This video is what could happen to us if we GOPers don’t get our act together.
Last Friday, I headed down with a friend to the NCGOP State Convention to get reelected as the Treasurer of the North Carolina Federation of Republican Men (and I did) - and I stuck around for the Saturday Morning session. It was a learning experience. That being said, I figured I’d get something out of it - here five things that have to happen for the GOP to start winning again.
5. Let Reagan Rest In Peace - On January 20th, it will be twenty years since Ronald Reagan left office. However, his legend continues to morph into some unattainable ideal. So, let’s go through an exercise. Two undeniable truths about the Reagan administration:
1) Our standing as a power greatly increased. Nobody can tell me, with a straight face, that we would have defeated Communism with Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis at the helm. It was Ronald Reagan’s characterization of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” that set in motion its end. His opponents lacked the resolve to lead a nation against this threat.
2) Our economy was transformed. Reagan obliterated two ideas anathema to a free market: punitive tax rates and price controls. He didn’t just reject them - he convinced people on both sides of the aisle to abandon these ideas such that we’ll probably not see them come back in our lifetime.
Keep in mind what else happened during the 8 years while he was in office. He backed tax increases, massive government borrowing, negotiated with our enemies, was famously lax dealing with his staff, and presided over some lousy moments in government - most notably the Iran-Contra affair. Even before that, as governor, Reagan signed a bill that legalized abortion - in limited circumstances - before Roe v. Wade.
We wouldn’t pick someone who was actually like Reagan in the 21st Century. And who knows if he would have handled an Internet-driven world with a 24-hour news cycle. A defense situation where our enemies aren’t some lumbering bureaucracy mired in realpolitick; but small bands of AK-47 constantly probing our defenses looking for the weakest link.
Bottom line: While we’re better off having had Reagan as a President; but it’s unfair to use his legend as a standard in today’s world.
4. Get Right With God - This is probably the biggest burr in my butt with the GOP - especially the NCGOP.
Christians are an important voting bloc for the GOP, and the activist base is mostly Evangelical; but the people in charge have, and continue, to look down their nose at the more “enthusiastic” Christians. Most people in prominent positions in the Party spend their Sunday mornings sitting in a padded pew and daydream while admiring beautiful stained glass and, across town, the workhorses can’t hear themselves think during “Praise and Worship” to drums and Powerpoint.
It’s not that the Party is hypocritical, it’s reflecting society as a whole. Mainline Christians don’t think much of Evangelicals, but it’s a two-way street. However, the lack of impact on the Party by Christians can be best illustrated by looking at the most important moral issue - abortion. For 35 years, abortion on demand has been legal due to an activist court decision. Even though most of the justices were appointed by Presidents who got into the office from Conservative Christians - Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. Compare that to a tiny fraction of society that’s on the verge of redefining marriage in America.
Evangelical Christian Conservatives have a right to be upset with the GOP. In addition to that, there are numerous incidents of GOP leadership courting Christians; but unrepentantly failing to live up to basic Christians standards. Bottom Line: The GOP needs to clear up the idea of Christian and Republican being mutually inclusive. Evangelicals might have given the GOP an out this election season. Recently, a document called “An Evangelical Manifesto” was released - while most of the document was decidedly apolitical here are some excerpts:
Christians become “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form. Christian beliefs are used as weapons for political interests. Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith…
Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish, and disastrous for the church – and disastrous first and foremost for Christian reasons rather than constitutional reasons…
Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival.
The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness. The saying is wise: “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.”
The Evangelical soul is not for sale. It has already been bought at an infinite price.
3. Back Your Winning Candidates - If there’s one word I’d love to have removed from the Republican lexicon it’s “RINO”.
Republican-In-Name-Only (RINO) is simply a Republican who isn’t as conservative as you are. It’s basically a license for party disloyalty. Here’s how it works, your guy doesn’t get in office and you can’t stand the other person. So, you say they aren’t as conservative as you are and call them a “RINO”.
In the end - you’re helping a Democrat get into office. Here’s why: Democrats don’t have that problem.
Perform an experiment. Go over to BlueNC. They occasionally descend into some navel-gazing about the difference between “Liberal” and “Progressive” (spoiler alert: there’s no difference between the two - “Progressive” just sounds better); but they hardly criticize Heath Shuler who’s neither.
The fact of the matter is John McCain has been a solid supporter of the GOP for long enough to be the White House’s go-to guy when things needed to get worked out. On the “Gang of 14″, Iraq, Immigration etc.- you better believe that his phone rang because he’s one of the few senators with the integrity, good faith, and candor to work out deals when the GOP’s Usual Suspects couldn’t seal the deal. What irks people is that, in spite of the apparent political cost of these deals, he still pulled off the nomination.
The days of hard-core, toe-the-line, Santorum-style conservatives winning general election is behind us.
Don’t like it?
The Constitution Party is looking for more members.
2. Get Ideas - This is the most urgent need. Here’s our recent history: After we couldn’t reform anything (Social Security), we just started spending money (K Street Project). After losing in 2006, we have a president that just vetos stuff. Here are some starters:
- X-Prize for Automotive Technology: Democrats like adjusting CAFE standards. Wimps. Try this out. The federal government will over a $4,000 tax credit to the owners of the first 50,000 automobiles per year in 4 classes (compact car, passenger van, pickup, and SUV) AND will fully reimburse property taxes on the same vehicle for three years for the most efficient vehicle in each class. Oh, and the government will use that vehicle for its fleet for the year. CAFE will be passe.
- Start a new Cold War with OPEC: Seriously. It’s full of countries we can’t stand anyway who are involved in illegal price fixing. $4/gallon gas is partly due to a bunch of dictators sit around and set production quotas. If they didn’t cooperate, there’d be more drilling, more supply, and less price volatility. The idea is that we don’t shoot a LOT of people, we just threaten tariffs, open up driving schools for women on the border of Saudi Arabia, and treat Hugo Chavez like we did Castro. If nothing else, we’ll have great spy movies.
- Take advantage of the Boom: The largest demographic is retiring. Instead of just replacing hundreds of thousands of jobs in DC, decentralize as much as possible with regional offices and contract out the work. This will be the greatest opportunity to shrink the federal bureaucracy in our lifetime.
- Address the Boom: In a few decades, we won’t be able to print enough money to cover Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We have to be the grownups about this; because the Democrats won’t.
- Celebrate Federalism: In the spirit of the Boom, finding more local solutions as part of decentralizing won’t see their government as some far-away bureaucracy; but something they have a more active role in. Talking about what state and local officials are doing right and taking the show on the road (not conflating it) would be a good first step.
1. Embrace Controversy - This is huge. Even after our crushing defeat in 2006 and the subsequent races we should have won, we haven’t made any substantive changes to our leadership, platform, etc.
Here’s why.
At the State and National level, the powers that be put on an act of accommodation; but refuse to make substantial changes. They gave the Ron Paul people - as weird as they are - a real hard time at the Convention. Admittedly, I found the RP people to be a little obnoxious; but why not be more inclusive? Why are we not exploring the issues that all of the various factions of the GOP have with the current state of things? If we don’t embrace change, we’ll have it forced on us ala the video.
See y’all Monday
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24 responses so far ↓
1 Aaron // Jun 13, 2008 at 10:19 am
All good points. I knew there’d be some good spoof videos out there and you’ve found another goodun’.
There will always be factions in any political party. It’s just worse for us because republicans by nature are individualists and more inclined to “cling to guns and the bible” and not go with the flow.
Dem’s are collectivists and even if the front runner is too socialist for their liking, they’ll happily vote for them. Group think is the status quo among all liberals.
I will say that I think that between the AM talk radio group and a large portion of the “Fallwell Follower republicans” that a John McCain for president may do more damage that good. I’m still on the fence for him getting my vote this November, but for me that’s nothing new. I’ve talked to a good many of the “Shiite Fiscal Conservatives” who’ve asked me who I was voting for because I’m the only “Libertarian Nut Job” they know. They actually act surprised when I say I may vote McCain depending on the race at the time of the election.
2 Justin Thibault // Jun 13, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Aaron - I don’t think it’s really it’s a matter of personality traits - I’ve known my share of liberal “individualists”.
I think the dynamic - especially in the NCGOP - is that there’s a faction that recognized why we lost and there’s another that’s just hoping for the best and wants to do what we’ve always done.
3 Aaron // Jun 13, 2008 at 1:36 pm
You could be right to an extent. I’d say that the personality trait is that of one with solid ideals and the other faction just likes having an “R” next to their name versus the alternative. The most important thing the GOP can do is decide exactly what they support and stick to it. The aisle crossing they’ve done recently looks more like just bending to the Dem’s versus making meaningful compromise.
Less Government is a generalization but it’s something that most republicans I know all seem to agree with. We haven’t seen a candidate in this race that could really explain what it was and why it was good. (and yes, I do include Ron Paul in that analysis) Looking at each candidate we’ve seen, all of them wanted to expand government in certain areas while shrinking it elsewhere but all of them wanted to shrink and expand different areas.
That’s not much of a “party platform.”
4 mike // Jun 15, 2008 at 2:12 am
Regarding your #1 point.. For those of you who weren’t at the NC GOP convention then you might enjoy hearing about it from the Republican candidate for Congress for the 4th district of NC. Here’s his take on it.
I was there.. some in the NC GOP tried very, very hard to be inclusive… but some were openly hostile to the newcomers even if those people were long time Republicans.
Regarding #2 … I think you’re dead on about the boom.. this is the one place where Republicans have leverage over the Democrats. Even some in the Federal Reserve are already warning that they can’t save us from the entitlements - and the entitlements will need to be cut drastically. The Democrats will not do that.
Regarding #3.. I think the Republican party will lose members over this issue.. just as you’re suggesting.. and maybe that’s why Bob Barr is polling at 6% in NC.
Regarding #4.. I think some of those evangelical Christian conservatives who are upset will leave the GOP and take your advice from #3. Note that the preamble for the Constitution party starts out with “The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States.”…. but the vast majority will stick around.
5 Charles // Jun 16, 2008 at 11:58 am
Interesting… this guy admits his only motivation for attending (half of) the NCGOP Convention was “to get reelected”, yet he claims to have The Answer (TM) to saving the party. As I write this it’s a half-hour ’til Tiger and Rocco tee it up, so I’ll humor The Answer Man for a couple of clock-cycles.
Point 5: By now we’re familiar with the litany of Reagan’s failings and “liberal senior moments” (the most notorious being the Cap Gains tax hike that choked the real estate market and led to the October ‘87 market crash). But the continued hagiographic depiction of RWR is more symbolic than substantive. Not every voter we need drills knee-deep into CBO reports; they hear “shining city on a hill” and that’s enough for them to say “OK I’ll vote for THAT guy”.
Point 4: Regarding the GOP “unrepentantly failing to live up to basic Christians standards”, I ask the author to Google “Christian Just War” and report back the names of national Republican figures who embrace that doctrine.
Point 3: The lesser of two evils is still evil. Especially if one reads John McCain’s record. Hmmm… looks like I’ll be able to finish this up AND grab lunch before Eldrick finds the cart path on #1.
Point 2: I see zero genuine innovation among GOP’ers, save for….
Point 1: … the Ron Paul supporters who didn’t consider your re-election to treasurer of an auxiliary to be the capstone of Convention weekend. Actually, the RP wing of the party isn’t really that innovative at all; they merely understand what has worked, both for America and the GOP. And the Bush-Cheney-Rummy-Condi-Wolfie-JuanMcInsane formula of perpetual war, a currency in freefall, mountains of debt, diminutions of privacy and crumbling financial and real estate markets combined with out-of-control commodity prices AIN’T IT. And if you find that diagnosis “weird and obnoxious”, well, it’s obvious you don’t have The Answer. Which is a shame, ’cause it was there in Greensboro for you to find had you stayed the WHOLE weekend.
11:58 and it looks like Rocco’s wearing red as well. Nice touch.
6 Aaron // Jun 16, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Charles: Ba-Zing!
I Just hope that playoff works out for Tiger without any sudden death holes. I think there’s a secret meeting of the tri-lateral commision at 4:30 today in their underground bunker at the base of Mt. Rushmore.
Aren’t you running the listening devices in the John Birch Society surveillance van?
7 Justin Thibault // Jun 16, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Mike - Thanks for the link. I consider the first one a “must read” - Lawson hit the nail on the head about the Resolutions Committee. The local Party had a resolution that didn’t see the light of day.
Charles - Thanks for stopping by.
Let’s address my attitude at the top of the post. I try my best to be transparent to people. I went up there mainly to take care of an obligation as part of a team who all work hard for the GOP statewide. It wasn’t in the “I’m so cool, I wouldn’t have bothered to go unless…” attitude that you’ve adopted to type into this blog. It would be less than constructive to project your devil-may-care attitude onto other people - especially the guy hosting the blog that you’re commenting.
As far as the ideology that Ron Paul is pushing: the most succinct analysis I’ve seen on it comes from Joe Carter here and here.
My opinions on the current state of the GOP are colored less by my attendance at the Business Sessions of a single convention than it is by five years serving on the local Parks and Recreation Commission, three years as a blogger, work countless campaigns dating back to 1992, and two years serving on the County GOP Executive Board. While I’m sure that isn’t up there with spamming polls or putting RON PAUL RON PAUL in the comments section of every blog I StumbleUpon - it’s been pretty substantial to the candidates I’ve actually done some work for.
8 Charles // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Aaron. How original! You know, I’ll bet you’re the first person in the history of the world, who, when confronted with a Ron Paul constitutionalist, found yourself unable to refute any of the facts he presented and instead started spouting out conspiracy theory references.
This MUST be the kind of INNOVATION Mr. Thibault spoke of in today’s GOP! Your family should be SO proud!
9 mike // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:11 pm
oh, I disagree with the reason Charles gives for the Paul folks appearing “weird and obnoxious”. I think (having been there in Greensboro) that the “normal” Paul supporters had already heard numerous reports from other conventions across the country that they and their desire to push the GOP more fiscally conservative (and that little thing about getting out of Iraq) were NOT welcome. They knew they wouldn’t be allowed to go to the national convention (see that little bit on the Lawson blog about how the NC GOP threw out the delegates that the Paul campaign had suggested and picked their own) and it was futile to show up. So who did show up? Mostly the die-hard fanatical supporters of Paul. The ones who did show up probably seemed pretty obnoxious to Justin because they were feeling marginalized and were pushing back.
I’m with Justin though.. if the GOP were being more inclusive then we wouldn’t have supporters of any candidate feeling like they shouldn’t bother showing up. The NC GOP doesn’t have to go where the breeze of public opinion moves it, but it does need to be open to discussion with people who have energy, money, and ideas.
10 Charles // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I like the way you put that: “the most succinct analysis I’ve seen”. That may be accurate. That you found one analysis of Ron Paul, saw that its headline called him “adolescent”, saw that the first few paragraphs contained the words “lunatic” and “bizarre”, and said to yourself, “Eureka! Now HERE is political writing on MY level!”
The author mixes up “principal” with “principle”, most likely because he lacks the latter. He correctly states that Paul favors free trade, then accuses him of being “isolationist”, and attacks his desire to withdraw from NAFTA and WTO. Apparently nobody told him that (a) isolationists abhor true free trade; and (b) NAFTA and WTO are anything BUT examples of such.
Amateur hour is over, but the author (and those who refer to his writings as authoritative) apparently didn’t get the memo. Resume your namecalling, fellas; Ron Paul and his movement will be busy saving the country (and the GOP) while you fiddle.
11 Charles // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Mike, I’m not sure why you feel compelled to lie about the Ron Paul contingent at the NC GOP Convention. First off, NCGOP Executive Director Chris McClure emailed a Ron Paul representative on Friday and said that the delegate names submitted by the RP campaign WOULD be on the slate submitted to the convention. So either McClure lied or Linda Daves changed the slate at the last minute behind even McClure’s back. Which one do you think is the case?
Secondly, why the hell are you defending the party’s attempt to reject our “desire to push the GOP more fiscally conservative”? I’ll tell you - because you don’t give a rip about principles, spending, taxes, freedom, liberty or the Constitution - you just want the boys and girls wearing your jersey to win. Well, how’d that work for you in ‘06? How will you feel when McCain’s liberal arrogance turns the Tar Heel state BLUE in November? By the way, we DID propose a platform change to abolish the income tax and the IRS - proof that SOME Republicans aren’t afraid of being something other than Democrats-Lite.
12 Aaron // Jun 16, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Charles: You must be a Johnny Come Lately to the political scene because the vast majority of Ron Paul’s idiom comes straight from the Alan Keyes playbook (or maybe visa versa). Sorry it’s taken you so long to get off your keaster and finally get energized about someone that’s not “mainstream.”
Perhaps you should read my latest post, or any post of mine for that matter. You’d shut your eyes in anguish because I’ve been touting many of the principles you hold so dear since before it was “cool.” I didn’t need a Ron Paul to make the Minarchist view make sense.
Justin likes new readers…ANY new readers and trust me, you’re not the first Ron Paul flamer to show up and call us all a bunch of RINO’s or Moderates. You’re also not the most intelligent and certainly not the least coherent.
Here’s the sad part about your flaming me:
I loved Ron Paul in the beginning. His talk about sound fiscal policy is a change from what most folks were talking about at the time. I too, was against the Iraq War but a majority of congress has voted for it and we are there in spite of anything Ron Paul has said or done. His idea of eliminating the IRS also strikes a chord as I’m not a fan of paying for services I don’t use.
Here’s the reason I left the “cult.”
His only answer to buiding a strong currency was the Gold Standard. Even Libertarians have subscribeed to a view where all the worlds wealth is not fixed. Aside from the “Fort Knox” ideology, Ron Paul showed no other signs of a meaningful policy for eliminating the nations debt.
He had no actual strategy for exiting Iraq that didn’t leave it wide open for Iran, an actual terrorist state who actually hates us from walking through the door in an hour. Even Obama, a political rookie figured out a way to skirt the “we’ll just leave” statements. For that matter, he and Obama had identical policies for dealing with Iran. Both policies had more to do with a pillowtalk conversation than a strategy.
Here’s the kicker Charles: We now have trillions of dollars in debt. My son knows how to look at the “debt clock” online and he’s only eight. Ron Pauls solution to eliminate this debt was to eliminate the IRS? He didn’t even speak up for the “fair tax” that many of the non-tinfoil hat wearing libertarians support.
This utopia where you wake up one morning and all the ills of the nation are erased is a pipe dream. You have to have plans that even the dumbest electorate can understand (just look at Obama.) Paul did a crap job of listing any meaninful strategy and interim policy. That left said dumb electorate worrying about how they’ll retire and raise welfare children.
Like I said Charles, if you want to criticize folks, that’s fine but read the fine print before doing so. Or the 1000 word article I wrote about 5 hours ago.
13 Caleb Seamone // Jun 16, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Charles -
How can you lecture about how ‘06 didn’t work out for us as a party nationally, when 08 didn’t work for Paul as a candidate at all? I’ve heard stories all across the nation of these silly little pushes by Paul crazies at conventions, and thankfully, due to lack of skill with parliamentary procedure, they were blocked. I don’t believe that a true libertarian view can ever work in modern day America, but a conservative lean with libertarian principles of limited government can. How might Ron Paul save the nation and our party when he can’t draw more than 8% of any primary vote in any state? I would gladly debate any true Ron Paul Constitutionalist on the issues as they relate to modern day America, and I’m pretty confident I’d have them screaming at me within 15 minutes.
14 Aaron // Jun 17, 2008 at 7:04 am
Caleb,
I’ll say that from much of the fiscal policy discussions the Ron Paul fans have been engaging in that his ideologies are closest with where we need to be in terms of social programs and budgetary terms.
Government has become “gub-ment” and it’s the watering trough for most of the countries lazy and incompetent. There’s no doubt that something needs to be done about the post new deal giant that is the federal budget and the millions of leaches it’s created.
I’m a huge supporter of states rights and subsidiarity but as I said in my other post: We need viable strategies to achieve this, not empty rhetoric about how government is broken.
We’re smart enough to know this isn’t the way the system should work…
15 Justin Thibault // Jun 17, 2008 at 9:29 am
Charles - It’s the easiest thing in the world to go trolling around the Internet. It’s a whole other matter to run your own blog. It’s especially difficult to get into Technorati’s Top 5k - Joe Carter did this (I’m in the top 500k - woo hoo). He also landed a few jobs through his blog. Can you say the same for your trolling?
When you run your own successful blog after dealing with writing content until 4AM in the morning, wresting with .php code, dealing with spammers, parsing the art of SEO - you’ll learn that keeping your homonyms straight is one of 10,000 things you deal with. Until then you’re a dilettante whose words are broadcasted at the largess of those of us willing to put forth the effort.
You’re welcome.
Which brings me to my second point. While I’ve had my issues with Linda Daves, she did have a point that many of the “old” crowd your gang maligned were Republicans when you could hold a County GOP convention in a phone booth. This was back in the days where party registration could affect your career - among other things. It’s not to say that some, many, or even most of them are wrong some or most of the time. And I can understand fighting the status quo - that was the original mission of this blog. However, it’s a whole other thing to show up, out of the blue, to a convention with a minority and expect those who built the whole thing to just roll over and give them what they want? If they stood up to the Scott and Hunt machine, those old coots won’t have any problem standing up to a handful of neophytes who are following a guy who consistently polled in the single digits.
Caleb - You make a great point about Parliamentary Procedure. I was the Parliamentarian for the 8th District convention. When I was told ahead of time that the Ron Paul people had raised a fuss before. So, I was ready for all sort of trickery.
I was disappointed.
Their main objection was to having to declare who they would be supporting. This was in the rules. The same rules that were handed out 30 minutes before the call to order. The same rules that they voted for.
The NCGOP was even funnier. Toward the end, there was a motion to Call a Tecess. Everyone was puzzled.
The guy was trying to Adjourn.
While people aren’t born knowing this stuff - it’s apparent they haven’t served on too many boards and I would venture to guess that, if they did, they wouldn’t remain purists to the Libertarian philosophy.
16 Aaron // Jun 17, 2008 at 9:41 am
While people aren’t born knowing this stuff - it’s apparent they haven’t served on too many boards and I would venture to guess that, if they did, they wouldn’t remain purists to the Libertarian philosophy.
Kinda the point of my post yesterday. The “L”ibertarian ideology cuts completely in the wrong direction for any political office. I don’t know how or when someone will make a viable platform that has solutions, plans, workable ideas and the like before I’ll change the “R. ”
Political positions require flexability of Bamboo and not the rigidity of steel…
17 mike // Jun 17, 2008 at 11:23 am
Caleb - “How might Ron Paul save the nation and our party when he can’t draw more than 8% of any primary vote in any state?” ….. just keeping the facts straight.. in the later primaries there was quite a shift as Paul was picking up the “anti-McCain” votes and went over 15% in several states. Not that it matters much.
Charles - ahhhh.. reread what I wrote. I didn’t lie, you just totally misread what I wrote or mixed my name up with one of the other commenters. If you’re trying to give the folks here more fodder for the “Ron Paul supporters are nutjobs” argument then you’re doing a great job.
18 Charles // Jun 17, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hmmm… A “Johnny-Come-Lately” who voted for Ron Paul in 1988, ran for NC State House in 1992, and managed a successful (57% of the vote) referendum in 2001. Yeah, right.
Hmmm… A “dilettante”. “Oooh, lookie mommy, I used a thesaurus.”
Hmmm… A “nutjob”. ” Oooh, lookie mommy, I insulted a Ron Paul supporter.”
I might want to point out to you the humor of your references to a “dumb electorate” and the results of the GOP nomination process, but I’m confident it would go straight over your heads.
P.S.: The convention adjournment motion didn’t go through, but a few minutes later someone made a quorum call before the floor could take up the resolution supporting Juan McInsane, and it failed - those “been there since the NCGOP fit in a phone booth” folks were too busy watching Big Brown pull up to support McInsane. Not surprising, since many party officials and elected officials announced FROM THE PODIUM that McInsane wasn’t their first choice! This November is going to make Bob Dole look like a strong candidate and 2006 like a GOP victory. But go ahead and keep fellating Dumbya and his illegal-hugging, war-mongering, borrow-and-spending, dollar-destroying clone. He’s all ya got.
P.P.S.: Getting a job because you wrote a blog only means you didn’t have a real job in the first place. Which is why you have the time to do the blog. Back to mommy’s basement with ya, girls.
19 Caleb Seamone // Jun 17, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Charles:
It wouldn’t go over our heads, I promise.
Also, you say McCain and Bush are “illegal huggers”. Give me a good plan on how to control the influx of illegal immigrants, as well as handle those who are already here, without some form of government entity working to do it. Isn’t that how Paulites work? Should we just take away all of those government agencies and hope that everyone lives on a good faith following of the constitution? I’m sure I’m speaking for everyone when I reiterate the point that Aaron made - we’re tired of hearing empty rhetoric about how things are broken. If its a policy discussion you want, then I’m sure there are several of us here that can ” take it over your head.”
I’ll let Justin speak about the having a real job comment you made, but all I’ll say is you obviously don’t know the guy. Justin gets more done in a day while managing his job and his family than I could ever hope to accomplish in a week, and I’m on summer break.
Aaron:
I’m with you on state’s rights, and on social programs. The last thing we need is a new New Deal. There is just so much other defeatist rhetoric that I’m tired of.
Justin:
I never thought Libertarians serving on several boards and being well versed on Parliamentary procedure being counterproductive to their cause. Very good point.
20 Justin Thibault // Jun 17, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Caleb -
This is where the NCGOP failed at the last convention. If they would have sat down with the most active portion of the RP contingent and offered them more, they could have avoided most of the floor fight. Then again, the Chair of the Convention was more than fair - accommodating in fact.
21 Aaron // Jun 17, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Fellas,
Good ol’ Charles has resorted to petty name calling and ad hominem attacks.
“Ooh lookie mommy: Aaron figured out your lack of meaningful input.”
It’s pretty good for a Ron Paul Spammer to keep his cool this long. I’m quite amazed at how well this thread has done. Usually the Flamers get a bunch of their buddies to scare everyone off. I’m confused as to whether Charles is not your average flamer or if the Ron Paul defense network just plain folded up and moved on to working for Bob Barr.
I’ve got a million “solutions” to problems that Paul has talked about. Most of them come straight out of one of Milton Friedman’s books. Friedman’s solutions make good sense and are real world policies that said “dumb electorate” can understand. Why Ron Paul didn’t make policies like this known to all is beyond me.
If the Libertarian party want’s to move from a shock value statement to a viable political machine, it’s going to have to work these things out and solidify them. Right now, the Libertarian name carries Minarchists, Anarchists, Mary Jane Reformers, Legalized Prostitution seekers, open border cronies and a whole bunch of other rag tag groups. Seperately, all of them are pretty scary. Together and unified, they have the capability to be great. The catch is that all of them will have to give up certain pet political stances and I don’t know if they’ll be able to deal with it.
You gotta crawl before you can walk…
22 Mark Smith // Jun 18, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Great comments as always. One of the challenges of the party is that there is a lack of leadership and taking a stand, i.e., not enough leaders are doing anything.
I will take a moment to discuss the RINO. Especially on the local level, RINO has been used many, many times. Often it is used out of context and for negative purposes. Yes, there are individuals who call others a RINO for not agreeing.
However, the party must take stand. If we have a person who supports federal and state funding for abortions, more entitlement programs like paying kids to stay in school and for fathers to take care of their kids; continually supporting defense cuts and opposing military spending, while wanting to raise taxes, is this person who has an “R” by one’s name really a Republican?
While I have expressed an extremist idea, this could happen. Where do we draw the line?
The main difference is that Republicans allow individual freedoms to be expressed whereas the Democrats traditionally do not. When Democrats come out opposing abortion, they are looked down upon. When they support the Iraq war or Israel (see Joe Liberman), they are ousted from the Party. The Democratic Party is very good at ensuring their people tow the party line; those who don’t are out.
23 Justin Thibault // Jun 19, 2008 at 8:48 am
Mark -
Lieberman was “kicked out” by the voters and ran as an Independent and won.
Mark, they’re called Primaries and they are over.
You’d have to look far and wide to find a stronger supporter of Bob Orr just 7 weeks ago - now I’m a Fan of McCrory on my Facebook page.
I’d rather get a candidate that’s most of what I want than one that’s all of what I don’t. At this point, I’m getting angry listening to Coy and his minions show up at our meetings talking about how the GOP is in such big trouble implying that things would be better if we’d just listen to them. They’d love a defeat more than the Democrats, because then they could convince the more, um, “impressionable” among us to support them.
24 Mark Smith // Jun 19, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Yes, you are correct that Leiberman was kicked out because he lost the primary. But why was he challenged? Because the winner of the primary wanted Leiberman out due to Leiberman’s stance on Iraq and Israel.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what the primaries are for. However, this was a man who was the VP candidate in 2000. Six years later, they are kicking him to the curb. Why? Because his policies did not align with the mainstream DNC point of view.
Of course, there are exceptions. Heath Shuler doesn’t give a hoot about what the DNC says. He is concerned about the people he represents which is the whole reason why he is up there.
I agree that primaries are where you get to vote your heart. Like you, I’m a McCrory supporter and I hope he wins.
If there are Republicans who want us to lose, than I have a problem with that. Losing and having them Dems in charge is not something I want to endure. I didn’t like JE Carter’s first term. I certainly don’t want to go through his 2nd term with Barack at the helm.
The way to win in 2012 is not by losing in 2008.
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