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Let Syria Play Out
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Happy Birthday, Willie
April 30, 2013 | 10 comments
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George Jones RIP
April 26, 2013 | 7 comments
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Two-by-Four Did It for the Mule
April 17, 2013 | 2 comments
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Obama AWOL
April 17, 2013 | 8 comments
The Spectacle Blog
George Neumayr is spot on this morning in “The Big Tent in the Middle.” There already is a Democratic Party. No need for two of them.
“Our liberals can beat their liberals” is not a battle cry Republicans can follow to victory. Even if it were, such a “victory” would be as hollow as a tennis ball.
The Democrats are unapologetically the party of the left. If Republicans would ever stop mincing around and start being the full-service party of the right they might get somewhere. As it stands, Republicans continue to natter on about the “electability” of yet another moderate, politically correct, Marquis of Queensberrry, oh-so-polite candidate who refuses to pin the tail on the odious donkeys and as a result gets his rear handed to him by Democrats who never hesitate to throw the fastball high and tight.
Teflon93 | 11.8.12 @ 10:38AM
We conservatives told you that at the time. AmSpec joined National Review and The Weekly Standard in pushing Liberal Mitt anyway.
mike 3/505| 11.8.12 @ 10:48AM
+1
mzk| 11.8.12 @ 11:22AM
So how do we stop it? Hold our own primaries with our own money so they aren't open to Democrats?
Prester John| 11.8.12 @ 2:48PM
Have some sort of mechanism where the conservatives pick their candidate to go against the GOP establishment moderate. I'd guess that "conservatives" make up at least 60% of the GOP yet their votes in the last two presidental primary seasons got split up between 3-4-5 different candidates, which means the moderate won most of the primaries. The surviving conservative couldn't match the 40% of the establishment until the decision has already been made.
JP| 11.8.12 @ 2:52PM
Seriously. Which one of the other Republican misfits would you have backed? Bachman? Perry?Cain?Johnson? Newt? Paul?
Good grief, it was a fest for the insane. None of those candidates were fit to run for the WH, let alone govern. Mitt benefited from a very weak field.
Mender| 11.8.12 @ 7:31PM
So you're saying Michele Bachmann would have done better, say? Good grief. She barely won her own district. Or how about Rick Santorum? Guy knows how to win in Pennsylvania.
Romney at least had a proven ability to win in a Republican-unfriendly state. Nominating a conservative would probably not have cost any more states, but it wouldn't have helped one jot.
Crassus| 11.8.12 @ 11:04AM
The moderates nominated Mittenz but they couldn't get him elected. Same as it ever was.
mzk| 11.8.12 @ 11:21AM
The problem is that we need to beat the MSM also. Suppose instead of Akin and Mourdock being asked about abortion for rape, what if their opponents had been asked about abortion for sex selection?
But instead of seeing the issue, even Coulter is forming the circular firing squad. we need to stop the local versions of the MSM from creating wedge issues by refusing to answer thses questions until we have proof the other side answered the equivalent.
And where the hell is FOX?
JP| 11.8.12 @ 12:26PM
Mourdock could have easily turned the tables by emphasizing the radicalism of the Pelosi concerning abortion. And you are right. Mourdock and Akin could have turned the tables via the sex selection-abortion issue.
Indy| 11.8.12 @ 12:57PM
People have already forgotten the damage Lugar did to Mourdock. Lugar was a sore loser and instead of uniting voters, he chose to put himself over country. Yes, Mourdock did some damage to himself but Lugar is the one who did the most damage. Also, wasn't there a 3rd candidate in both of these Senate races? Maybe I'm wrong but I thought there was an independent on the ticket.
JP| 11.8.12 @ 2:55PM
There was a Libertarian running in Donnelly's old seat in Northern Indiana. He took 3% of the vote away from Jackie Wowlorski. She won by 2% margin. Donnelly did the same thing in 2008 and won by 1%.
RCV| 11.8.12 @ 12:03PM
That's the prescription, Mr. Thornberry! Let's narrow our party and move on to victory! I wish you success in your endeavor, because it guarantees decades of Republican defeat.
JP| 11.8.12 @ 12:24PM
Who said anything about making it narrow? If the GOP would be a true Conservative party, the votes and members would arrive in droves. The GOP hasn't been a Conservative party since 1986.
Zeppo| 11.8.12 @ 12:53PM
That's a false dilemma, RCV. If the GOP is to survive, it has to invigorate itself by sharpening its goals and creating broad public discussion. The sort of shamefaced "plausible deniability" that they seem to consider smart politics is a sure loser.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.8.12 @ 6:57PM
Well, RCV, the Republican Party has "broadened" in the last two elections. If it broadens any more, it will become like the media, a wing of the Democrat Party.
Quartermaster| 11.8.12 @ 1:04PM
There is no big tent in the middle. The country has moved left significantly since the 50s. The GOP started as a leftist party and was the original progressive party. The Dems lost with regularity after Lincoln's war and so since they couldn't beat the GOP, they joined them, and in the 70s out did them in their statism and crony capitalism.
We desperately need a true right of center party that is willing to reach and overcome the socialist schools brainwashing. The GOp will never do this as they are congenitally unable to do so. The time has arrived for Operation Whig. The GOP must die.
RCV| 11.8.12 @ 2:10PM
Not that any of you are interested, but here's my Democratic view of the current state of the GOP.
It need not abandon its advocacy of conservative economic and free enterprise principles to succeed. Those are positions that resonate well in all kinds of demographic groups in the country in addition to the majority of white males, which is the current base of the GOP. A strong, positive Reagan advocacy of these principles can indeed find an audience among women, among Asian and Latino voters, and even among elements of the Black community.
The GOP's problem, however, is that it has allowed its message to be hijacked by those who want to couple that message with social views that are anathema to non-white males: antiquated positions on contraception; no abortion exceptions for rape, incest, health of mother; positions on immigration that are inflexible; efforts to suppress voting participation by blacks.
Until the GOP is able to unshackle its attractive economic advocacy from the stranglehold social conservatives have on the party, it is doomed to a long absence from the White House.
Zeppo| 11.8.12 @ 2:22PM
Agreed that the GOP needs to do a lot better at agenda-building. Just not the agenda that you Dems prescribe, which amounts to a counsel of despair.
JP| 11.8.12 @ 2:57PM
Yet, in both 2008 and 2012 the GOP significantly reduced its social messaging. And in both cases, turnout has gone down when compared to 2004. Nice try, but no cigar.
Borrowing $5.6 trillion is a moral issue and not an economic one.
ejp| 11.8.12 @ 5:41PM
No, RCV I am not interested in your view in which you believe that social conservatives should be the new "closeted" group of people in this country and there should be lock-step uniformity on social issues that cater to your out-of-mainstream Far Left perspectives in which unlimited abortion on demand is the norm, bigotry is encouraged against practicing Christians who don't kowtow to the gay Gestapo and their "Support gay marriage or else!" edicts, and demands that private businesses should be forced to subsidize the $9 a month birth control pill addiction habits of women who I guess are more obsessed about sex than their economic well-being! (so much for the old argument about not glorifying women as mere sex objects). You can take your advice and stuff it.
Nightwinger| 11.11.12 @ 4:47AM
I had a "moral" objection to my tax dollars going to that stupid war in Iraq too, but couldn't "opt out" because of it.
I also have a "moral" objection to my tax dollars going to support the religious dogma of church-owned investments who think they are above the secular law.
Most Americans are not ready to tear down the Statue of Liberty and replace it with a cross.
Quartermaster| 11.8.12 @ 6:08PM
If morality is a "stranglehold" to you, then you can prepare for the continued decline of the US into the cesspool the Dimocrats want for us. Ignorance and immorality are the two things that will prevent a trust society from being built.
The issues facing FedGov are, at their heart, moral problems. The left wants to spend money on a ton of utopian schemes and make our grandchildren pay for them. That is utterly immoral, not to mention stupid in the extreme.
JimH| 11.8.12 @ 2:38PM
I don’t have ready access to numbers to support this, but I think many young voters who supported Paul chose to stay home, vote Johnson (nearly 1% of the vote) or maybe even Obama. Had Paul been treated better by the party and to be fair, if he had endorsed Romney it would have gone away to countering BO’s edge in this demographic. As for Hispanics, it has been said before. Demography is destiny. The party needs to be less concerned with how people got here and more concerned with what they are doing while here. If they are working and paying taxes they should be made welcome. What needs to happen is to reduce the incentive and ability for new arrivals to immediately latch onto the public teat. I can tell you stories from New York of immigrants from other countries being welcomed upon arrival by their brethren who got here before and being given applications and instruction for signing up for all sorts of benefits. Hispanics and American blacks are not natural allies and in fact are already competing in some areas for jobs and political influence. Many Hispanics are culturally conservative and should be made to feel welcome in the party.
Quartermaster| 11.8.12 @ 6:13PM
If making Hispanics "comfortable" in the party means the destruction of the rule of law, what is the reason to make them comfortable? They want to be rewarded for coming in illegally, and that requires ignoring the law. That is something the Dimocrats are more than happy to do. Once more, you have a moral issue the left is quite happy to come down on the wrong side of.
Stan Redmond| 11.8.12 @ 2:39PM
AMEN. Even if the whole RNC embraced every single liberal goal and became pure marxists the liberal would STILL move further to the left.
It is proven every single time. Find one isuue, just one, where the democrats didn't move the goalpost when wishy washy republicans caved to demcrat demands. JUST ONE.
ejp| 11.8.12 @ 5:45PM
And where oh where may I ask is the "Big Tent" in the Democratic party? Answer, it hasn't had one for decades. There is no diversity of thought in their party, only lock-step solidarity behind the Far Left message that they can camouflage only thanks to the sycophancy of the press corps and the sleazy corruption of the entertainment industry with their neverending blacklist against conservatives and their neverending demonization of conservative beliefs.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 8:43AM
Actually, no. The Democrats get away with putting a crook in the White House and more crooks in the Senate because they avoid violating the Constitution in showy ways that people can identify with. Telling women you're going to let the church down the road they don't even belong to determine what they can do with their bodies, Constitution be damned, is what killed us in this last election. The Democrats don't do that - they do WORSE, but 30 years of Democratic teachers' union dominated education has given us voters who don't CARE about a one-man government in Washington. They care about issues that they can SEE touch their freedom personally.
When we realize that and run our party accordingly, we'll win the big elections again, not before.
Nightwinger| 11.11.12 @ 1:26PM
Not regarding women as mere receptacles would be a good place to start.
Mender| 11.8.12 @ 7:44PM
Here's an audacious proposal:
All primary debates in regions with a PVI of less than R+20 should invite along a moderator who is a prominent local Democrat or liberal columnist. That will give voters a sense of how candidates will deal with questions in the general election. Right now, primary debates are an exercise in which candidates are asked carefully if they are conservative or very conservative, and the very conservative guy wins.
This is what produced Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, Josh Mandel, and so many other strange people with stranger theories about rape.
Rhoetus| 11.9.12 @ 7:46AM
Bush41 is as hollow as a tennis ball as is Bob Dole; Bush43 is LBJ with a human face.
Nightwinger| 11.11.12 @ 5:09AM
Quite a collection of solipsistic fantasies here. It appears you folks actually believe you can abandon huge chunks of the population and still win a national election.
Republicans might win if they decide to run a political campaign instead of a religious crusade.
Last I checked, we don't live in a Theocracy where a bunch of celibate old men with pointy hats determine national policy.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 7:48AM
We have a "big tent" in the GOP? Where have you guys hidden it? The fact is, GOP has been the captive of social conservatism since the late 1980s. The internal "triangulation" process in GOP has allowed us to be shackled to some awesomely indefensible legislative agendas. DOMA just got shot down on Constitutional grounds; worse still, the foggy stand on reproductive choice forced by GOP's internal politics with the social conservatives has given the Democrats the stick with which they beat us to death in this last election.
Romney could have stood up early in the campaign and called the Democrats out on some of the lying they were doing all over the country about GOP candidates' stands on reproductive rights IF the GOP actually had a stand on that issue to defend!
But that would have involved confronting the social conservatives on their understanding of the Constitution. The GOP's ONLY strength in this country is that it has ALWAYS defended the Constitution, going back to the lead-up to the War Between the States. When we forget that, we LOSE.
Instead of folding the Big Tent, we might actually try getting the church ushers away from the doors to it and letting everyone IN. Then we pass out copies of the Constitution and see who believes enough in it to be a Republican.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 8:31AM
"Believing enough in the Constitution to be a Republican" can be the ONLY Litmus test we use.
Social conservatives' stand on abortion is informed by the squeamishness I share about destroying fetuses, but which neither the Constitution nor "natural law" affirms. Nothing in the Constitution on abortion; and St. Augustine said that the 'quickening' which heralds the creation of a human being in utero doesn't happen until after the first trimester of pregnancy.
Ronald Reagan kept his views on the subject of abortion to himself. Notice he was elected to two terms as President by acclamation. He knew we have to live with people who think differently than us. The Constitution can be our only guide to doing that.
The definition of marriage? Like strictures against gays in general, it's a religious matter. Read the First Amendment and tell me we can define marriage in Congress.
The only hope conservatives have of regaining the public's trust after the Democrats have spent fortunes ripping it to shreds is to cling tenaciously to the Constitution of the United States of America, that document Barack Obama told New England Public Radio "is holding us back."
We are letting Barack Obama turn our land into a one-man tyranny because we're afraid of offending social conservatives. Acknowledging other people's legitimate claims to the protection of the same Constitution that protects US is a very small price to pay for saving the nation.
Nightwinger| 11.11.12 @ 1:23PM
You post some interesting thoughts. On the same subject, it should be pointed out that there is not one single word about "god" in the Constitution.
Not one.
It is in fact a ferociously secular document, many think was deliberately written that way.