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How Conservatism Comes Back
Submitted by Patrick Ruffini on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 07:33
People ask me when they think grassroots conservatism will make a comeback. And now I have a simple answer for them: if David Brooks' ideas for the future of the Republican Party ever take hold at an elite level, the grassroots conservative backlash will be so ferocious to make the mid-'90s conservative takeover of the party at local level seem like a garden party by comparison.
In his latest New York Times column, "The Coming Activist Age," Brooks predicts a coming burst of government interventionism in health care, energy, and the economy. Rather than presage an era of Democratic dominance, Brooks argues, Republicans may be well-suited to ride this wave by arguing for tempered, "patriotic" changes rather than the Democrats' radical changes. Historically, this is a model that has worked -- with Teddy Roosevelt, Benjamin Disraeli, and (unmentioned) Otto von Bismarck, conservative architect of the German welfare state.
The problem is that Brooks (and to a large degree, Bill Kristol) have been making this argument for the last decade or more. I remember when Kristol and Brooks first wrote that famous Weekly Standard piece on "national greatness conservatism" in 1997 (recapped in this WSJ op-ed) -- which argued, laugably, for large public momuments as a testament to a more patriotic, nationalist Leviathan. This argument too held up Teddy Roosevelt as a model for right-leaning government activism, and it manifested again in their enthusiasm for John McCain's TR-centric 2000 bid.
Rather than a nimble adaptation to recent Democratic victories, Brooks' latest appears to be simply recycled national greatness conservatism from the '90s.
Though the political environment may be poisoned for Republicans, Brooks makes the mistake of conflating that with the policy environment. In fact, you could well make the argument that the policy environment favors a march towards individualized solutions on health care, worker training, and entitlements, over the current corporatist solutions (employer-based health insurance), and 180 degrees from the envisioned Obama/Brooks ultra-corporatist, government solutions.
To a certain extent, the industrial age favored a strong government. Government was the only institution that could go toe to toe with the large employers, and conditions for the middle class were enough the same that one size did fit all, to some degree. This is why the New Deal was viable at the time. But with the advent of the information age and the rise of self-employment, those days are over.
Does the same apply to an information age nation of free agents? As a small business owner, my self interest is not for government health care. I want cheaper, individual health plans with a lot of choice, with any risk pooled through free-forming associations of small businesses like mine. The idea that you can only pool health care risk through 20th century corporations or government seems as nonsensical to me as the idea of having to shell out hundreds or thousands for an Exchange server when free apps do the job just as well.
As conservatives and libertarians, we must firmly reject the David Brooks idea that Obama's ideas represent the "future" or "change" or even "radical change." They are in fact a radical reaction -- a return to the dreary 1930s when big government, big corporations, and big labor ruled.
Conservatives, because of the label, often get hung up in arguing for the past. We wear Adam Smith ties, name our institutions after 18th and 19th century philosophers, and bandy about quotes from the revolutionary era. That is all well and good, but it doesn't represent modern conservatism at its best.
Ronald Reagan changed the conservative movement from being tempermentally cautious to being dynamic, optimistic, and dare I say it, progressive. Reagan was the one who broke the chains of high tax rates, presided over the downfall of the big institutions of the 20th century, ended the Soviet Union, and led the way towards a more open, dynamic, technology-driven economy.
This doesn't mean, as I've argued before, that we need to constantly look back to Reagan as we look to Adam Smith. But it does mean that we need to have confidence that the path of progressively smaller government, progressively lower tax rates, and progressively more individualized solutions on Social Security or health care is the correct one, because it matches up with the realities of today's decentralized free-agent economy.
It's not inconceivable that Brooks' 20th century corporatist vision will capture conservativism at a leadership level. But it won't be a grassroots conservatism. And ultimately, you need grassroots conservatism to get elected and to sustain you once in office. Ahistorical "national greatness" schemes cooked up in D.C. will be the downfall of the Republican Party.
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E pluribus unum
What is missing from today's conservatism is its appeal to American exceptualism. That exceptualism springs forth from the belief in and reliance upon a free and sovereign people to successfully address the challenges of the future. But when the sovereignty of the people is diminished, so to is the ability of the people to successfully choose the best course of action to take to address the challenges of the future.
The success of this doctrine is based on the universal truth that it is the people who will ultimately pay for the mistakes of their governments, and in so doing, in a true democracy, learn from their mistakes. It is treason, therefore, in a democracy to deny the people their right, their duty, their obligation, to learn from their mistakes.
Conservatives today should be calling out against the placing of an open-ended checkbook into the hands of the political class. When the people gave Congress the power to levy taxes it assumed Congress would use that power to tax the people to pay for their government's spending, thus, creating a natural check and balance against the political class spending itself into power. However, Congress and the executive branch aren't taxing the people, they are borrowing from their future what money they need to stay in power. The peoples' ability to keep government spending in check has been taken from them while they applaud and think it good.
Today, the people are being denied their opportunity to learn how much their vote actually costs them. When people are no longer asked to pay for their government, they are no longer free sovereigns, consenting to be governed, but slaves to a fascist state.
Welcome.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Patrick, you hit the nail on the head
The problem is Brooks, Kristol, et.al. is that they are elites who have never delivered any votes, other their own, to a conservative candidate. They talk to themselves and have no idea what moves the majority of voters. They also fail to see or acknowledge that Bush implemented their big government ideas and he has been a policy and political failure.
I address some of these same issues in a recent post..
I blame Bush
This new direction many people want to take the Republican Party has much to do with George W. Bush. The Reagan and Gingrich approach to conservatism stressed government was the problem, not the solution. This concept was constantly stressed and reinforced, and it worked, both politically and in terms of policy. Over the last 25 years, majorities of Americans understood how incompetent and inefficient the government was.
Bush, on the other hand, stressed that conservatives can make government the solution. He campaigned on the largest entitlement since the Great Society, the Medicare Prescription Drug program. He also wanted taxpayer dollars to fund religious organizations' outreach to their communities. There are many other examples of his approach that have shifted the debate from how to make government smaller, to how to make government better. (which usually means bigger)
Once Republicans have agreed that government is the solution, you can never win against a Democrat, because they can always outspend and overpromise. If big government is the solution, why not elect the party of big government?
I could not agree more with this.
But, let us not forget the expansions of government by this president in the area of education, and his creation of a new, poorly organized cabinet department. Mr. Ruffini is correct. Conservatism needs to be about strengthening the individual again. He is also correct to say that the party needs to be forward-looking, rather than harkening back to some past mythical age. Reagan won in part because he felt that the greatest years of U.S. history were ahead of us, and not behind us. In the post industrial age, libertarian conservatism has its chance to thrive, and promote all that is great about this country by encouraging the pioneering spirit that set us apart from the rest.
Note to Brooks and Kristol:
As well said above by other commentators, "compassionate" (aka Big Government) conservatism is dead. President Bush killed it. Do they forget things like "a government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything"?
The thing I like most about McCain is that I believe he will actually work to cut spending. He voted against Medicare Part D, he voted against the Energy Pork Bill, and he voted against the Transportation Pork Bill. He won't wait 6 years to use a veto pen, even if it is against his own party. He has his faults, but he does have a lot of good qualities.
It's hardly dead.
McCain is at least as much a big government guy as Bush, maybe more so. You really should look into the details of the McCain-Lieberman global warming bill.
He won't wait 6 years to use a veto pen, even if it is against his own party.
I think we can take McCains wilingness to stick it to the GOP for granted. What's a lot more doubtful is whether he'd be willing to have a big fight with the Democrats/MSM. He's spent the last several years sucking up to his "good friends".
demographics and conservatism.
The real discussion is whether conservatism can make a comeback at all. Given that less than half the children in kindergarten are white, the demographic trends in the U.S. are against any conservative political party. What Brooks and others are trying to do is discuss how the Repubican Brand can exist given the demographic changes in the U.S. Their solution is to stop being conservative.
If you want people to not trust the government and do things on their own, then people need to fell the full weight of the government. That means no more deficit spending, if people want government programs, they need to pay the taxes to fund them in the current year to includ Social Security, medicare, etc.
The second part is that is you want people to stop liking big government, you have to cut the pay versus the private sector. In too many places in the U.S., the government pays well above local wages and thus, makes government jobs, the best jobs to have. This has to stop.
Somewhat Comforting About Demographics
A Syracuse professor did a study where he contends becuase Republicans tend to have many more children than Democrats, the nation will shift right:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008831
I have to say, anecdotally, there is a lot of truth to this. My Democrat friends tend to loathe children, and my Republican friends tend to have large families. At some point in the future, this has to come around in our favor.
Hmmm....
This thread is all over the place but it's interesting.
I don't think conservative principles are limited to whites. Conservatives simply need to explain their principles better and we need that same ONE thing that I keep coming back to. LEADERSHIP!
I ran across an interesting column by Patricia Cohen on the NY Times this morning.
Naturally, there's some things in it that I disagree with but I do agree with the segment about the dearth of conservative leaders emerging from the younger generations that should be coming into their own in leadership positions about now. Say the 35 to 50 age group. Where are you?
We have Jindal. We have Palin. We have uh...um...hmmm....
Leadership
The good news is that the Democrats don't seem to have much in the way of brilliant young leadership either. Although perhaps thay have less need for it.
As for "minorities" and conservatism - Reagan was a great and charismatic leader, and he lost the black and Hispanic votes by the usual overwhelming margin. I don't think leadership is gonna to cut it. You want the Hispanic vote, you'd better be ready to buy it, and outbid the Dems.
Conservatism is limited to whites in modern America
Non-whites in the U.S. all vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Even upper middle class Asian-Americans who own their own business vote Democratic over Republicans by 65% to 35%. Blacks vote over 90% Democratic and Hispanics vote around 75% for Democrats. Hispanics would be almost like blacks if not for Cuban-Americans being the liberal wing of the Republican Party.
The Democratic Party panders to all non-whites by saying "We will tax whites (Democrats use the code word rich) and we will give the money to you." The Democrats know how to use government set asides, quotas, affirmative action, civil rights laws,and the voting rights act to limit the number of non-whites voting for Republicans.
There is no issue, no leader, no campaign that appears capable of getting non-whites to vote for Repubicans. The Bush Administration has just made it worse. The Bush Administraiton tried to pander to hispanics with the immigration amnesty bill and manage to alienate both Hispanics and conservative whites.
A self-defeating cycle
We ought not listen to self-defeating comments because in reality the numbers do change. Christie Whitman got almost 40% of the black vote. How and why? She actually *tried*.
Bush won Asian Americans in 2004. And he did quite well, winning a majority of Hispanics in his Gov re-election race in 1998. How and why? He actually *tried*. Saying 'we cannot win them' is pure BS. Up until now, we havent.
For blacks, there is a particular effect that some day (NOT this year) we can we should break through it. A concerted effort to win over conservative blacks, especially the 40-50% cultural conservative blacks could and should win dividends. Second, the hispanic vote does tilt Democratic, but a large factor is simply income levels. Its tough to win the taxpayer arguments with the folks who are not even paying income taxes.
There's a 'duh' moment right there. Quotas and affirmative action set asides are unpopular overall. Whites hate them, and you'd be surprised at how many blacks are not in favor of them. The GOP can win election after election if that is the election issue. So why not run against it and actually fix it? We need to make it JOB ONE to destroy these things and then blacks will stop thinking of themselves as clients of a Govt pander and start thinking (and voting) like other citizens.
In short, the path to win back the black vote is to end ALL racial preferences.
Never say never. This is self-defeating nonsense. Just one example: Educational choice is VERY POPULAR for urban minorities. Run Republicans as pro-school choice advocates and you will win a lot more than you did before. Blacks are more opposed to gay marriage than white voters. So why would they vote 80% for the party of gay marriage? Maybe because we have self-defeating GOP advisors who DONT EVEN TRY to reach out to blacks and make a difference. JMHO.
I agree, end racial preferences
I agree with your theory that when racial preferences are ended, the Democrat's stranglehold on black voters will also end. A lot of politicians are worried that it would create a massive backlash against Republicans, but I disagree. Liberals like preferences because it creates for them a captive audience. "Gives us your votes, and we'll give you set asides and quotas." Once that "threat" is no longer on the table, blacks will focus on other issues, and move on. The black vote goes 90% Democrat anyway, the Repubicans have nothing to lose by going after this issue.
Heh.
if David Brooks' ideas for the future of the Republican Party ever take hold at an elite level, ...
Those ideas are already held at the elite level, and they are held by the presumptive Republican nominee. The future arrived some time ago. Surely that's why a "next right" needs to exist?
As a small business owner, my self interest is not for government health care.
Then you're an unusual small business owner. Most business owners want nothing more than for government to take over the health-care industry and take that head-ache off their hands.
Big-Government Conservatism is An Oxymoron.
I am in complete agreement with Ruffini's fine retort to Brooks' blathering. Brooks means well, but he's breathed the liberal Kultursmog too long.
Long version of my take on this, complete with suggested 21st century conservative agenda points:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/07/big-government-conservatism-is...
Short version:
We need to reject the siren calls of me-too big Governmentism. ...
What has been discredited in the past few years if anything is Governmental hubris: Hurricanes still hurt us; wars are not painless victories; and political corruption and incompetence is endemic and fully bipartisan. Big Government and over-reaching Government has failed us. It's time to remember a basic Management 101 principle: when something or someone goes outside its areas of competence, it fails.
In this 'free-agent' economy, where you outsource everything but your core competence, we can have smaller and smarter Government. Good Government is Government that sticks to its core competence, which is the protection of our rights, our lives and our property from predators, criminals, and enemies. Anything outside that core competence invites Governmental corruption, incompetence, rent-seeking and waste; it repeats the failures of socialism and causes economic dislocations. Every need or desire in the culture or economy, can and should be filled by the actions of free people in the market-oriented, open and free economy and culture.
We can and we must have a 21st century vision of society and our nation built around the conservative principles that we believe in. If we cannot envision it, then we are destined to fight a futile defensive struggle against the encroachments of the other side. But we do have that vision: (details in Travis Monitor post, but summary is)
1. Choice. Education choice, social security, healthcare choice. etc.
2. Lower tax rates and limited spending combined with federal taxpayer bill of rights.
3. Open Government. Put all spending online. Sunshine on everything in Govt spending.
4. Term limits.
(not a complete list, but the key themes of choice, empowerment, and limiting Govt not citizens hold true to conservative principles while fitting the trends of the information economy).
...
Big-Government Conservatism is An Oxymoron. We must reject it. But we must also not get boxed into the mode of being Dr "No" as the left comes up with more creative excuses for Government control (such as "Oh no, the icecaps are melting polar bears away! Quick, lets regulate the entire energy usage of every person right now!") We need a positive, small-Government conservative agenda.
Brooks' answer IS NOT IT.
Karl Rove;s strategy had been shown not to work
freedoms truth on Mom,
President Bush did not win the Asian vote in 2004. See the exit pool results They showed him winning around 40% and were shown to massive overestimate the results of minority support for Bush. The Houston Chronicle ran a series of stories about it.
Also, blacks are not conservatives. The black congressional caucus is the most liberal group in Congress Just becaause balcks go to church at a higher rate than whites does not make the conservative or potential Republican votes. The same holds for Hispanics
Karl Rove believes that school choice would attract blacks. He has been shown to be wrong A huge number of blacks are school teachers, school administrators and and other school employees. That will never support school choice and neither will their families.
Blacks, Gays, Jews, and Muslims are support the same party because it is the big government party. Blacks get what they want (government spending on them) and gays get what they want, gay marriage and eventually applications of the civil rights laws to themselves.
All small governments can do it offer to take things away from them.
If colleged educated white collar whites can function in the same politcal party as La Raza and NAACP, there is little hope for Republicans.
Ask yourself this, why would anyone who is in college now want to go into Republican politics when there is so little hope for success and so little chance to affect anything.
well, then, do you have any positive recommendation
or are you just a troll draggin around a shovel?
I know this is often maligned around here but Republicans said the same thing a century ago about Italian immigrants. I'm sure the WASP upstate farmers of 1908 would never have imagined the political champion of their region's interests a century later would be named Joseph Bruno.
Positive recommendation #1
The GOP should stop trying to populate America with left-wing voters. How obvious is that?
Republicans said the same thing a century ago about Italian immigrants.
And they were right to say it. A hundred years later Italians are still liberal. Not quite as liberal as they were but still pretty liberal. In any case are you REALLY saying "Don't worry, in another century maybe Hispanics and Asians will assimilate to the same extent as Italians"? I mean, even if it's true, it's still a complete disaster. And it's entirely possible that they'll be more like Jews or blacks - rigidly welded to their own ethnicity above all else.
If I had your sort of optimism I'd blow my savings on lottery tickets.
Stop the sloppy generalizations, education is the big problem
"A hundred years later Italians are still liberal."
What, all of them? Tell that to Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Sam Alito. I seem to recall Alfonse D'Amato ran *against* liberals.
My gosh, what sloppy generalizations!
You could well say the same about Irish Catholics too, but then I'd give a longer list of exceptions, including yours truly.
"The GOP should stop trying to populate America with left-wing voters."
The main problem there is the educational system. Every year we let the liberals in academia brainwash 50 million kids, of all races and in all corners of the nation. We need to fight back on it. Concerns about Asians or immigrants is an irrelevency compared to this Huge Whale of an issue. we need to fight the indoctrination of kids into letism, multiculturalism and environmentalism. It is happening in the 'best schools' I know because its in my kids' schools.
PS Dont forget: We locked down immigration in 1924, next decade the Democrat domination in the New Deal started and endured for 50 years. Stopping immigration wont fix political woes if we dont fix the real problems in education.
"What, all of them?"
No need to be deliberately obtuse. Of course not all of them, any more than all blacks of Jews are liberal. But enough are to make it reasonable to say that they are, in aggregate. Which is what all political discussion comes down to.
You could well say the same about Irish Catholics too, but then I'd give a longer list of exceptions, including yours truly.
Again, individual examples are meaningless. The reality is that Irish Catholics as a group are pretty left wing. And I guess your list of exemptions would not include Jim McDermott or Ted Kennedy.
The main problem there is the educational system.
No, the problem is that the GOP keeps throwing fresh fuel into the educational system fire.
Concerns about Asians or immigrants is an irrelevency compared to this Huge Whale of an issue.
If we didn't have the immigrants then we wouldn't have the issue.
We locked down immigration in 1924, next decade the Democrat domination in the New Deal started and endured for 50 years
You don't know your history. It was the break in immigration that allowed the country to turn back to the right. It was the immigrants in the 1900's/early 20th century that led to the New Deal.
The Jewish Taxpayer's Alliance other ways to reach out
"applications of the civil rights laws to themselves."
You DO realize that the GOP since its founding in 1854 has been the real party of civil rights and equal opportunity for all?
There are marketing and perception issues, but the underlying reality is that we can and we should reach more of these voting blocs. A combination of GOP lassitude, media bias that smothers opportunities,
I did not say all or most blacks are conservatives, although the two best free-market conservative thinkers in America today happen to be black - Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. My point, that there are significant *cultural* conservative blacks who are reachable. Anybody going to Rev Wright's TUCC church and believing his garbage is probably not a reachable voter, but there are prolife, anti-gay-marriage Christian black voters who really dont belong in the party of ActUp, CodePink, Planned Parenthood and NARAL. Is it even a majority? Maybe not, but black vote for Republicans could and should go from 10% to 30 to 40% on that basis alone.
"Blacks, Gays, Jews, and Muslims are support the same party because it is the big government party."
The point is that many of them will get more hurt than helped by big Govt. A high-income Jewish voter has a double whammy from higher taxes and discrimination laws. I will add parenthetically that Asian-Americans are in a similar situation. They are voting associationally, not based ontheir real values and interests. If he is religiously observant, he might notice how his religious principles are trampled on by the party that wants to institute secularism.
I am in the process of reading Norquist's "Leave Us Alone", and he goes through multiple such cases and examples where members of the 'leave us alone' coalition can be gotten from non-traditional groups.
Maybe its time to outfox the Democrats and use the ethnic labels as a way to market this kind of outreach:
Christian Black Alliance, The Jewish Taxpayers Alliance, Asian-Americans for Strong Families, etc. Republicans have traditionally ignored the ethnic pandering because it is fundamentally against the concept of equal opportunity. But we have in Texas the "National Hispanic Republican Caucus" and it helps show people a 'welcome mat' to join the coalition.
My real point: LEAVE NO VOTER BEHIND. Anyone who believes in freedom, traditional family values, rule of law, and limited Govt principles of low taxes and fiscal responsibility is a reachable voter. Whatever ethnic group they belong to.
Well, yeah.
I will add parenthetically that Asian-Americans are in a similar situation. They are voting associationally, not based ontheir real values and interests. If he is religiously observant, he might notice how his religious principles are trampled on by the party that wants to institute secularism.
But that's the entire point. People do vote "associationally", or tribally. They don't vote the way you think they should. They don't vote on issues. About a quarter of the voters in America oppose Bush because he pronounces nuclear as "nukular". It marks him out as "not one of them". Blacks and Jews have been in this country from the beginning and they're not letting go of their tribal impulses. Is there any reason, any reason at all, to think that recent Asian or Hispanic arrivals will be any different?
The weakness of the right is that the people in it know business, but they don't know sociology or political science or even history. They don't know people.
Two things
1. I'd be against open borders on economic grounds even if the new voters were Republicans
2. Given the facts on the ground running campaigns insulting and disparaging nonwhite voters is monumentally insane. How about recruiting and running qualified nonwhite candidates instead of geriatric WASP retreads? or should we run the GOP like some snobbish WASP country club in the Eisenhower era? is your role model Judge Smails?
3. I think there are a lot of people who perversely like to scream the "end is near". At least the cult in Rancho santa Fe had a cool house to live in when they did the same thing.
perception v reality
Most of the politicians of both parties are white males. But the MSM has a way of completely touting the 'diversity of the Dems' and ignoring the same in the GOP.
You know, how Obama was a real big deal for the MSM in 2004 and since. Funny, the guy he was running against was a black conservative, Alan Keyes. But in 2006, candidate Michael Steele and other black GOP candidates for Senate and Gov were ignored (and in some cases maligned).
The only black official elected to statewide executive office in Texas ... is a Republican. He's a great guy too, Michael Williams. Just one listen to his dynamic speaking and you are hooked.
http://www.williamsfortexas.com/
The only minority members of the Texas Supreme court, are ALL Republicans.In Texas, the Republicans have a better record of running minority candidates than the Texas Democrat party.
"2. Given the facts on the ground running campaigns insulting and disparaging nonwhite voters is monumentally insane."
It sure is. I mentioned already Norquists' "Leave Us Alone" book. He has a section called "Gypsies" about certain voting blocs. He was in Romania trying to help the anti-Communists win elections, and he was wondering why waiters and Gypsies were such strong communist voting blocs. Well it turns out all the waiters were in pay of secret service (useful to know!) in the Communist era. And the Gypsies? Well, he suggested trying to reach out to Gypsies. The party leaders were appalled. "Dirty people. We dont want their vote."
Exactly. You only get the votes of the people you respect enough to connect to.
The long range solution
The first problem is that Republicans have to face the fact that they lost. They had a chance when President Bush was elected in 2000 to make changes. If the Republicans have lower government spending and reduced the burden of stupid regulations and if the economy had grown, they had a chance of gaining some minority voters while locking in over 60% of the white votes. That would have caused many more minorities to get involved with Republican party.
However, the enormous failures of the Bush Administration have eliminate the chance of gaining minority votes.
The best scenerio in the U.S for maintaining any conservative influence in politics is for the Republican Party to fold and all of the former Republican voters to start voting in the Democratic primaries. Conservatives will have a much greater chance of affecting policy by being one of several blocks in the Democratic Primary instead of a rump party running against the dominate Democratic party.
If Republicans want to start teaming with "conservative blacks and Hispanics" it will be easier inside the Democratic Primaries instead of trying to in the general election. If conservative become a large block inside the Democratic Party, they will create a reason for the elite, white progressives to leave and start their own party and leave the Hispanic, Asian, and black voters behind.
Rumors of GOP death have been greatly exaggerated
"The first problem is that Republicans have to face the fact that they lost."
The best and most growing states in the US, such as Texas, are Republican states. People are fleeing Democrat-run hellholes like MI, NY and CA for these greener pastures. That should tell you something about what 'lost' means.
If the Republicans lost an election or two, the real losers are the American taxpayer who will suffer from the Democrats' tax hikes and their failure to make the successful Bush tax cuts permanent. Whether we have to keep our time of sufference short or long under Democrat kleptocrats, that depends on how fast the voters can learn.
Yes we lost the US House and Senate and have now experienced 18 months of the incompetent and corrupt kleptocrats (look it up) under Pelosi and Ried. Our society cannot long endure such malfeasance, and the Democrats' game is to screw everything up and blame it on Bush. Kind of how the incompetent Dems Nagin and Blanco managed to get Bush and FEMA to blame for their own mistakes. Democrats are bad at Government but sure are better at finger-pointing. Funny thing is: It didnt fool the LA voters, who turned out Blanco and put in reformer Jindhal. So now Jindhal is adding Govt transparency, cleaning up corruption, and turning around that state. Sooner or later the Dems' game will be exposed for the farce that it is.
One of the dumb things the Democrats are trying to do is run against Bush. The Republicans tried to run against a *sitting* President in 1998 and it didnt really work. It wont work here.
"The best scenerio in the U.S for maintaining any conservative influence in politics is for the Republican Party to fold and all of the former Republican voters to start voting in the Democratic primaries."
I thought the 3rd party purists were politically foolish, but this idea suprasses that in stupidity. Thanks for the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time. Of course, a few GOP folks did do their "Operation Chaos" thing, but the idea that GOP is going away is hilariously stupid. You're not a lib-troll are you?
The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama is a very flawed candidate who will surpass Carter as WorstPresidentInOurLifetimes. He is right now running weaker than Dukakis and Kerry were at this stage of the race. His best hope is that the MSM is more biased towards him than any candidate ever. It would be a great thing for center-right America for Obama to lose, and it would completely confound the left. Along the lines of:
Obama T-shirt $10
Obama's plagiarized Soros-puppet campaign, an Alexrod production: $400 million
Defeating Obama and the most expensive and dishonest campaign in US history for the least qualified and most leftwing candidate ever: PRICELESS
The best scenario for conservatives to maintain influence in politics is to #1 DEFEAT THE LEFT. How to defeat the left? Defeat their candidates, starting with Obama at the top, then defeat the Democrats in the Senate and House, and win back at the Statehouse level. As part of the center-right GOP coalition, agitate within that coalition for the Conservative Change we care about.
Conservative Change will happen in the GOP umbrella or not at all. The rumors of the death of the GOP and/or conservative cause have been greatly exaggerated.
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/
In the long run, the Repubilcans cannot win.
Freedoms Truth,
To defeat Democrats, you have to find the votes. The Republicans have lost the ability to get votes it takes to win. Given the changing demographics of the U.S. , it will become harder.
Eventually states like Texas will go back to the Democratic column given immigration and higher Hispanic birthrates. There is not a blue state that the Republicans have a good chance of winning except maybe New Hamshire. The Democrats have the opprotunity to develop new groups of voters. The Republicans do not.
The Republicans are stuck being the party of middle class whites and that group is not big enough to win elections. How can a conservative party survive after the Democrats put 20 million illegal immigrants on the fast path to citizenship.
You ignore all of the discussion about demographics. The Republicans need non-white voters to remain viable and they are not getting them and have no prospect to get them.
Senator obama may be a flawed candidate but Senator McCain is an even more flawed candidate. In additon, Senator McCain seems to only allow incompetents and idiots onto his staff.
To use a porker analogy, the current Republican Party has no hand and do draw. They have the choice to remain the rump political party that has no effect on policy but gives the Democratic party something to run against, or conservatives can decide to do what it takes to really affect policy. What you are proposing is staying the minor party that acts as a foil for the Democratic Party.