Of all of the post election analysis in which the typical finger pointing and blaming continues as the necessary consequence of a general election in which the American People returned the single worst President in American history to a second term in office, nothing gets my dander up as much as the proclamation that this election has signaled the death of conservatism as a viable political ideology. This is stated as if our political leanings were adopted somehow as a pretext for winning elections quite independent of what our true beliefs happen to be. Those positions therefore should just as dishonestly be abandoned, simply because according to the elite class of punditry, they are losing positions, and no longer capable of producing electoral success.
While this view of what direction the Republican Party should take in light of losing this latest election may satisfy the pseudo intellectual pursuits of the Sunday morning punditry, and certainly would make the opponents of the Republican Party ecstatic, it flies in the face of reality, history, and intellectual honesty. This tittle tattle is nothing more than a race to be the first to offer analysis, and is produced as the logical result of such analysis being offered up prior to any real thought having the chance to make its way to the frontal lobes of those typing said analysis into their keyboards or saying it in front of cameras and microphones.
Let’s take a step back for just one moment, and actually give this some thought. When is the last time you heard of anyone from the politically left party actually stating in an honest manner what their planned agenda for carrying out the duties of their office would be, should they get elected. Barack Obama’s second term agenda, all 20 sentences of it was so devoid of any actual content, I would be willing to bet a substantial amount of cash that the vast majority of the people who voted for him still have no real idea as to what he plans for his second set of four years. Remember the Blue Dog Democrats, those Senators and Representatives elected in the wave elections of 2006 and 2008 who promised to legislate as conservative Democrats and promptly angered their constituents by signing onto the most bizarrely left of center agenda ever put forward in American History. So angry was the American electorate that the 2010 midterms produced the single largest legislative switch in the history of our nation. (This includes Governorships, Senators, Representatives, and State Legislature Seats, and various other sundry state wide offices.) Before we write off the conservative movement, the last really large success of the Republican Party was the direct result of the conservative movement making its voice heard at the polling booth. Bear in mind that this happened only 2 short years ago. In 2012, we conservatives were told to shut up, and to just go along with the establishment candidates picked for us by the smarter and more politically savvy liberal wing of the Republican Party. So, after running yet again, liberal Republicans as the party’s standard bearer, how exactly is it the Tea Party’s fault that Mitt Romney lost this election? As a matter of fact, it was the Tea Party that gave Romney his greatest support, and this was in spite of the fact that Governor Romney did nothing at all to reach out to us. Remember back at the end of September, it was the party establishment who had largely abandoned Romney and declared him to be dead in the water and already defeated. Those are the politically savvy folks we are supposed to allow to dictate our direction for us?
This brings us to another point. How long will the Republican Apparatchiks insist on positioning themselves in direct opposition to their base, which means us? I have voted mostly with the Republican Party for quite some time. I have done so because more often than not, their candidates for office have come closest to matching my core principles and beliefs. Beyond that, my loyalty is not to the party, but to my core principles and beliefs. I believe in the unbridled power of the free market to give every American the best chance to enjoying a living standard that he or she wishes to enjoy. I believe in a smaller and less intrusive government that is constrained in both scope and authority by the consent of those governed. I believe in a society where our freedoms are not traded, however slowly over time for more free crap donated from public largess. I am not impressed by a Republican Party that promises to trade those freedoms slower than the Democrats will. I do not feel a loyalty to a Republican Party that seeks to grow a government’s scope and authority to the same monstrous proportion, but seeks to have that behemoth status achieved at some later date, rather than immediately.
Election cycle after election cycle, the Republican Establishment forces liberal candidates upon us, insisting that only the moderates can win on a national level, and then blames us when failure ensues. To find a conservative Republican who lost a presidential election, one must travel back in time all the way to 1964. More over, the entire gamesmanship school of picking which side of an issue to appear on, puts aside entirely what is actually best for our nation. We must stop deciding our stance on important issues based on the tyranny of campaign consultants, otherwise, our Constitution and Nation are indeed doomed.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is, that the Republicans lost this election by a very thin margin. Yes, the electoral college made it look like it was not as close as it was, but such is the nature of how we chose our Presidents. Otherwise, it was a 50 to 49 split, about as close as these things get. The perspective I have tells me that trying to blur the lines between the two sides ended up costing more votes than it attracted. Mitt Romney about a month ago did a tremendous job of highlighting the differences between the two sides of our ideological coin, during the last two weeks of the campaign, not so much.
If there is one thing that we on our side should tweak in ourselves, it is this. Each of us needs to stop using our one pet issue as the litmus test for who is conservative and who is not. We need to stop applying the purity tests of a very narrow few issues and label that as the arbiter of all things right of center. We will not be able to run Ronald Reagan for President again, and coincidentally, the perfect candidate who matches everything each of us believes individually and collectively will not ever exist. If we ever find that candidate, he or she will be the same empty suit we have now, and consequently will be every bit as terrible as Barack Obama has been, and will continue to be.
On the day prior to the election, I had coffee with a friend, a life long Republican, who questioned whether or not Mitt Romney would have been any different than Barack Obama in terms of his regulatory stance, support of free markets, judicial appointments in terms of picking people who would interpret the Constitution as written rather than divining some interpretation based on empathy or momentary expedience. I realized of course that Romney would have been light years better than the current occupant of the Oval Office, but I was never the problem, as the Republican establishment would have everyone believe. It was the people from their own fold who largely had trouble seeing it. Such is the wage of equivocation. This is what the party establishment wishes us to do more of. Might I propose that the Republican Party listen to its voting base for a change, and let’s see how that works out. We can hardly do any worse.
Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.
Tags: Rockefeller Republicans
To me, the big issue is VOTE FRAUD.
The fact that, except for LTC Allen West, the rest of the GOP completely rolled over and played dead on this issue, is a scandal to me.
If people KNOW that it doesn’t do any good for them to vote because the election is outrageously rigged, what’s the point?
I have a whole collection of articles on this.
Anyone that thinks this was a fair contest between the Stupid Party and the Evil Party is an Idiot.
@ 1389AD:
@ Da_Beerfreak:
yinz dont get PA politics, do yinz.
20% votes for him in phillie and he still loses.
he needed montgomery and bucks county and the T to cancel out phille.
even if he gets 40% in phillie, which will never ever ever happen he still loses because the ‘burbs didnt show up for him. the fiscon-libertarian suburbanites stayed home. he lost motgomery by 60,000
he lost by 300,000 votes statewide, low turnout by the gop failed to prevent the phillie dem machine from winning the day.
run a conservative and mybe we win in PA….because in all the races the tea party won except for senate.
so that is congress, state house, and judges 99% win for conservatives.
@ coldwarrior:
WASS*. As long as there are open primary elections nothing will change. We are well down the rode to a one party system with two parties in name only.
*We Are So Screwed.
@ 1389AD:
It would seems like that would be an easy fraud and great media story to prove.
Just re pol the precincts and ask for a single person that voted for Romney to step forward and ask their vote to be verified. Do it on national TV. Insinuate that massive fraud occurred.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/11/white-house-website-deluged-with-secession-petitions-from-19-states/
In MT all the conservatives got their way on all but one ballot initiative.
At the state level it was mixed dem and republican. Senate went to incumbent Dem, Republican won the vacant House seat.
What is important though is when things are clearly shown, ie ballot initiatives, conservative thought nearly always wins out.
darkwords wrote:
Probably not. Even if tens or hundreds voted for Romney, they sure wouldn’t come forward having to live in those neighborhoods. I see no path to the truth!
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
and this didnt help at all:
PA has a voter ID system that reqires a state id to vote…oh wait, IT DID..see it didnt quite make it this time because one of the republican supreme court judge who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar and is now in jail. the law got held up in a court that was 4-3 conservative, but is now 3-3 because of this idiot.
next election this system will be in place 100%…2 years from now
their names are jane orie and her sister is state supreme court justice joan orie melvin.
@ Tanker:
romney would have needed close to 40% of the phillie vote to win PA last week if everything else stays the same in the phillie burbs where he lost big
40% for a republican in phillie, yeah sure! now THAT would be some fraud right there.
we got an urban v everyone else problem is what we got, the numbers are really polarized.
@ coldwarrior:
Didn’t the Trib endorse Casey over Smith?
RINOs everywhere.
coldwarrior wrote:
Again not disagreeing with you on that part. Not saying he could have won. My point is, that there had to be fraud and no matter how small, it needs to be stopped period. One fraudulent vote means the confidence in the system is gone!
in ohio the auto bailout counties plus cleveland carried 0 enough to win.
Tanker wrote:
sure.
my sentence for fraud would be death by hanging.
the point is just blaming fraud and leaving at that misses the picture that we didnt turn out for a weak assed candidate.
What about Romney dampened the passion for people voting?
@ coldwarrior:
I saw that. And the Fools rejected photo ID here in Minnesota too, but gay marriage is fine.
I believe voter turn out is falling because voters are losing faith in the electoral process. Folks that don’t vote believe their votes don’t matter anymore. Fix the system and folks will return to the polls.
@ darkwords:
Romney didn’t have a message IMHO.
“Not Obama” lost.
There seems to be a lot more news about Petraeus being unfaithful to his wife, than Obama being unfaithful to the SEALS.
coldwarrior wrote:
If people couldn’t vote against this POS of a President, I’m not sure we could have won with anyone!
What would have won with PA voters? Ohio voters?
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
Let’s try that again.
**Folks that don’t vote believe their votes matter stop voting.
That should be better.
@ darkwords:
Fred Thompson wrote an excellent essay on that very point. It started a couple of weeks prior to the election, in which he began equivocating his positions on free markets, regulation, cap and trade, foreign policy, etc. I can’t quote the Thompson piece verbatim, but I believe it’s posted at National Revue.
Tanker wrote:
a real conservative.
we can smell a fraud 100 miles away. reagan won here handily when there were tons more union/dems here
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
I give up…
**Folks that don’t vote believe their votes DON’T matter stop voting.
@ 19 Tanker: Are voters that fickle? Everyone I know voted except for maybe one person. In my world it looks like the vote was about 75 percent for Romney and 25 percent for Obama.
Mars wrote:
You know Louisiana is one of those states but I never saw anything about it in the local paper. Odd. These states see the writting on the wall and don’t want to go down with the collaspe.
@ 22 coldwarrior: If Romney creates more jobs he probably creates more union members. The only improvement on that probably would be government workers that get unionized no matter what they do.
Take 100 million government workers versus 100 million private sector workers and see who can create more jobs in 10 years.
@ 25 Lily: It’s just a few people isn’t it?
@ coldwarrior:
As you pointed out earlier, the gutting of the GOP from the inside out continues apace. Those conservatives aren’t going to play nice.
I can’t wait to see Bill Kristol’s histrionics!
(See? The power of FORWARD thinking):-)
darkwords wrote:
If we had 100 million government workers, who would pay the taxes to pay them?
People need to vent. Ultimately the fault lies with the country particularly Generation X -- the 18-30 year olds.
coldwarrior wrote:
The problem with that is…Even on this site, we can’t come to an agreement on that issue!
I know I read on this site that only a moderate (Romney) could win elections because of the independent voters.
How do we get there on a national level? Don’t expect you to know the answer to that last question though!
coldwarrior wrote:
A Republican would not get 40% of the vote in Philly even if the Democratic candidate was Joachim von Ribbentrop.
coldwarrior wrote:
Romney failed to run any ads in two key swing counties in Ohio.
@ lobo91:
I’m sure a number of Democrat congressmen could deliver an insane explanation with a straight face!
@ lobo91:
They have the ‘printing presses’, what more is needed??
darkwords wrote:
I don’t get it either as Romney came across as a qualified, intelligent man of good temperament. He certainly was no Bible thumpin’ stereotype.
Let’s see I was
1. a hermain cain supporter
2. a donald trump supporter
3. a newt gingrich supporter
4. I voter for Romney
Santorum and Paul and et al never entered my picture. I liked Bachmann but never considered her seriously.
I was looking for someone who could yell loudly at Obama and get the crowd going.
darkwords wrote:
I don’t know..the more I heard him speak the more impressed I was. He seemed to grow into the position. I have a feeling there was a lot of different issues going on. And for the religious people who voted for obama who is most certainly the most anti-Christian, anti-Jewish president there ever was…a pox be upon you. You were told he was at war with Christians, you saw how he treated Israel, you heard the people at the DNC convention deny God 3 times and deny Israel 3 times. What in the hell were you thinking..or you didn’t vote for him because he wasn’t the perfect candidate.
@ darkwords:
You really thought Cain would have had a snowballs chance against Barack?
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
You are right. Too many people didn’t think their vote counted so they stayed home.
@ Lily:
The country was the big loser because they could have had elected a fine and capable man as POTUS.
Tanker wrote:
Closed primary elections. It’s the only way to find out who the party members want.
Bumr50 wrote:
I heard his message..fiscal responsibility, a united America instead of a divided United States…I liked what I heard from him. Obama didn’t have a message other than Romney was evil.
@ Speranza:
I got more impressed by him as time went on, but I am just that way. lol
Romney needed some ads with diverse women questioning him and him giving a confidence building response.
He needed ads that more people would get union jobs.
He needed ads that stated to someones face the importance of being an ally to israel and Obama is not one.
He needed ads that women would get to choose their health still and that he would like to make it a wise choice they would be comfortable with.
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
I live in Blue NYC but I never fail to vote. If my State is a Democratic electoral lock I say let me help prevent a popular vote win for Obama.
Tanker wrote:
Excatly if they were totally clueless about obama what in the hell could have helped?????
Speranza wrote:
So did the Dems! That is the very reason they had to take him out early!
@ 40 Speranza: I don’t know, but he would have done as well as Romney.
@ Speranza:
I liked Herman Cain, especially as a candidate against Obama.
darkwords wrote:
I just came away really, really liking him as a person and felt that he would have been ready from day one to step into the Oval Office and immediately been able to get to work. Btw on the previous (Rove) thread I agreed with you on a lot of your posts.
Even some of my liberal (but non extreme) friends and coworkers admitted to me that the country would not have been in bad hands if Mitt Romney were president.
Bumr50 wrote:
He would have been slaughtered. That would have been two amateurs running against each other. Sorry but not every answer can be “9-9-9″.
If Cain were not Black, nobody would have paid any attention to him.
darkwords wrote:
Yeah with more states wanting to secede… right after the election.
@ Lily: My issues are jobs, anti Islam and pro israel. That is a Romney vote to me and not an Obama vote. I can only assume an Obama vote is either anti jobs and anti israel or for something else completely.
the race issue is immature and tiring to me. The only big racists left in the country are a sub subculture of black people themselves and a bunch of guilty lefties.
Speranza wrote:
The few of those that I know voted for Romney. But then again I’m in a red state….but I can’t dispute the ignorance of those in that age group either I know a few of those too..but they are in other states.
You are also forgetting the older-hippie folks that bought into the obama lies.
@ Speranza:
I live in sky blue St.Paul (Land of 10,000 Flakes) and have not missed an election since I started voting in ’72.
AZOlddog wrote:
Why would they be afraid of him? They would have loved Cain to be the candidate. They were not afraid of anyone that we had as a potential candidate. I think they felt that Mitt would be the strongest opponent and they were right.
darkwords wrote:
He would have gotten a fraction of Romney’s vote.
Speranza wrote:
He came across as Presidental…and obama came across as a petulant fool. How do you even counter that?
Speranza wrote:
Exactly, my son drove 5.5 hours home from college the night before the election to vote and then 5.5 hours back. He did that in a State that was going for Romney and we all knew it. It was driven into his mushy brain his whole life that voting wasn’t just a right, but a duty!
@ Speranza:
Everybody knows about it, though. Love it or hate it, Herman Cain = 9-9-9.
Tanker wrote:
Good for him!
darkwords wrote:
Yeah that wasn’t going to work either…because already the Republicans were viewed as evil via the media..so all that would have done is throw fuel on the fire.
Speranza wrote:
Regretfully, I must agree. Cain was not presidential material, no matter how much I or anyone else wanted him to be.
Romney would have made a decent President. Had he been willing to contest some of the voting irregularities which seem remarkably blatant, he still could have been, but I must conclude that ship has probably sunk.
Speranza wrote:
Indeed. This country is truly the loser…because Romney actually believed in Americans and the United States. Obama uhmmm not so much.
darkwords wrote:
Any damn woman that actually thought there was a war on women is an idiot and you just can’t fix idiot.
darkwords wrote:
I don’t think so.
Speranza wrote:
Excatly…some wanted to see black on black??? ..because Cain had no experience in politic’s ….just in the business arena. That doesn’t help you run a country.
Lily wrote:
But that’s exactly what we must do.
darkwords wrote:
To you race isn’t an issue..but apparently to a lot of other people it is…and big bird, abortion, free stuff, late term abortions, class warfare…oh yeah that mattered to a lot of people apparently when none of it is a pressing issue.
As long as we are going back to primary-era postmortems, I really was disgusted by the people who were talking about how “terrible” the long primary season was. A long shakeout period is what primaries are for. I do not accept the proposition that winning the nomination after a long primary slog makes one “damaged goods”; it used to be that even after the primaries the final nominee was determined by convention brokering.
Our TV-era attention span has contrived to undercut the electoral process. The primaries, too, need serious overhauling; I spoke of this at the time. There should be four or five primaries, total; closed primaries, no caucuses, and the primaries clumped so that each one covers a mix of large and small, rural and urban states—so that all parts of the country, and different demographics, all have a say in the selection.
Lily wrote:
I understand but the core of the Obamazombies are De-generation X. Ironically they will be hurt the most by Obamanomics as they will be stuck in low wage jobs, unable to pay off college loans and living with the parents.
@ Tanker:
Romney was fiscally conservative and understood that there was some bad people out there in the world. That was fine enough with me and if we had a chance to win, it was with Romney. Yes he should not have waited for so long to respond to the demonization of him as a vulture capitalist.
Bumr50 wrote:
You can’t! You just can’t …have you tried?? I have it is like beating your head against a brick wall. No matter what you say you are a h8ter, bigot and racist all rolled into one and an evil conservative. The only way to fix it unfortunately is they are going to have to FEEL IT. And they will FEEL IT this next four years.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
I disagree. Obama was fresh and rested while Romney was forced to waste time and money debating the likes of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum neither (including Gingrich) of whom had a pissers chance in Gehennom of winning a national election. Like the 162 game baseball season followed by three rounds of playoffs, the primary season was too long.
Bumr50 wrote:
No. You cannot fix “idiot.” The best you can do is find a stronger hot button than the other guy has.
Speranza wrote:
Would it have helped? Who knows with people thinking the way they think now days…rich are evil, Romney is rich and telling lies…etc. oh yeah I can just see the retort.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
If we can’t get that done, there’s really not much of a future left for self-rule.
Lily wrote:
We will never know but he allowed Obama to define him too early in the game. For most of the summer Romney seemed moribund and when his campaign called me soliciting money I reamed them for him being silent and they said they agreed with me (although they probably just wanted to butter me up to cough up money -- which I did).
Speranza wrote:
That is why I say that the primary season needs to be streamlined, as I outlined above; each of four or five primaries comprised of a mix of states that have large and small populations, urban and rural voters. No caucuses. No open primaries. No crossovers, no EZ voting.
Multiple primaries are necessary for the candidates to show their own mettle and their differences from their competitors. They should not, however—I agree with you there—be so long and so drawn out as to sap candidate and voter energy, and the war chest for the actual election.
I’d like to remind the GOP elite that we’ll be more than happy to step aside and let you have complete control of the Republican party and that way you can set the agenda and we’ll decide whether your “platform” is acceptable to us or not.
Or don’t you asshats in D.C. remember the election of 2006?
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
It would be nice to actually have a say in the process. The nomination process is always complete by the time I get a vote.
The good part about that is, I can say…”Don’t blame me, you assholes nominated his ass!”
Lily wrote:
Even though he (Cain) was on our side, I was not in the mood for two amateurs who would owe their postions (as POTUS) merely to their racial make up. Cain was a minor leaguer to Mitt’s major leaguer persona. Maybe I am a crank but I would like to think that a GOP candidate understands some foreign policy issues and can point Syria and Libya out on a map.
@ Speranza:
That was a legacy from that ridiculous primary season the Democrats put on for the 2008 election. I’m starting to think they made it so lengthy so that the Divine Doofus would get a chance to get some airtime before primaries. If I remember, it used to be the first primary was in February in New Hampshire and everyone declared right around Christmas and then spent time between Iowa and New Hampshire. Last time out, it looked like they started debates four months out.
Speranza wrote:
Basically what I was getting at was….after 4 years of obama and you still didn’t GET IT then you were never going to GET IT even if Romney did do what you wanted him to do. Obama voters were going with Romney is evil so not matter what he said wasn’t going to get through to them.
Carolina Girl wrote:
The debacles of 2006 and 2008 really did a number on our qualified candidates for higher office.
The other thing the Republicans need to do is: stop accepting liberal moderators for debates.
If a liberal moderator is permitted, get somebody like Mark Steyn or Mark Levin or Christian Adams as a counterweight.
No. More. Fucking. Proggies.
Lily wrote:
I was referring to the elusive Independents and moderate Democrats.
Speranza wrote:
Excatly. Cain was an amateur we didn’t need another one.
@ Speranza:
Well we know that Jerk the Wonder Prez can’t find effing BENGHAZI on a map. Just got an email from a friend saying she’s driving in but the car will be full of Obama supporters wanting to discuss the election so if I want a ride I can come but she didn’t want to be uncomfortable.
Typical lib. If I had a car with three conservatives in it and my friend the lib is riding, I inform the conservatives ahead of time that we’ll forego politics for the time being so that no one has to be uneasy.
This is the one that would vote for Adolf if he was a Democrat.
Lily wrote:
He took up a lot of the oxygen in the room for almost a month when he had less then zero chance of winning a national election. Just my opinion.
Speranza wrote:
They’re over there, with the moderate Muslims.
What, you can’t see them?
Speranza wrote:
I am also referring to those dimwits too. Gee obama is wreaking the country isn’t hard to grasp whether you are a democrat or independent.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Absolutely. Refuse the debate period if no moderators from Fox News like Brett Baier or Chris Wallace are offered. And sorry, Candy Crowley and what’s her name from the VP debate are not even up for discussion EVER AGAIN.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Gee ya’ think there is a double standard for Republican v. Democrats? Liberals are brazenly contentious even when they are in the presence of more conservatives then liberals and seek out arguments -- that is why they are so socially unpleasant to be around. Everything is about politics to them, stuff that should not even have a drop of politics in them such as a discussion of French Impressionist Art of the 19th century!.
Carolina Girl wrote:
It was a dumbass move agreeing to a Townhall format and allowing Candy Crowley to moderate. Chris Wallace or Bret Baier would have been so much better -- and fairer.
Speranza wrote:
Yep…a complete double-standard!!!!
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Moderate Democrats are called Republicans.
Carolina Girl wrote:
I would like to see the debates held on Fox. Or online only. Basically, I want to see future debates—at least some of them—held outside of the moldering grasp of the Old Media.
Speranza wrote:
I am as a registered democrat inclined to agree.
Lily wrote:
Independents are nothing more than another grievance group to be courted and slobbered over IMHO!
Moderate Democrats just don’t exist. They lost that label during the Healthcare vote!
brookly red wrote:
Living in NYC I was a registered Democrat until 2005.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
No same day registration.
Tanker wrote:
Totally agree! But I think moderate democrats vote Republican.
Speranza wrote:
Actually, French Impressionist art of the 19th century is highly political; it tends to be extremely pastoral, and indicates how the artists, and their wealthy sponsors, were turning their backs on the most significant event of their lifetimes—the Industrial Revolution.
The elites of the 19th Century hated the Industrial Revolution—even when it provided them with their own wealth—because it enabled the formerly-poor to live like their “betters.” The art of the time reflected that; it ignored industry and the machine age and concentrated on flowers and country scenes. It shows that artists, who pride themselves on being “cutting edge” and “avant garde” are actually a mirror for the reactionary attitudes of those from whom they gain their living.
lobo91 wrote:
No open primary voting either. If you’re not a registered Republican you cannot vote in a Republican primary and that means Independents too cannot vote in them either.
lobo91 wrote:
Agree and no free phones or free pizza for registration either.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
I am referring to comments (as I heard in one class back in 1994) referencing Newt Gingrich in a lecture on Pierre Auguste Renoir.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Way to deep for us knuckle dragging rednecks!
@ Speranza:
The worst is that abomination they have in California now, where there’s only one primary. The two candidates who get the most votes go on to the general election, even if they’re both from the same party.
There was a House race this fall with 2 Democrat candidates as a result.
lobo91 wrote:
Kalifornia Krazy!
@ Speranza:
The professor I had for US History through 1865 managed to bring up Ronald Reagan at least once per lecture.
lobo91 wrote:
Let me go out on a limb and assume that it was not in a complimentary way.
@ Speranza:
There’s an easy fix for crap like that. The RNC just has to tell those states that they’re free to use whatever system they like, but they won’t get any delegates at the convention unless they implement closed primaries.
Here is my personal tragedy for the year 2012…
For Sale: 1984 Corvette.
Lily wrote:
voting should use a system like the banks use with ATMs, you insert your ID card, enter your pin (and in this case social security number too), you vote in REAL TIME and get a printed receipt. No account, no vote. Try to vote more than once, busted. Results in real time, no monkey business with exit polls.
@ Speranza:
Good guess.
He did the same thing the following semester, as well.
lobo91 wrote:
Also we need run offs for any one who does not get 50% of the vote so we are not saddled with some piss poor candidate who wins three way primaries with 34% of the vote.
lobo91 wrote:
Did any one ever ask him why he was dong that?
doriangrey wrote:
Trust me…I know the feeling.
@ Speranza:
I didn’t, because I wanted to keep my grades up.
Most of the class probably didn’t know who Reagan was.
OH DEAR GOD NO! http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-considers-john-kerry-for-job-of-defense-secretary/2012/11/12/8a0e973a-2d02-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_story.html
lobo91 wrote:
I was the same way as an undergraduate student. Liberals can be vindictive and vengeful.
Tanker wrote:
It shouldn’t be. It’s quite simple, actually.
The Industrial Revolution created an explosion of cheap goods. People who previously could not afford glass drinking vessels, changes of clothing, overcoats, wallpaper which approximated the painted rooms of the wealthy—all sorts of things. The formerly-poor could now live like, or almost like, the rich. It was a huge class leveler.
The rich HATED this. It is from this hatred that it became low-class to have “made your money in trade,” i.e., to have made it by commercial activity, rather than having inherited it. The rich began casting about for ways to differentiate themselves from the horde of upstarts who were able to appear like the old-time aristocracy—and were, in many cases, wealthier.
The artists catered to this hatred by the elite. The Industrial Revolution divorced art from artisanship, which meant that art became a separate commodity whose value was simply that those in the know were able to recognize it. It was this divorce from artisanship that has brought us the garbage art we have today—this trend began when artists began despising “commercial” art in favor of “pure” art, just as their patrons despised “commercial” wealth in favor of inherited wealth.
lobo91 wrote:
Yup, but at least you were able to go work in the sandbox for a year and keep the wolves away from the door for while…
brookly red wrote:
I’ve been expecting that.
brookly red wrote:
I read that he was considering Chuck Hegel for Defense and Kerry for Sec. of State. If not for the Benghazi Sunday morning talk show misinformation she was spewing, it would have been Susan Rice as Sec. of State (or Samantha Power).
@ doriangrey:
I’m sure they have openings…
Speaking of Moderates!
Oh God please NO!
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/11/12/msnbc-rino-michael-steele-hints-he-may-run-for-rnc-chair-again/
Tanker wrote:
Stop the Insanity!
Steele would not win anything.
@ Speranza:
At least half the class were students from the College of Education.
By the end of the first semester, I understood what was wrong with the public schools, and why they can’t be saved in their current incarnation.
lobo91 wrote:
/I think it was mentioned in Revelations…
brookly red wrote:
Cough cough… there is no s on Revelation…
brookly red wrote:
I guess if we’re going to dismantle our military, it doesn’t really matter who the Secretary of Defense is…
@ Tanker:
John Boehner probably thinks it’s a splendid idea!
lobo91 wrote:
I was going for a Masters in Education 20 some odd years ago and the group think of the students and teachers was incredible. They did not seem to me to be a group that was capable of critical thinking.
@ Speranza:
I never saw anything quite like the future teachers in that class.
Well, until a few years ago, when I took our German shepherd to obedience class. The students were about on the same level.
//Apologies to any dogs who feel insulted
@ brookly red:
No.
Electronic systems are not secure.
Photo ID, paper ballots, dyed finger after voting.
If we can’t do better than Iraq, it’s over.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Ok, now I understand:
1. Old Money hated new (working class) money
2. artists are assholes and went with the Old money
3. Today art sucks because it is garbage
Why didn’t you just say so! just poking…great summary!
doriangrey wrote:
I’ll give ya 50 bucks for the Chevy…
lobo91 wrote:
They were (the females in my classes -- 90% were women) a bunch of screeching women that had personalities that could peel paint.
@ Speranza:
Just end the winner takes all crap and go with the guy with the most delegates at the convention.
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
well we could just make election day April 15th… you vote on your tax filing
@ Tanker:
I guess they wouldn’t appreciate the picture of Coors Field on opening day that’s hanging in my living room, even if it’s on canvas.
//
Speranza wrote:
Take a look at GMAT scores. you would think that art students would be the lowest performers. At least when I took it 25 years ago, it was education students who had the lowest average score across the board.
@ AZfederalist:
OK, I’m suffering from OldTimer’s Disease, make that GRE score, not GMAT.
@ Speranza:
The ones in my class would have fit right in on a Jaywalking segment.
AZfederalist wrote:
They do crap in Mathematics and Natural Sciences.
AZfederalist wrote:
those who can’t do teach
lobo91 wrote:
You mean they could not figure out what year the War of 1812 began?
brookly red wrote:
Ok, but the key’s will cost you $4000.00…
Speranza wrote:
Yup
@ brookly red:
brookly red wrote:
And those who can’t teach become professors of Education.
lobo91 wrote:
Now that’s art! I have one of Turner Field! Not on canvas though, lithograph! Love the braves…really hate Ted Turner!
doriangrey wrote:
do I strike you as the kinda guy who needs a key
brookly red wrote:
Kerry is the logical choice. Ho Chi Minh has been dead for over 40 years and General Giap was passed over because he is 101 years old.
brookly red wrote:
I’m guessing you have never tried to steal a corvette…
doriangrey wrote:
we just drag em up on the flatbed take em to the shop and chop em for parts Muhahahaha!
huckfunn wrote:
well if their is any justice he will get a 4th (and well earned) purple heart
brookly red wrote:
For $4000.00 I don’t give a damned what you do to it…
brookly red wrote:
Posthumorlessly, of course.
@ doriangrey:
I’m sorry, Dorian.
doriangrey wrote:
can’t you get hit by a city bus and get the 4K plus another 200 for pain and suffering?
huckfunn wrote:
wait… you mean he’s still alive?
My biggest question is what is keeping me from running for office.
Your biggest question should be what is keeping you from running for office.
The most qualified candidate maybe commenting on this blog right now.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
I agree. I don’t know why he didn’t contest some of the swing states. When EVERYONE on the Republican side is scratching their heads and saying, “We weren’t expecting this.” maybe we should make really sure Bammy won for real.
brookly red wrote:
Yeah, but where’s he going to get a butt full of rice shards this time around?
livefreeor die wrote:
Yea, it’s breaking my heart, but I have to do something cause finances have gotten that bad.
doriangrey wrote:
don’t give up hope, after the crash that car can be rented as a studio apartment.
Bumr50 wrote:
We have GOT to get rid of that Effeminate Asshole!
this is interesting…
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/11/white-house-website-deluged-with-secession-petitions-from-19-states/
brookly red wrote:
After sending all the names to the DHS to form a new domestic watch list, the obama white hut will just ignore them.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Yup
@ Da_Beerfreak:
yes but it makes for good reading…
brookly red wrote:
If this is your idea of funny, then your sense of humor sucks.
doriangrey wrote:
no I am actually serious (not about the apartment) but don’t give up hope, because the economy is going to get so bad that the assets that you have that may not seem like much now will seem like a fortune in the near future.
brookly red wrote:
for example selling a car may seem like taking a loss but to some one who needs a ride renting the same car can become a source of income to a resourceful person.
brookly red wrote:
Ok, m7y misunderstanding, I though you were implying that I should take the Vette out and crash it…
doriangrey wrote:
no that was a bad joke about insurance hustlers, but you HAVE a car and that is a start. A woman I know kept a roof over her head for a year just driving people around on errands and such because they didn’t have a car… 20 bucks to go for groceries, an other 20 bucks for a ride to the doctor’s, 10 bucks to pick up the kid from school… it can add up.
GoP voters get smarter, Democrats get dumber.
brookly red wrote:
Reading the comments there is eye opening. Passion on both sides of the issue. Not sure how all this will work out, but I don’t see it as being pretty either way.
Tanker wrote:
Reading the comments, all I saw was it devolve in to a debate over what the real cause behind the Civil War was.
LA goes vegetarian
‘This follows the `good food’ agenda we recently adopted supporting local, sustainable food choices,’ Councilwoman Jan Perry told the Los Angeles Daily News.
Perry, who proposed the measure with fellow Democrat council member Ed Reyes, has made healthy eating a key issue of her political career.
I think I will go to McDonalds that day and get two cheeseburgers and send them each a wrapper.
Now, I wouldn’t have much of a problem living in a ‘red state’ America. BUT, how would relations with ‘blue state America’ work? How would food move between the countries? Manufactured goods, either produced here or overseas? People (like my wife) who are current federal employees in a red state? She’d want to move to California because of access to ports for import of goods.
@ mfhorn:
And… last time I looked The Port of Houston was in a Red State.
@ darkwords:
Coincidence, I’m sure…
@ Calo:
A muddy Texas waterway port, and the 4th largest port in the US still.
The Allen West Recount
If there is a chance to stick the fraud label on the dems that is where it is at.
Lots of comments, but pretty dead now.
First of all, condolances to dorien for have to sell the ride. I’m still driving the most powerful personal (as opposed to family) car I have evr owned -- my 1996 Geo Metro with a screaming 58 bhp. At least you had one ride with a little oompf. And I’m real familiar with the unemployment gig, too. 7 months of it ended just last July, and it’s coming up again First of January, or February at best. The fun life of the consultant…
Back to the original article and all the musing thereon, I saw two bits in it that I was surprised to not see connected. Obviously one is the failure to nominate “conservative” candidates. But the second, which should have been tied in, was the lament against “litmus test” conservatives. If you’ll take an honest look back, you’ll see that most of the “conservative” candidates the last few election cycles have themselves been “litmus test” politicians. They attract enthusiastic and quite vocal support from the subset of voters that use the same “litmus test” criteria and nobody else. Not a classical liberal or a constitutional federalist in the lot of them, and THAT is why you don’t get a “conservative” candidate. They self-select for “litmus test” sub-groups, always in a negative fashion, and doom themselves to failure. If anybody sees that changing anytime soon, I’d like to hear the basis of your reasoning. If it has some sort of factual basis, that is -- I don’t read sci-fi any more.
Pardon the typos…
Good morning everyone. I, ah, fixed the issues from yesterday morning on my previous blog posts. It was an ID10T error. Anyway, no problems with todays post I hope.
Lily wrote:
Negative campaigning works. Obama is evil. We should have articulated that. The RNC should have been running ads about what a failure he was during the lull that Romney had because of Primary versus General election. But that is water under the bridge. We’re doomed, but we have to go down fighting. We need to get NASTY for the 2014 campaign. A vote for a Democrat is a vote against America.
Quick drive-by.
This is just too damn funny:
Obama considering John Kerry for job of defense secretary
When real events are a worse parody then the Onion. What else is there to do, but laugh at the folly?
Iron Fist wrote:
It’s O.’s second term, so it doesn’t make sense to campaign mainly against O. anymore. Campaign against the Democratic Party, against their “ethnicism” (= the old racism in news sknis), against their “diversity” (= divide et impera), show how they rob Peter to pay Paul (= social welfare), show how women a degenerated to their genital tract (= free abortion/contracenption etc.), show the true roots of the KKK and the “Jim Crowe” laws, make them the party of the slaveholders again, etc.
Destroy the reputation of the Democratic Party, label anyone who stands up for them with Nazi, Fascist, slaveholder etc.
Guggi wrote:
Exactly. And question the Patriotism of anyone who supports a Party that has racked up $10 trillion in debt in eight years. Politics ain’t beanbag. We can’t just make up charges like Harry Reid. Unlike Reid, the MFM will require us to substantiate charges, but there is plenty substantive that we can bring against the Democrats. The Debt has to be our centerpiece. What do we do when we reach 150% GDP in debt? Put it in simple terms the voters can understand. Most people get that if you make $50K a year you can’t go rack up half a million on credit cards and expect to ever pay it off. The Laffer Curve is beyond them, but they get bankruptcy. Greece is a stark example of what is coming, and their debt is way smaller than ours. I don’t have much hope. Four more years of Obama will bankrupt us, though we may shamble on for some years before that piper has to be paid.
@ citizen_q:
Hey, given what Obama intends to do to DOD, a full-bore traitor as Sec Def makes sense…
@ Iron Fist:
Yup.
Oh, and the other day we had an article that indicated that Romney lost the Cuban-American vote. This was wrong:
Obama gained a little, apparently due to Ryan having expressed a willingness to reduce sanctions on Cuba. That doesn’t make much sense since Barack Obama loves him some Fidel Castro, but there you go.
Iron Fist wrote:
never mind, we have a draft dodger as Secretary of Defense
@ Guggi:
The whole world is falling apart. We’re hosed, Europe is hosed, Japan has a crashing birth-rate, China is on the brink, and then there’s Africa. Things could be going so much better. We are at a time when technology is making things possible that would have been unheard of fifty years ago. Fifty years ago I’d have been condemned to be a cripple in a wheelchair. As is, the surgery that I had may take care of the problem, but if it doesn’t a hip replacement will. IF ObamaCare will let me have a hip replacement. It is most distressing.
Iron Fist wrote:
not only, Japan is heading into a recession again.
@ Guggi:
And Like us they have an aging population. They aren’t going to be able to support their social security model any mor ethatn e are going to be able to support ours. Socialism always fails. Indeed, one could say that the only thing socialism succeeds at is failure.
@ Iron Fist:
The philosphical thinking of the U.S.A. has changed from Aristotle to Platon. Europe has always been the stronghold of Platonism while the U.S.A. has been the stronghold of Aristotle.
That’s why you are faced with mob rule. We are used to it.
@ Guggi:
It is, as I noted yesterday, split along Sectional lines. Places like California, New York, and Illinois are into the Mob Rules. Places like Tennessee and Texas are not. There really are two Americas, and this election highlighted that division. Obama didn’t make any headway in rural America. He didn’t even try to make any headway in rural America. He holds thos “Jesus Freaks” in contempt. He wan a very narrow victory, though. Most of his popular vote “mandate” (as though 51% of the vote is a mandate) came from California. True, it is a shame that the Republicans there didn’t get out to vote, and I don’t understand why they didn’t, but that wouldn’t have made any real difference. It would have been nice to deny Obama a popular vote victory, though, and the million GOP voters in California that didn’t turn out have only themselves to blame for it.
Iron Fist wrote:
yup and they should suffer worst.
@ Guggi:
Ultimately, I think California will suffer the worst. They are bleeding businesses and they just raised taxes (on th e”rich”, of course) again. An overwhelming majority of the poeple who went to the polls voted for the tax increase. In a recession. And California’s unemployment is among the highest in the nation. Certainly, I am glad that my wife moved here instead of me moving there when the time came for one of us to move. We make lower salaries here, but th ecost of living is way less, and the reduced stress of living in a State where our neighbors share our values is priceless. While the Californians voted tax increases, here in Tennessee we gave the Republicans super-majorities in both houses of Congress. We’ll see if we can’t get some positive, business-friendly legislation out of Congress now. We already had a Republican governor. My state could hardly get more Republican. When the crash comes, we’ll be better prepared to deal with it than most.
@ Iron Fist:
…but they will come in droves to participate on your success and this will drag you down. Remember the theory of OCA (optimum currency area) and the example of Massachusetts. Better doing states will be overrun by people from California, the salaries will go down and the costs will rise.
Guggi wrote:
I am not familiar with that, but I do well know the fear of outsiders coming into the area. That wouldn’t be so bad, but they want to bring their failed Blue State politics with them. If the Republicans want to leave California (and who could blame them?), then let them come, but the Democrats need to stay in the People’s Socialist Paradise and live in the mess that they created.
Iron Fist wrote:
build a wall around C.
Iron Fist wrote:
You know that won’t happen. They are like locusts when they get large enough and spread their misery around.
12-15mi north of Albuquerque, some guy took a huge ranch and sold it off and made a town, Rio Rancho (where Intel built a plant)…the first thing the guy did was advertise all this cheap land in NYC, Statton Island in particular, and also southern CA…people flooded in and now Rio Ranch has a population of around 75k or so…point is, it has a completely different vibe up there than here in old Abq…less friendly, faster paced, impatient etc…the difference is so profound even visitors can sense it…same thing up in Santa Fe 45mi north…all this growth from the west coast moving here…SF is not a friendly town imo…and both ares are totally liberal and these newcomers brought it with them…it altered the states electorate…we are now and forever a blue state full of pissy people who run the show now…two entirely separate sorts of people
@ Guggi:
Make the fence 100 feet high and electrified…
@ heysoos:
This is how they transformed our rural areas intp strongholds of greenies.
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
We demand purple fingers at every election!
unclassifiable wrote:
Complete lack of money and connections, compounded by bad health and a stalker problem. Next question?