The American Spectator

John Drake| 1.31.09 @ 3:43PM

The GOP's levers of power seem bent on driving it right into the dustbin of history.

Robert Stacy McCain| 1.31.09 @ 3:48PM

Good analysis, Antle. That there were anti-Blackwell members from Ohio and anti-Anuzis members from Michigan speaks a lot to how often essentially local and personal feuds affect RNC votes. Trying to intepret this from an ideological perspective is a futile enterprise.

Personally (and I don't think I bothered much to hide this) I liked Anuzis because of his blue-collar background and high-tech enthusiasm. He seemed to get the "libertarian populist" and "ordinary American" themes I've pushed.

I've been a huge fan of Michael Steele's ever since his "Meet the Press" debate with Ben Cardin during his 2006 Senate campaign. Steele's cheerful optimism, and his ability to hammer Cardin on the specifics of a basic bread-and-butter issue like local transportation projects, struck me as very Reaganesque. Steele's appeal as a communicator is obvious. His real challenge will be the "herding cats" business of organizing Republicans, a Herculean labor at any time, and no doubt much more difficult at this ebb tide of GOP strength.

The inability of the conservative movement leadership to exert decisive influence in the GOP chairman's contest may not indicate any especial weakness of the movement, but the evident "disconnect" is worth watching.

John| 1.31.09 @ 4:05PM

That's because Movement Conservatism is all "carp" and no "fish".

They talk a whole bunch, but are spotty contributors. Yes, they show up to work the grass roots... but only on absolutely their terms, and only as long as the organization toes their line...

If they lose... the storm off in a huff... if they get beaten... well... the sort of quit. They disappear from the local committees, never to be heard from again.

Above all... they are not loyal to a larger political apparatus. They are only loyal to their own particular political interests. Those may or may not be in complete agreement with anybody else's on the planet, however. What they will do is resolutely assert that the 500 left them, the one... not the other way around.

It is a sad tale of politics on the "Right". The "Left" knows exactly who the "Righties" are. The Righties well, the "Righties" couldn't find each other in a closet. Which is where they can often meet.

r/John

ConservativeWanderer| 1.31.09 @ 4:23PM

"Yes, they show up to work the grass roots... but only on absolutely their terms, and only as long as the organization toes their line... "

Kinda reminiscent of the Lefty NutRoots vendetta against Joe Lieberman, isn't it?

Take the plank out of your own eye before you whine about the mote in the Right's, John.

Kat| 1.31.09 @ 5:00PM

Conservatives have principles--something that liberals/RINOs like John don't understand.

John| 1.31.09 @ 5:57PM

Y'all make my point...

A. I am no RINO... I am a long time very conservative Republican... my parents were, and my grandparents, all four, God rest their soul s were, too. So the accusation is without merit.

B. Having worked eight years of elections in a large county that has been whip-sawed through Democrat to Republican swings... I have seen the Old Bulls get replaced by the Movment... only to have the Movement... move on when the going got tough.... and they were replaced by... queue the rimshot... the Old Bulls... Who know how to play politics.

Calling names is easy. Burning shoe leather, handing out sample ballots, knocking on doors, making phone calls, persuading friends to work, going to conventions that's the game, those things are hard.

To win, Conservatives must stay in the GOP. It is completely irrational to expect a political party (which is an organization of voluntary members, not an organic creature) to be other than what its remaining membership thinks that it should be.

If Conservatives walk away, who are the RINO's?

Oh... btw... Liberals have principles, and those principles are winning elections, running the media, and schools. I don't see Conservatives (and that includes me...) winning much of anything over the last few decades.

Ronald Reagan was a Republican. He understood that Conservatism could only win if it was a functioning influential part of a political party that was capable of winning elections.

His 11th commandment seems to have slipped into a distant memory.

Peace.... We now are ruled by The One and his minions... Their principles are based on the almighty state running every aspect of our lives... As he so pointedly said the other day "I won".

And as his clones steal my money and wreck the economy... I can brag about having my principles intact...

Cold comfort, indeed.

r/John

Sebastian B. O. Buniontow V| 1.31.09 @ 6:17PM

RSM -

Nice to see you AS'ers are into the mutual butt slapping.

If memory serves, Steele lost to an inferior candidate despite your favorable MTP impression. He will now take the party to a similar fate.

What is it with the GOP? It ends up with a moderate presidential candidate in McCain, who loses handily in the NE, and now promises more of the same in Steele?

Steele's not going to have to worry about "herding cats" because the cats will scatter. There is no certitude that he can bring NE moderates into the party and there is certainty that the GOP will disenfranchise a vital portion of its historic base.

The appropriate analogy is not a "Big Tent" but a leaky bucket.

Kat| 1.31.09 @ 6:20PM

His 11th commandment seems to have slipped into YOUR distant memory. I don't think membership is the problem, lack of leadership is. We haven't had a leader since Reagan.

John| 1.31.09 @ 6:28PM

And you wouldn't like him...

Pro Amesty for illegal aliens... compromised on raising taxes, primarily the Social Security Payroll tax. Loved spending time with Tip O'Neill...

The Reagan the Movement remembers isn't the Reagan of reality... it is a stylized idealized fantasy... a super hero....

Leaders come from the ranks. Not from on high on a beam of light from heaven. If Conservatives want another Reagan... then they had better come up with one. He isn't likely to appear by magic or miracle.

Good luck to Michael Steele. He has lots of hard work to do. He is a good man. Hopefully this good man will not fail.

Peace... now off to Mass...

John

Kat| 1.31.09 @ 6:58PM

John don't speak for me, you don't know me. Reagan wasn't perfect, no one is, but he could unite the disparate groups within the republican party; that's leadership. His immigration views were from 30 years ago--they would be different now. Taxes; true he raised them, that's how he got the liberal congress to help him win the Cold War, and our economy was still strong. I believe Reagan was highly principled but he was also a pragmatist. His jocular relationship with Tip O'Neill? That pragmatism thing again.

ConservativeWanderer| 1.31.09 @ 7:26PM

John, as has been pointed out already, for someone who quotes Reagan's 11th Commandment, you sure have trouble following it.

In fact, I'll go further. The problem with the GOP isn't "Movement Conservatives" or the lack of same... it's that everyone seems more interested in attacking fellow party members than they are interested in attacking the OTHER party!

When that gets fixed, the GOP will be on its way to a resurgence. Until then, get used to minority status.

John| 1.31.09 @ 8:33PM

Now see... I said nothing that wasn't a fact... on the ground...

Lack of introspection leads to permanent failure.

I related what had happened in, not only my political organization but in many others around me, and the attacks start.

So... I will maintain Reagan's 11th, however I will not refrain from pointing the obvious.

I shall end this with a football story:

A kid on my 7th grade team thought himself to be a real hotshot. He was actually pretty good, but this kid thought so much of himself that he demanded that he be given the #1 for his jersey. He was always 1, you see, because he was the best.

Well, the coach wasn't too thrilled with the attitude and offered him a deal. Go out on the field and get the ball across the goal line... oh... and do it by yourself against the defense.

Needless to say the kid got his clock cleaned. Only a few times, though, the coaches wanted him to learn a lesson, not get hurt.

He ended up with some other number in the range of normal running backs.

You see, football is a team sport. It takes everyone of different talent levels, capabilities and position responsibilities to offer an effective offense or defense.

No one person can win a game. They can have great influence, and great responsibility, but they depend on the other 10 players to do their job.

Cheers.... and GO STEELERS!!!! One for the Other Thumb in 09.

r/John

ConservativeWanderer| 1.31.09 @ 9:54PM

Fine, John, you keep on being a good lefty Republican, demanding that everyone else follow rules that you don't follow... kinda like Messieurs Geithner and Daschle and tax laws.

Alan Brooks| 1.31.09 @ 11:11PM

no, Drake, not into the dustbin of history; rather standing athwart history yelling,

"how long can we stave off a demogogic dystopia?"

Basil Plumley| 1.31.09 @ 11:14PM

@John
I can concede to you some of your premises but I think your conclusion is wrong. There is no doubt that some/many in the "Movement" can be petulent.
One looks no further than 1986 when many social conservatives were upset with the GOP and Reagan. They stayed home in November and allowed the Dems to retake the Senate. Many of those GOP losses like Jeremiah Denton's were by miniscule margins. Had the GOP kept the Senate, Bork would have been approved and the Casey decision would have gone the other way and Roe would have been in the trashbin of history. That was one hell of a price to pay for being petulent.

The problem is that many in the social conservative movement (as well as the GOP) do not realize that politics is a game of chess and many in the movement see it as a game of checkers. Thus, the need for leadership.

Kat was absolutely correct on Reagan. You see the blemishes and Kat and I see the demise of Communism. Reagan fleeced the Dems. The Dems won some battles but in the end it was Reagan who is given the credit for the end of the Cold War; not Tip O'Neill. McCain tried to make those Reagan blemishes some badge of honor but what was McCain's vision? If you can answer that, you are far better than us mere mortals.

The petulence of some/many has allowed the Conservative Movement to be divided and conquered. See the results of 2006 and 2008. If the Conservatives can unite in strength, the Left can never defeat us.

John| 2.1.09 @ 9:22AM

Basil,

I might not have been clear.

My premise (not really a conclusion because my little tomes are more a discussion of the facts on the ground, leaving folks to ponder the conclusions.) is the following:

Right always wins when it is unified and it always loses when it gets into internecine slap fights over how pure a conservative someone is.

My points about Reagan were accidentally proven by those who would like to call me names... He was a solid conservative who chose a path to governance that was through the Republican Party and he was staunchly loyal to that party. He supported Nixon and Ford (even after Ford used every ounce of political clout to win the nomination in 1976).

Reagan fought hard for the nomination in 1980 (I remember I was a supporter - it was my first election), but who did he choose as his running mate? The Establishment Republican George HW Bush.

So. A team wins, and it wins not by being all quarterbacks, or all running backs... It wins when it's different parts work toward the goal of winning.

Another little football story on this Super Bowl Sunday while I anxiously await my pot of coffee...

We played sandlot football as kids. Loved to play tackle. No pads - No equipment and often a goofy sized field where the sidewalks were the goal lines.

Well, we divided up into teams some of us liked each other and some of us didn't (tackle giving us sort of a measure of revenge for off field offenses..)

We played for hours, all through the fall and into the occasional snows of winter. I never realized it but my father was watching those games. He watched from a distance because he never wanted to interfere, only be close if something happened.

I didn't find out until in a scotch lubricated moment as the latest round of chemo failed, and it was obvious that he didn't have long for this existence, my old soldier father told me;

I loved those games. It was so funny to watch it took a minute to plan the play with all its dippsy doodles and you do this and you do that. It took maybe 12 seconds to execute, with no one doing much of anything drawn in the dirt.... And then the big show of a five minute argument over who fouled whom....

Then he chuckled took a sip of scotch... well not a sip.. I am nearing 50 now, and I think that it would still choke me. He sighed and looked back at the TV. It was 1975, and it was our last Super Bowl together...

My team, our team, won.

Go STEELERS!!!!

r/John

Basil Plumley| 2.1.09 @ 11:04AM

@John
Allow me to regale you with another story which dovetails with your premise.

In 1988, Bush 41 wanted Jack Kemp to be his VP. Pat Robertson, in a fit of pique, made it plain to Bush 41 that the social conservatives would stay home if Kemp were on the ticket. It appears there were some bad feelings between Kemp and Robertson from the IA caucuses that never healed. As a result of fearing a 1986 redux, the compromise candidate was Dan Quayle. The rest is as they say is history.

Ask yourself two questions; 1) would Bush 41's domestic policy have been different had Kemp been there to influence it? (no new taxes pledge) 2) would have the conservatives abandoned Bush 41 in 1992 had Kemp been on the ticket?

Sorry John, but for the first time in my lifetime I will not be rooting for the Steelers. (I tend to be an AFC guy) Someone very close to my family is a close friend of Ken Whisenhunt the head coach of the Phoenix Cardinals. I am hoping it will be a great game.

ConservativeWanderer| 2.1.09 @ 2:38PM

Perhaps we all should read the words of our generous host here, R. Emmett Tyrrell:

"Of course, we conservatives have been thrust into the wilderness before: in 1964, in 1976, and in 1992. Every time the experience has proved to be highly amusing: recall if you will, LBJ (we called him Old Beagle Ears), Jimmy Carter (we called him the Wonder Boy), and Bill Clinton (we called him many things: the Boy President, Boy Clinton, and our Ithyphallic President). Who needs Pol Roger or the accoutrements advertised in the L.L. Bean catalogue when the Democratic Party provides entertainment like that?

Incidentally, after every stay in the wilderness we conservatives have come back stronger. The reason we keep coming back is that we are not a party of prophets or messiahs but a party of principles. Our principles have been preferable to the dreams and fantasies of the likes of LBJ and Jimmy Carter."

I also remember the story of Theodore Geisel, probably the most famous author whose name noone knows... because he used his middle name as part of his pen name... Dr. Seuss.

Ol' Doc Seuss' first book wasn't Cat In The Hat... it was a little tome called And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. When he was trying to get it published, he went to 27--yes, TWENTY-SEVEN--different publishers, and each one of them refused it. Did he give up? Did he demean and demonize other authors? Did he demand that the book publishing industry change to meet his needs?

No. He picked himself up and tried again. And again. And again. And finally he succeeded. It was many years, and many books, before Cat In The Hat and his marvelous fame came around.

I do hope I don't have to explain the moral of the story.

Sorry for not joining in the football meme... I'm a baseball fan. And it's only 13 days till pitchers and catchers report for spring training!

Kat| 2.1.09 @ 3:57PM

I still think our main problem is lack of leadership. How do we address this issue? It's destructive to attack each other and to place blame, so I try to honor Reagan's 11th commandment. It's tough right now, but If we believe in our principles and each other, I think we can be successful again. What is our other recourse?

ConservativeWanderer| 2.1.09 @ 4:23PM

Patience, Kat. Patience.

When the GOP was sent out to the wilderness in 1992, did anyone know then that Newt would step forward and become a leader? I doubt it.

Never doubt that there are leaders out there in the GOP. And sooner or later one will step forward. He'll be attacked by the lefty Republicans like David Frum (that man discredits a perfectly good first name... which I happen to share), but if he's made of the stuff it takes to go up against Obama, this future leader will be able to weather those attacks.

Therefore, I say again, patience.

Kat| 2.1.09 @ 10:57PM

Your lips to God's ears. In the meantime, I'm gonna pray.

sidnee| 12.12.09 @ 12:24PM

jack wills
ugg new arrivals