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GOP 2.0 - Rebooting the Republican Party

by cjbreisch | June 3, 2008 at 12:37 PM

I stumbled upon a great post by Doug Ross about what Republicans need to do. Of course, it's possible that I think it's great because so much of it mirrors my statements here.

Indeed. The Republican brand has lost its way. I believe that it's time for citizens to rise up and demand a new Republican Party! I'm calling it GOP 2.0. And I'm perfectly willing to throw out those "Republicans" who are stuck on stupid -- and are stuck in the GOP 1.0 world.

His tenets include:

  • Strengthen Nation Defense
  • Gain Energy Independence
  • Secure the Borders
  • Death to Earmarks
  • Death to Corruption
  • English as a National Language
  • Implement Flat Tax or Fair Tax
  • Reduce Size of Government
  • Spur Healthcare Competition
  • Address Entitlements

And as he says:

This should not be a platform. It should be a promise -- an ironclad commitment -- to voters.

As they say, read the whole thing.

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Comments

All great ideals

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 15:09.

And I am sure in his own way McCain and his campaign will try and convince us he has "got the message".

But, as I have said...conservatives are tired of electing Republicans into public office only to see them slide into the tax and spend camp. We need a general house-cleaning. We have needed a house-cleaning for the last twenty years. Bringing a Rockefeller-Republican into office isn't going to get the job done. All it will do is insure that a liberal democrat will win office in 2012. By 2016 the job of house-cleaning will just be that much harder to accomplish.

ex animo

davidfarrar

It's growing fairly obvious. . .

Submitted by Walt Gilbert on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 15:30.

. . .that you just don't know much about McCain.  He's been the strongest, sometime the only, advocate for spending restraint in the Senate for years.  In fact, part of what has self-declared conservatives up in arms over his nomination is the fac that they felt he thwarted too much of President Bush's agenda in the first four years following the 2000 elections.  When he insisted on accompanying spending cuts for any tax cut, he was called a RINO.  When he refused to get behind the expansion of Medicare, and actively opposed it right up until the end, again, he was called a RINO.

When he battled agricultural subsidies -- particularly ethanol subsidies -- once again, RINO.

When he was harping on the administration to send in more troops to Iraq, against the delicate sensibilities of the Rumsfeld fan club who felt he was too harsh in his assessment of things -- you guessed it:  RINO.

When he came out against Mitt Romney's idea of the federal government bailing out the Big Three in Detroit, he was accused lacking the business accumen needed in order to restore the economy in the area.  So much for the conservative principle of fiscal restraint and limited government, I suppose.

When he refused to sign on to the idea of taxpayers bailing out the landowners who build in hurricane-prone areas through a national catastrophic insurance program, it apparently counted for nothing among our self-appointed scions of fiscal responisibility and self-reliance.

The fact is, in spite of the areas where I disagree with him -- particularly cap-and-trade and McCain-Feingold -- he has been a strong advocate for the core conservative principles of national security, fiscal restraint, and personal responsibility.

But, since all those stances so often cut against the grain of the Republican agenda, McCain was labeled as a RINO.  And, despite the fact that he has proven to be right in so many areas, he continues to carry the label because, basically, there are a lot of conservatives out there who simply can't countenance the notion that they've been taken for suckers, and McCain makes an easy target for their ire.

Lies, all lies.

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 18:06.

When he was harping on the administration to send in more troops to Iraq, against the delicate sensibilities of the Rumsfeld fan club who felt he was too harsh in his assessment of things -- you guessed it:  RINO.

Perhaps you can explain who it was that called him a RINO for supporting the surge.

When he refused to get behind the expansion of Medicare, and actively opposed it right up until the end, again, he was called a RINO.

Again, you're just making stuff up. Who called him a RINO for this?

 

 When he insisted on accompanying spending cuts for any tax cut, he was called a RINO. 

 

No, that is not why he was called a RINO. He was called a RINO for saying things like this;

"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.’

Or this;

 “Sixty percent of the benefits from Bush’s tax cuts go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans … I’m not giving tax cuts for the rich.”

 

He was called a RINO for opposing drilling for oil in the US. For supporting open borders. For supporting habeas corpus for foreign terrorists. For wanting to close Gitmo. For favoring price controls. For joining with the left-wing of the Democratic party to co-sponsor many pieces of very liberal legislation. That is why he is called a RINO, and that is why he is one.

Perhaps reading isn't your best suit. . .

Submitted by Walt Gilbert on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 18:48.

. . .because I clearly didn't say people called him a RINO for supporting the surge.  They called him a RINO for going after Donald Rumsfeld.  See?  It says so, right up there where you quoted me.

As for those who called him a RINO for opposing the expansion of Medicare, perhaps you don't have the memory or the experience on the internet that I have.  But, I recall very distinctly at the time when the legislation was passing through Congress, everytime McCain's name appeared in print, people online -- particularly on the internet bulletin boards and in the comments sections of blogs -- lambasted him as being a RINO because he didn't walk in lockstep with President Bush.

In fact, that has been the pattern ever since the 2000 elections:  any time McCain did anything that sought to thwart the Republican agenda (as it were), he was branded as a RINO.  You can sit and demand names of who they were, and pretend that it simply wasn't the case, but I know better, and so does anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty.

As for the quotes listed wherein he trashed the Bush tax cuts as being geared more toward top earners than the middle class, I will concede that he said them, and I agree that anyone who said such things would be branded as such.  However, there were others among the losers who expressed similar sentiments -- particularly Mitt Romney -- in the past when it was fashionable to do so.  Yet, they were clearly spared from the wrath of folks like you who have never forgiven McCain for challenging the Republican wisdom in the afterglow of Bush's election.

No matter what he did, or how conservative it was, if it didn't toe the Republican line, he was called a RINO.  You may regret the fact that so much of what McCain opposed eventually came to be, but you can't say that you (or anyone else, really) lifted a finger to help him in opposing it, preferring instead to trash him for committing the heresy of not getting on board, or going along to get along.  Anything he said or did that didn't conform to the conventional wisdom as handed down to the rank and file from the party bigwigs was derided as nothing more than a desire to "stick it to the President".

Whatever your stance was at the time, McCain could find precious little support among all these so-called principled conservatives when he actually stood up for their principles.  Instead, he was met with stoney silence and shushing from those who felt that it was more important to support the President in the first term of his presidency than it was to actually stand up for the principles that they now so sorely miss.

So, please forgive those of us who take you less than seriously now that you've shown up some six years late to the fiscal responsibility party.  You had your chance to actual show some spine a long time ago.  You failed to do so, and as a consequence, you got John McCain as your nominee.  In other words, you got exactly what you deserved, and you, more than anyone else, are responsible for him being the nominee today.

Enjoy.

The Basis of Everything

Submitted by AeroSpear on Fri, 07/11/2008 - 18:07.

EDUCATION.  The lack of quality education is apparent all around.  School vouchers would be a great step in the correct direction.  It would promote competition and higher quality.

As it stands, there is not much pushing schools to keep the level of teaching ever higher unless it's just great direction from the principal or school board or ... Parents doing their job, following up on their kids.

When you don't have to worry about losing your buisiness/customers, you don't have the same type of drive to do your job.  It's as simple as that.