Redstate

I live in Michigan, but I was intensly watching the returns of the Pennsylvania primary a few months ago.  I remember thinking that if it's this close, Toomey has to pull it out; sadly, likely due to the President's support of Specter.  And in return for that Specter does nothing.  Now we have to wait another six years to get rid of this RINO.  I say make Specter an ambassador to some Latin America country, call it a promotion, and see if we can get Toomey or a real conservative in there in a special election.

Because you can have Specter's scalp for your wall, or you can continue to have a drive towards a filibuster-proof Senate - but you can't have both.  Judicial appointments are all very well, and I'm as keen as the next guy to get more judges who understand the difference between the legislative and judicial branches of government - but it's an issue that's much more important to the social conservatives and digital libertarians than to the natsec hawks and the center-right.

So Specter didn't do squat in PA for Bush.  He's still a Republican Senator, and removing him will annoy moderates.  I refer you to the history of the Democratic Party since 2000 for the dangers of that.  :)

54-45-1 is not much worse than 55-44-1. And the judiciary matters more than just Roe. It matters in ways the "center-right" and "moderates" will end up caring about, too.

Like, for example, gay marriage.

Before you suggest that's just a social conservative thing, I'd note that any issue that has 60-70% of the country on our side is hardly a pet issue.

I could go on (who gets to make your laws? when? under what standards?). I could also note that the center-right tends to like tax cuts, too; Specter has a decidedly mixed history on this.

One of Morton C. Blackwell's "Laws of the Public Policy Process" is "Moral outrage is the most powerful motivating force in politics."  

I think in the context of what you've presented, that social conservatives carried the day and the states for Bush in key states (my beloved Ohio amongst them), they were motivated by moral outrage at the prospect of being forced by judicial fiat to accept gay 'marriages.'

Likewise, moral outrage at the shameful endorsement of Specter in PA likely caused the PA contingent of those who prevailed in other states to sit on their hands and not get out.  

Watch for Santorum to suffer in his next re-election bid when the social conservatives are tempted to sit on their hands again while still smarting from the Specter-endorsement betrayal.  Will he lose?  I doubt it, but he'll not likely get the victory margin he should.

It's actually interesting to see how the question of a choice between a true conservative and a RINO will play in the parts of PA outside the T.  I'm actually here in Pittsburgh, and thinking very seriously of running a campaign for the Congress seat that went uncontested in District 14.

It's a district that is skewed heavily Democratic, thanks to the fair lines drawn, but this election gives me hope.  I have come to believe that given a true choice, that the conservative ideals articulated honestly, can convince most Americans to support a Republican beyond their own partisan affiliation.

Considering the whole Toomey/Specter question, and as someone who supported Toomey, I'm inclined to agree that Bush hurt himself here by going out for Specter who sold him out.  

So, here's my question to you, my friends at RedState:  can ideas alone, with a whole lot of effort, bring a district to support an idealistic challenger against a respectable but lackluster incumbent?

Money and organization, too.

Assuming you had that though.  Let's say you had better organization, but less money.  Can you overcome a 7:3 registration deficit?

And so it begins.

Before the "Hard Right" of the GOP begins the night of the long knifes, take a look at the "Hard Left" has done to the Democratic party and be afraid.

There is a Libertarian streak in the GOP, and many new emerging next generation leadership voices, from Rudy G. to Arnold S. represent the wing of the GOP that are not darlings of the wing of the part which is home to social conservatives. Granted, the base of the GOP is dominated by social conservatives, but the Democrats may figure it out some day and pull back towards the Center where a large percentage of the American public is.

So think of RINOS as ballast that keeps the GOP from tilting too far Right, ballast which is obviously lacking in the Democratic party.

There's a bit more, but manifestly, it can be done.

The attack was on RINOs who don't even act the part, not on "centrist" Republicans. There's a difference.

Neither Giuliani nor Schwarzenegger are "new emerging next generation leadership voices." Both are rather old, and the former, at least, is a decades-long pol. The emerging young leadership tends to echo younger voters, which is to say, more unabashedly socially conservative.

None of this means to kick out the Northeastern, (more) liberal Republicans. It means to go after the ones who don't even pretend to be Republicans except for the fundraising and party apparatus, and those who court them stupidly.

Specter is not just any Republican Senator - he is next in line to head the Judiciary Committee. Note that Clymer, running pro-life against Specter in the Constitution Party, got 216,000 votes - 4 percent. There was a lot of unhappiness out there.

Bork casts a long shadow.

As one of the "Defeated Democrates" I can say I watched Specter do his job very, very well. He knew that Ohio was rapped-up already and that Penn. was the place Bush would most likely lose if he didn't do something about it, so he concentrated his efforst there, just in case, as any smart man would do.

Trust me, there are no real secrets about the outcome in the hours and night before the election most of the time in a history view, but in this case there were some significant questions, and that in the end turned out to be almost nothing at all.

For instance.

Young Voters.

Many Demo's thought that Young Voters would be a big muscle baring hero for them in the end count and that countless millions would show up.

Yeah right, The "Paris Hilton Generation" wants to go vote.

I would love to think that that was posible myself, but I have children of that age with viewpoints ranging from all sides, and neither one of them went to go vote after we talked about it for 7 months, I was truly amazed.

And, they both supported Kerry.

The "grass root" effort by the Republican's is incredible and noble effort, I am impreseed with the results that this effort inspired.

We will learn what happened, from everything from how re-districting was done all the way to how you talked to people in the central U.S. and understand how they feel by going out there and meeting them.

Love the way the Republican's got America voting, thank you so much for that, we will all benefit from it and I hope we can all remember, "That's your brother over there in that |Demonic Party| Democrates, need to work with you to make all this work.

Sincerely,

Mr. Cole

I knew what was going to happen when I talked to my daughters on that day

You know what Toomey should have said to win the primary:  Robert Bork.  

Specter is quoted in the NY Times today as warning the president against nominating judges who would "overturn Roe vs. Wade" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04assess.html?pagewante
d=2&ei=5094&en=1b8fad0cf521ad6f&hp&ex=1099544400&partne
r=homepage).

Now, I can't think of anything more outrageous than a Republican senator, especially the head of the judiciary committee, explicitly vowing to employ a pro-abortion litmus test on his fellow Republican president's judicial nominations.

I wonder: is Specter really that pro abortion, or is it possible such a statment is merely window dressing for liberal voters back home? Would he really oppose the choice of his own president?

And, if so, is there any chance his fellow senators could ease him out of his judiciary committee role? I know nothing about the intricacies of how the Senate decides on committee appointments (no doubt it's largely a matter of seniority), but I daresay Tom Delay wouldn't let him get away with something like that.

Anyway, I was aware Specter was considered a moderate, but I think the proper term is "lefty". And I agree with the others that any efforts to help him remain in office now look like a terrible mistake. My guess is perhaps Santorum and the president feared that the cagey Specter would win in any event, and that openly taking him on might cause him to jump to the Dems (not that it would make that much difference, apparently). Still, some battles are worth fighting -- especially the dangerous ones.

Delusional behavior in the face of overwhenling evidence is not an abnormal behavior.

Many times in the face of agreed fear tolerances of most humans, you will have an abnormal behavior toward the familiar and safe, even if evidence shows that this faith in safety was false.

SocioPathic Personalities many times show this behavior.

"Study of SocioPathic Behavior"

Hey, I didn't study it.

Yes, Specter is that pro-abortion. Again: 216,000 people in PA voted for the Constitution Party over Specter. Why did they do that?

Specter says he will interfere with Bush's judicial appointments. How will the party explain why he chairs the Judiciary Committee? It will be open in January when Hatch has to step down due to term limits. Specter's seniority can be overruled.

Many people voted for Bush due to upcoming Supreme Court vacancies. Specter just can't chair that committee. Period.

. . .the niceties of how chairmanships are handed out:  is there a procedure by which Specter can be blocked from heading the Judiciary Committee?  Personally, I'm for pushing the rules ruling method of getting around the filibuster, so I'm thinking that I really care very little about how offended Mr. Specter might be about keeping him out of that cozy center seat--to be quite honest, I wish his opponent had won handily, and I say this as someone who is firmly pro-choice.  The man is a weasel, and if he wants to take his "not proven" self off and be an Independent or a Democrat, I really couldn't care less.

It was a matter of loyalty, for the right, and the natural banner-carrier, for the moderate-left secularists.  Specter really made a hash of things, though, didn't he?  The refusal to campaign with the president was appalling, but understandable in a faithless sort of way.  The failure to campaign for the rest of the ticket is inexcusable.

I'm Specter's natural base.  You'd think I'd be the one to defend him, defend his suburban, reasonable, moderation.  But, as the real Democrats discovered this season, a poor banner-man is worse than no banner at all.  

I suppose it's an injustice that Santorum is going to pay for Specter's betrayals.  Thomas, Augustine, you have my sympathy.  If the Democrats find a marginally rational, hopeful candidate to run against Santorum, it'll be a rough 2006 for y'all.

If Specter becomes chair of the Judiciary Committee, social conservatives will be offended. Specter is already going out of his way to offend them. If Specter is passed over, liberal Republicans will be offended. One or the other will be offended.

So who should we offend? Hint: Who took out Daschle? Who locked up the south?

Specter's vote is sudenly not as critical as it once was.

are not so much ballast preventing the Republican party from lurching off into a hard right tangent; they are the dead weight which prevents some moves toward the appointment of reasonable judges and resistance of the egregious usurpations of politics characteristic of the social programme of the left.  They are the sunken anchors preventing the restoration of a truly moderate solution to the social-issues controversies that roil the nation: federalism.  Something that must be borne in mind in any discussion of the social right is that, while many would, ideally, like to see, for example, a human life amendment, the vast majority would be happy to witness the restoration of federalism, which would allow each state to deliberate on the question of abortion policy.  Likewise with same-sex "marriage".  It is the "all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway" attitudes and policies of RINOs like Specter which preclude steps toward a lowering of the temperature of these controversies; his ingratitude is appalling, even sickening, and he should be denied that chairmanship.

If the party refuses of allow the social right out of the back of the bus, denying it even the semblance of progress on its issues, the party is sunk, whether in the short term or the long term.  And so also will be the nation we know and love, because judicial authoritarianism will transform America into something more nearly resembling the emerging EU superstate than anything any conservative would want to honour.

Thomas --

Do you know what the original night of the long knives was?  It's an odd choice of historical reference.

Cheers -

It was meant as a reference to internal cleansing. Truthfully, both sides were making dark references to it in the event of electoral defeat; I suggest Terry Mac is about to find out what it feels like.

There is no equivalent turn of phrase of which I'm aware that is devoid of that particular connotation.

what's wrong with "cleaning house"?

And too cliche.

And, when folks refer to "cleaning house," they rarely do. "Long knives" implies more serious intent.

"'Long knives' implies more serious intent."

Can't argue with that!

You do know the historical reference, don't you?

Cheers -

Would I have joked about "our true colors," tongue in cheek?

Thomas -

That's cool.  Fortunately, I doubt any blood will actually be shed.

The "long knives" phrase has become a common political metaphor or reference.  I'm always curious to know if folks who use it actually know where it comes from.

Cheers -