 87% of the vote in 64). Mississippi still has a problem of re-electing incumbent D's (see Taylor, although Taylor was one of only two D's that voted against the recent Guam Reparations bill).

JC Watts was a hero in Oklahoma and not that difficult of a job either, he came in on the Contract with America wave while replacing a fairly centrist democrat, McCurdy (who actually started the DLC which is as moderate of a democratic organization out there, or at least was at the time of its founding).

Steve Largent is in the same boat as Watts. He replaced Inhofe's seat in '96 when he ran for Senate, and never dropped below 60% in election results.

Cole, based on your examples, didn't exactly turn OK red, he really never stepped out there and did anything to make a ripple in the political atmosphere, and in fact his suggestions of what went wrong with the election, fly completely in the face of the kinds of people who he helped get elected in the first place.

I wrote this blog a few days ago:
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/rjd27/2007/may/06/how_to_loose_elections
If Republicans want to win elections opposing Liberal ideology, then Republicans must run as Conservatives. I believe it really is that simple.
I also believe that issues like spending and government size will become ancillary, because voters will know they are electing Conservatives, who will actually – and this is important – govern conservatively.
This alone was why 2006 was a lost election. The Republican Party abandoned its Conservative principals.
At least give voters – left, right and “swing” – the opportunity to decide between two truly divergent candidates. There is absolutely no reason for the Republican Party to shift left. If this happens, the Conservative movement will need to either find a new home, or create one from the ground up.
R.J.

The Oklahoma Republican wants to emulate the Democrats' strategy in 2006, which brought many moderate and conservative Democrats to Washington.

The Dem strategy was to get a bunch of liberal Democrats to lie that they were moderates in order to get elected - if we didn't see it then we can certainly see it now that no more than a handful at most of the new Dems in DC are even moderate.

It wasn't spending.

It was a series of debacles and blunders by the GOP that let the Dems back into victory.

"Life is too short, can't we all just eat pork and kill some terrorists?"