Republicans

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans

last man standing wins

senator allen has every right to be angry. his reputation has been dragged through the mud by the media. vicious rumors have been spread about him. even though he hasn’t dealt with all the questions very well at times, that still doesn’t take away from the fact that quite a few lines have been crossed in this campaign. it’s gotten very ugly in the virginia senate race. it’s easy to understand the temptation to fire back at the opposition with all the ammo you can find. if we experienced similar treatment, no doubt we would have that same temptation.

that doesn’t excuse what senator allen did by bringing up all those nasty passages from webb’s book. it says more about allen’s desperation than it does about webb’s character. i don’t know jim webb personally, but he seems like a decent guy, although there may be a few areas where we would disagree on policy. that’s a problem for allen, because he can’t easily paint this guy as a loony lefty. senator allen’s own inability to deal with the problems he has faced throughout his campaign have brought him to this point. this shouldn’t have even been a contested race. if allen loses this race, it’s his own fault. the media can be blamed to some degree, but a man who wants to be president needs to know how to handle these obstacles without melting down.

senator allen has failed the test. his latest campaign tactics will have voters asking more questions about him than they will about his opponent. when two candidates sling mud, they both get dirty. george allen may win the battle but lose the war. he may return to the senate, but not without his credibility and integrity being seriously damaged by the way this campaign has ended. i’m not ready to say that senator allen can’t recover from all this and make a serious run at the presidency, but i do think this hurts his chances to be the nominee in ’08.

politics is an ugly game. we all accept that. in this case, this intensely personal slugfest has gone too far. no matter how it turns out, both candidates should be ashamed of their behavior and take no pride in a victory in this race. it’s a hollow victory when you sell out your principles and your integrity to win.

michelle malkin says it better in this post.

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Posted on Conservatives, Democracy, Editorials, Republicans

act locally…

…or the democrats will have won.

why should the nutroots have all the fun? there’s still a battle to be fought on the local level with very worthy candidates. i’ve heard the opposing arguments, and they ring hollow. the stakes are too high to act like spoiled children when we don’t get exactly what we want. why did the conservatives turn out for bush in 2004? was it because of his committment to fiscal discipline? was it because we knew that he would take care of the illegal immigration problem once and for all? of course not. so why are we acting as if someone tricked us? the 2004 election was about iraq, the war on terror, and judicial appointments. those were issues we cared about then. aren’t they still important? the jury’s still out on iraq, but in those other two areas bush has been exactly what we expected. if we put democrats in charge, the whole country will suffer negative consequences, not just those republicans who have stepped off of the reservation. we will reverse programs that ARE working to try to gain an elusive ideological purity that will never be possible in any party. just something to consider.

there are some conservatives still in the republican party. some of them are incumbents running for re-election. some of them are challenging democratic incumbents, which is also an uphill battle. if you are lucky enough to have a conservative representing you in congress who is running for re-election, please don’t sit on the sidelines. do what you can to help them win. all campaigns would appreciate whatever time you can spare, even if it’s only an hour or two. not all of us can donate money, but there are other ways to show our support for those who agree with us on the important issues we are facing in this country.

last night i went to a debate between congressman john spratt (who currently represents south carolina’s district 5) and his conservative republican challenger, local businessman ralph norman. it was great fun to watch. it was also hard to decide who won. the important thing in this debate was that it was a debate about ideas. there were a couple pelosi references and bush references, but i believe that the audience got to hear a clear difference between spratt and norman on policy. i doubt any hearts and minds were changed there, however, since virtually everybody had already decided who they would support before this debate started.

for the record, i have done some unpaid campaign work for norman, and my family has as well. i support ralph norman because he’s the right guy for district 5, not because he’s paying for my endorsement. congressman john spratt is a decent fellow, i’m sure of that, but he has opposed just about everything the people in this district support. for that reason, we should let him get on with the business of retiring after this election. đŸ™‚

related:
you can’t always get what you want
Conservatives Will Regret Putting Dems in Power-tony blankley (RCP)
A Blank Check from America?–thomas sowell (RCP)

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Posted on Democrats, Editorials, Liberals, Republicans

saints and sinners

put away the stones. there are no saints among us, especially in the chattering class of politicians. let’s not pretend that we could even find such a person willing to run for political office today. we know more about those politicians than we want to know, and (may i dare to suggest) more than we need to know. believe it or not, this will not be the first or the last time we elect people with skeletons in their closets. acknowledge the possibility and accept that reality.

let’s start with the premise that there is something about each and every one of us that we don’t want the whole world to know about. we all have dirty laundry that we wouldn’t want to be aired in a public forum. this is even more true of politicians than it is for us. should we care so much about the personal lives of politicians? when does it have any bearing on how well the person would perform in his/her job? i’m not suggesting that when there are obvious ethical violations (like the foley mess, for example), that we need to look the other way and ignore it. i do believe that there’s a serious problem when we are fighting about which politician’s life is less screwed up. leave that garbage to the celebrity gossip columns, and let’s talk about what’s really important to us as a nation. that’s what this election should be about. that’s what the 2008 election should be about.

this election should be about issues, not about personalities. i cringe with each campaign speech mentioning that “san francisco liberal nancy pelosi”, and that our democracy as we know it is DOOMED, DOOMED i tell you…if liberals like her are in control of congress. for the politically engaged, mentions of specific personalities like pelosi may have an effect. for everyone else, they are left with several questions: “ok, so why should we care?” and “who’s nancy pelosi?”

republicans have done an excellent job making the word “liberal” a pejorative term. what they haven’t done successfully is to define what makes liberals dangerous to have in control of congress. that’s where the battle needs to be fought. we need to explain why the other side has the wrong strategy on north korea, iraq, and iran, and that electing them would mean higher taxes and wrong-headed foreign policy.

that should be our focus as we head toward november, because if republicans make the debate about ideas and talk about values, we win.

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Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Editorials, Republicans

why conservatives won’t abandon the GOP

let me say right up front that i am very disappointed with the performance of the republican majority on important areas like spending and illegal immigration. they also could have used their majority to implement needed reforms in programs like social security. they did not. the most stinging indictment i have of the party in power is that they have lost the political will to make tough decisions and fight for policies that are unpopular. they need to be more conscious of doing what is right than doing what is popular with their friends on the Hill. i don’t approve of the way they handled the foley scandal and i think more follow-up was necessary to ensure that foley did not continue contact with those pages. the story of this current congress is missed opportunities. if they retain control, it won’t be because they deserve it.

we are annoyed with republicans for these and other great reasons. is there a viable alternative for fiscal and social conservatives? i don’t believe that there is. if we stay home, here’s the reality that we will have to deal with. if we actually cast votes for democrats, this is what will happen:

  • there will be no spending cuts or tax cuts. there is no reason to believe that democrats will hold the line on spending, and you can kiss any tax cuts goodbye. neither party has the discipline to control spending. i don’t know what would change this.
  • forget any future progress on immigration reform. the republicans haven’t had the political will to do anything substantial on this. we won’t see even token committment to reform under democratic leadership.
  • social conservatives will be even less pleased with the democrats than they are with the republicans. mark foley or no mark foley, the democrats are still the party that generally supports gay marriage and abortion. there is no excuse for how the foley situation was dealt with, as i said, but the democrats have no reason to expect that social conservatives will now embrace the democratic party.
  • we will surrender control of our congress to a party that supports weakening the patriot act, giving increased civil rights and protections to people who want to kill us, and a party that opposes spying on terrorists. in this increasingly scary world, is this the party you want in charge?
  • do we really want the democrats making decisions on judicial appointments? that will be the case if we allow them to regain power.

the republicans haven’t shown that they deserve re-election. the democrats haven’t shown that they deserve power. but conservatives will get much more of what they want by keeping congress in republican hands.

i’m simply going to echo something rush said…if the democrats lose this time, they might as well blow up the party and start over, because the situation has never been more favorable for them.

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2 Comments Posted on Democrats, Editorials, Republicans

ammo

both political parties have some explainin’ to do when members of congress face their constituents back home this election year. for the republicans, it’s the excessive, wasteful government spending and their weak committment to dealing with illegal immigration. they also aren’t willing to take unpopular positions and to do what is right for the people they represent. there are too many examples of this.

i believe that most of this can be blamed on the republican leadership, especially senator frist, who has been more than willing to defend the president’s amnesty policy for illegals. i know that in his position, it is hard for him to go against the president of the united states. that’s not a good excuse in this case, however, and when senator frist came here to do a fundraiser, we told him exactly how we felt about this issue. i believe that he got the the message, and the public pressure has forced the changes in policy we are now seeing. is it perfect? not yet. there is still work to do.

for the democrats, they are on the wrong side of quite a few issues. many of them oppose the patriot act, support giving terrorists geneva convention protections and access to american courts, and they also aren’t in favor of spying on suspected terrorists or tracking where their money goes. that’s quite a resume there. many democrats also make very good boogeymen/women…like pelosi, murtha, feingold, harry reid, and john kerry. those are some SCARY democrats, and they haven’t shown that they deserve power either. i’m sure i will hear the argument that not all democrats hold the positions mentioned above. that’s true. it also doesn’t matter because their leadership does hold these positions, and they are the ones controlling the message.

some of my friends on the right are suggesting that all these new republican scandals are conveniently timed to maximize the negative impact it could have on this november’s election. that’s entirely possible. so what? so what if the democrats sat around in a big room somewhere and planned all this? it’s our job to STOP GIVING THEM AMMO to use against us. mark foley made serious mistakes, and he paid the price for them. he did the right thing by resigning. other republicans have made even more serious mistakes, and they have resigned too.

as far as we know, none of these scandals have been made up by the democrats. while the democrats will most definitely use these revelations for political advantage, these things did happen, and those responsible for ethical violations should be held accountable for their behavior. republicans and democrats should expect more of their party and the members of that party representing them in d.c. we have to hold both republicans and democrats to a high standard, and expect them to meet that standard…or they will hear it from us, whether it’s an election year or not.

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1 Comment Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans

the case against losing

david hogberg at the american spectator makes that case. read it all here.

Would Bush and a Democrat-controlled House be an improvement over recent years? Doubtful. Bush is, at best, a squish on fiscal restraint (and that’s being charitable). Last week, House Democrats voted overwhelmingly, 147-45, against a modest earmark reform bill. Sure, Bush might get serious about spending once the Democrats took over, but what would his argument be — that the Democrats were trying to undo all the fiscal restraint he imposed? Indeed, the press would portray him as a cynic, only caring about spending now that the opposition is in power. Since the White House doesn’t seem to have the stomach for such a fight, a more likely scenario is Bush and the House Democrats cutting budget deals resulting in spending increases as bad, if not worse, than what we have now.

There are other areas where the Bush Administration could cut deals with House Democrats that should disturb conservatives. With the Democrats in charge, a Senate-style immigration bill — i.e., amnesty — is far more likely to pass the House. From there it is a quick trip through the Senate to Bush’s signing pen.

Yes, conservatives, myself included, are rightly disgusted with Congressional Republicans’ profligacy. But that disgust is beginning to get through, with Congress recently approving an online database to track spending and the House passing the aforementioned earmark reform. Such efforts will surely stall should Democrats win control of the House. The answer is to keep up the pressure through the grassroots and blogosphere efforts like Porkbusters.A GOP loss of the House in November is just as likely to create more problems for conservatives than it is likely to solve, proving once again that, in politics, there is little virtue in losing.

i think that the grassroots and conservative blogs have made a serious difference in changing the priorities of congressional republicans. (it doesn’t hurt that there is an election coming up either.) will conservatives get everything that we want by keeping republicans in power? the answer is probably not, but we are more likely to get what we want with republicans in charge. there is no reason to believe that democrats will enact strong immigration reform (border security first, no amnesty), make a serious attempt to control spending, or make specific proposals to make it easier to protect our country from terrorist attacks. if those are issues that we care about, the better risk is voting for republicans.

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2 Comments Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

ouch

joe scarborough on the 2006 election:

As a political junkie who wept bitter tears the night Jimmy Carter got elected and shouted with uncontrolled joy when Ronald Reagan whipped his sorry ass four years later, I find myself ambivalent for the first time over a national election. After six years of Republican recklessness at home and abroad, I seriously doubt Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or the aforementioned Bourbon Street hookers could spend this country any deeper into debt than my Republican Party. With any luck, Democrats will launch destructive investigations, a new era of bad feelings will break out, and George W. Bush will stop using his veto pen to fill in RangersÂ’ box scores and instead start using it like a conservative president should.

that’s the temptation of many conservatives — to discipline the wayward republicans who have gotten so off-track during their time in power. i won’t disagree that they need some fiscal restraint and that they need to get more serious about border security. we do need to keep the big picture in mind. there’s strong evidence that a divided government is a better bet financially. we have more serious problems to face than spending, and we need to ask ourselves which party has a better plan to deal with those problems.

get out and vote for the party of your choice based on the information you have. we will deal with the consequences after november. it’s not over yet.

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1 Comment Posted on Conservatives, Democracy, Republicans

what he said

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests, ” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

–former senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater

that’s where today’s conservatives have gotten off-message. the majority of the elected conservatives only pay lip service to smaller government and fiscal responsibility. it’s fortunate for them that we haven’t held them accountable for those two failings because of our emphasis on national security. while i think that we have our priorities straight when we put national security above every other area, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that conservative Republicans have been careless with the responsibility we gave them. they should hear that message from us.

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5 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

advantage: newt

i don’t support gingrich for the republican nomination. i do support his candidacy because i think that he will sharpen up the other candidates and force them to make compelling, thoughtful, and well-thought out arguments on the issues of the day. newt is a smart guy. he may not be as smart as he thinks he is. that doesn’t mean that he can’t contribute positively to the race for the ’08 republican nomination. he has good ideas that the next republican nominee would be wise to adopt.

we are quite familiar with the weaknesses of newt gingrich. his fierce partisanship. his hard-headedness. his love of hearing himself speak. the inability to successfully complete the republican revolution of small government, more accountability, and so forth. it certainly doesn’t help him that he is a very polarizing figure, much like hillary clinton, and could find it difficult to find that groundswell of support that he would need to make a successful run to the republican nomination. that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t make the attempt.

understanding of foreign policy should be an important factor when choosing the next presidential nominee, especially on the republican side. we can no longer write this off as peripheral to other issues like jobs, healthcare, and the economy, especially not in light of recent events. we need to know where our potential nominees stand on the conflict between israel and hezbollah, and their suggestions on resolution. of course, there is the conventional wisdom that suggests that there will never be mid-east peace, no matter how many UN resolutions there are and no matter how much territory israel is willing to give up. there sure is a compelling case for that POV, but a good start to peace would be completely wiping out Hezbollah. there is no way to negotiate with countries or terrorists whose goal is to wipe your country off of the face of the earthÂ…as hezbollah and iran have said about israel.

anyway…back to newt. fox news loves newt. he’s a great interview. he also understands the world we live in today, and the threat we face with terrorism. his history background gives him a unique perspective on world events, and it also gives him an edge when discussing foreign policy that none of the other potential nominees can demonstrate. (*maybe mccain and his vietnam service might be the exception to this*) mccain, allen, and romney have said all the right things, but it’s gingrich who has been controlling the debate from day one. this is not only true about the current situation in israel, but on just about every political topic generating buzz in the media world.

the PR blitz is working in newt’s favor. it might even make people forget the way his political career ended the first time. we want someone who can show leadership. we want someone who understands what’s going on with this country and the rest of the world. the most appealing thing about newt is that he is willing to put himself out there and say what needs to be said, and suggest alternatives and a slight course correction from the bush administration. we need someone who is willing to fight for everything he believes in…and that’s where he differs from president bush.

newt also has some great ideas about domestic policy and shrinking government that should be adopted by any serious republican nominee. i love his ideas and absolutely encourage him to run for president. that said, i don’t see how he can win the nomination or the presidency. but what do i know? đŸ™‚

(disclaimer: in case you were wondering, no…i don’t work for the newt campaign right now, but i would definitely consider it if he officially announced his candidacy.)

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

deja vu

senator george allen of virginia could possibly be the republican nominee for president in 2008, beating out guiliani, romney, and mccain. i’m not sure this is the best pick for the republicans. he is charming, and personable, and he says what conservatives want to hear. he did vote against the senate amnesty bill, and that’s a huge point in his favor. he seems to take a hard line on iran, and echoes the president’s views on just about everything. even though he is the former governor of virginia, i don’t see him as the kind of leader that this country needs. we need a person who can be tough with foreign dictators and tyrants, and who can effectively defend his policies to the people and to the press. i just don’t see allen this way.

allen is allowing the other contenders, including newt gingrich, to control the debate on foreign policy issues. this shouldn’t happen if he really wants to be president. his attempts so far haven’t convinced me that he does want that job. he has made the obligatory stops and pressed the right flesh, but that’s not enough to make a person worthy of the presidency.

senator allen has disappointed me. while i will say that the “macaca” comment reaction was overblown, i still don’t like the way he initially handled the situation. i am also concerned about his previous association with the CCC, as mentioned in the Nation. yeah, it’s a liberal rag, but assuming the picture they have is not photoshopped, that’s a serious allegation they are making about him. i don’t think that allen is a racist, but i think his affinity for all things Southern, including Confederate flags, could be a problem for him in ’08.

the biggest concern i have about allen is that he seems to have similar weaknesses to our current president. i don’t think that allen has the gravity of a mitt romney or john mccain, or even rudy guiliani. i don’t know how he would react when confronted with a major crisis like katrina or any kind of escalation in iran or north korea. i’m sure that he was a competent governor, and is equally skilled in the ways of the senate, but i can’t see him as president. maybe that will change.

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