Earlier in the week I linked to Patrick Ruffini's rejection of "The Joe-the-Plumberization of the GOP."
Ruffini's core point was that in order to be successful, Republicans need an agenda and a message that can be presented successfully without partisan labeling or communication gimmicks. Sure, such labels and gimmicks sometimes make sense. Yet, absent a strong message, voters that switched from Bush in 2004 to Obama in 2008 won't be regained.
On a related front, Ross Douthat weighed in on Ruffini's post and a rejoinder to Ruffini by Daniel Larison.
From the former:
The Right has a messaging problem, yes - but it also has a message problem. It could be America's natural governing party, sure - but as long as its economic agenda looks like Jim DeMint's alternative stimulus, full stop, nothing else to see here, it won't be. Republicans are in deep trouble because the economic meltdown was piled on top of George W. Bush's personal unpopularity - but they would be in some kind of trouble no matter what, because the right-wing message on domestic policy hasn't been resonating with "the people in the middle culturally and economically," who Ruffini rightly identifies as the backbone of any plausible conservative majority, for going on years and years now. The current crisis hasn't created the problem; it's taken an existing problem and throw it into sharp relief.
And from the latter:
Symbolic gimmickry does stem in part from a lack of confidence, but it is more the product of a movement and party that have ceased to understand, much less address, most of the pressing concerns of working- and middle-class Americans. The party assumes that all it needs to do is show up, push the right pseudo-populist buttons and reap the rewards, and for the most part the movement cheers. See Palin, Sarah.The GOP settles for offering "symbolic, substance-free BS" because enough conservatives are already persuaded that Republican policies obviously benefit the middle class, so there is no pressure to make Republican policy actually serve the interests of Republican constituents. It is taken for granted that this is already happening, but voters have been showing for several cycles that many of them do not believe this. Politically Democrats have been gaining ground in such unlikely places as Ohio and Indiana, which would be inexplicable if the GOP obviously and reliably represented working- and middle-class Americans.
One can clearly quibble with assorted individual points by Ruffini, Douthat, and Larison, but theme appears consistent: be relevant, be serious, and be agenda-driven.
Accordingly, Mitt Romney's speech [UPDATE: new link, absent annoying pop-up, substituted] at CPAC hits a couple points putting this into practice:
[jump to approx. 13:00 mark for Romney's actual remarks]
1) On having a pro-active agenda (a need for which loyal readers know this blogger is adamant):
America voted for change. America did not vote for a boat-load of new government spending programs that would guarantee higher taxes and high deficits as far as the eye can see and that would threaten our currency, our economy, and our future. We must be the alternative course. We can't be that if all we say is no. Our plans must be clear, compelling, and first to the table. Our plans must have at least one common thread--they must make America stronger...
2) On getting to pressing issues on the minds of voters, but topics which too often have been outside the comfort zone of GOP candidates & elected officials:
I was glad that the President said he favors charter schools. Did you hear what sound came from the Democratic side of the chamber? Crickets. I hope the President will join all of us to expand school choice, reward better teachers with better pay, raise teacher standards in academic subject-matters like math and science, and enable school districts to remove teachers that don't make the grade. It is high time to put America's kids first and leave the union bosses behind.
And...
Congressional Democrats are gearing up to take over the health care system. We need to advance a conservative plan - one based on free choice, personal responsibility, and private medicine; one that doesn't add massive new federal spending. I like what I proposed in Massachusetts when I was governor. And even though the final bill and its implementation aren't exactly the way I wanted, the plan is a good model. Today, almost every Massachusetts citizen who had been uninsured now has private, free-market coverage, and we didn't have to raise taxes or borrow money to make it happen. We may find even better ideas in other states. But let's make certain that conservative principles are front and center. A big-government takeover of health care is the next thing liberals are going to try, and it's the last thing America needs.
Yes, all that is phrased in language appropriate to the audience (conservative activists), but the key points remain regarding where the GOP needs to be in the immediate future: a) pro-active on the issues, constantly emphasizing different plans than those put forward by Obama and Congressional Democrats, and b) possessing an agenda that speaks foursquare to pressing issues at the tops of voters minds - including education, healthcare, and energy.
Posted by Eric Earling at February 28, 2009 06:41 PM | Email ThisRepublicans thrive as the party of normal Americans .... Our base is the common-sense voter in the middle who bought a house she could afford and didn't lavishly overspend in good times and who is now subsidizing the person who didn't.
When you think about it, a majority built around this solid middle-American base should beat the disjointed liberal rich/poor coalition. .... The risk for Obama in embracing the bailout mentality is that it catches up to you: this is not how ordinary people act in their daily lives without major consequences down the road.
========================================
The road our Federal government is on right now is NOT ''normal''; and major unhappy consequences ''down the road'' should be expected...
Posted by: Methow Ken on February 28, 2009 07:28 PMsarc off
Posted by: David on February 28, 2009 08:49 PMAs has been already proven, you're wrong.
Color me shocked.
And you do understand don't you that part of that Darwin theory was that he actually linked apes to blacks.
"He did write extensively about how evolution by natural selection creates unequal races, and that in the evolutionary scheme of things, blacks are the closest to apes," he explained.
On the last page of his book, Darwin expressed the opinion that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from a "savage."
In describing those with darker skin, he often used words like "savage," "low" and "degraded" to describe Native Americans, pygmies and almost every ethnic group whose physical appearance and culture differed from his own. In his work, pygmies have been compared to "lower organisms."
... inconvenient, eh?
My God loves all humankind.
Your evolutionist was a RACIST.
/golfclap
Posted by: brent on February 28, 2009 10:30 PMIt seems YOU are the odd 'man' out:
Christianity and the Round Planet
... St. Thomas Aquinas, who was made a saint because of his genius, wrote that the world was round almost 250 years before Columbus made his journey. Medieval universities, which were Christian institutions, used a textbook entitled Sphere to teach astronomy. Two hundred years before Columbus, Buridan, Rector of the University of Paris, wrote a long discussion proving that the rotation of the Earth on its axis produced night and day, assuming, as did all his fellow Christian scholars throughout Europe, that the Earth was round. No serious Christian thinkers thought that the world was flat, as Edward Grant notes in his 1971 book, Physical Science in the Middle Ages (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971.)
Everyone agrees that the Catholic Church in 1492 accepted the Ptolemaic Theory -- Copernicus even published his famous book challenged the "Earth-centered" view of the universe in the Ptolemaic Theory in 1492, the year Columbus sailed -- but the Ptolemaic Theory itself requires that the Earth be round. And it was not just Catholics who believed the world was round. All Christians in Europe did. Protestant scholars like George Rheticus and Johannes Kepler supported the "Sun-centered" view of the Catholic scholar Copernicus, which also said that the world was round: The title of his book is even called Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.
... Copernicus was a canon of the Catholic Church. Newton devoted the last decades of his life to Bible study. Galileo, also his whole life a devout Christian, spent the last part of his life as a guest in the home of a cardinal. Kepler, who refined the theories of Copernicus, was a pious Lutheran his whole life. The Scientific Method itself was created in the Christian universities of the Middle Ages. How does that fit into the popular idea that Christians are opposed to science? It does not, unless you believe that the Earth is flat - something Christians never thought. Who, in olden time, thought the world was flat? Everyone thought the world was flat but Christians.
In my research, I looked to see how old the idea was that medieval Christians believed the earth was flat. I obviously did not find it among medieval Christians. Nor among anti-Catholic Protestant reformers. Nor in Copernicus or Galileo or their followers, who had to demonstrate the superiority of a heliocentric system, but not of a spherical earth. I was sure I would find it among the eighteenth-century philosophes, among all their vitriolic sneers at Christianity, but not a word. I am still amazed at where it first appears.
No one before the 1830s believed that medieval people thought that the earth was flat. ...
... The answer is that the falsehood about the spherical earth became a colorful and unforgettable part of a larger falsehood: the falsehood of the eternal war between science (good) and religion (bad) throughout Western history. This vast web of falsehood was invented and propagated by the influential historian John Draper (1811-1882) and many prestigious followers, such as Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), the president of Cornell University, who made sure that the false account was perpetrated in texts, encyclopedias, and even allegedly serious scholarship, down to the present day. A lively current version of the lie can be found in Daniel Boorstin's The Discoverers, found in any bookshop or library.
The reason for promoting both the specific lie about the sphericity of the earth and the general lie that religion and science are in natural and eternal conflict in Western society, is to defend Darwinism. The answer is really only slightly more complicated than that bald statement. The flat-earth lie was ammunition against the creationists. The argument was simple and powerful, if not elegant: "Look how stupid these Christians are. They are always getting in the way of science and progress. These people who deny evolution today are exactly the same sort of people as those idiots who for at least a thousand years denied that the earth was round. How stupid can you get?"
But that is not the truth.
Sucks to be an ill-informed, koolaid sipping nitwit whose whole pitiful argument, nay, the premise of his whole 'life' (as hateful and intolerant as it is) is based on an easily disprovable lie, doesn't it?
Next time do 30 seconds worth of research BEFORE you embarass yourself.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on February 28, 2009 10:50 PMParties are big coalitions, you can't simply run a large group of them out because you don't agree with them on one issue. Republicans without religious social conservatives is like Democrats without organized labor. Neither works as a national party.
Posted by: Eric Earling on February 28, 2009 10:54 PMProof?
Name it. Cite it. Chapter and verse kiddo, where ANYONE is forcing you into a pew, forcing you to your knees, forcing you to tithe... except of course that tithing on the altar of GOVERNMENT.
Of course we all know it more 'sky is falling' tactics and lies by those of you who fear losing power more than anything else.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on February 28, 2009 11:09 PM# get into 40K credit card debt
# take out a subprime mortage
# drink myself into oblivion
# get multiple DWIs
# be a general asshole
# be an unreliable employee
# unsuccessful at business
# bad lover
on and on, it's all the EVIL CORPORATION's fault!
Posted by: Crusader on February 28, 2009 11:24 PMAmerica makes itself unfriendly to capital, the capital flies elsewhere...
Posted by: Crusader on March 1, 2009 12:15 AMWhat I mean by all that is simple: The Republicans lost ONLY and SIMPLY because of the war in Iraq. They lost because of Bush and not because of any ideology whatsoever. A couple years ago they lost control of the house and senate, not because they were too socially conservative but ONLY because the Democrats ran Socialy Conservative candidates who campaigned against Bush and the war in Iraq.
However, when enough the numbskulls out there scream that the party needs to shed the social conservatives and start supporting gay rights, abortion rights, govt. mandated healthcare, etc. in order to try to get votes from the middle (can anyone say Hello Mr. McCain?), then we have now become a party of losers, yes, a party of what the Democrats ran when they were losing elections.
So, Crusader is asking for a line of events that would destroy the Republican Party and Eric has listened to just enough of this dribble from folks like Romney, Jindal, P. Noonan, etc. that his blogs are situated to support those feelings and will therefore promote this action in the future - despite his comment at #13.
There is no need to give into liberal ideology at the national level on items such as green energy, education and healthcare. Leave those alone and let the liberals implode themselves. The country did not move left, they just wanted someone other than Bush. The country will vote in droves for the social conservative candidates as long as we continue to run them.
Posted by: Doug on March 1, 2009 12:44 AM* be for equal rights for all
* reproductive freedom for women
* stand for personal responsibility in financial matters
* for responsible environmental regulations
* for responsible financial regulations
* for "peace through strength" on national defense
* 100% secular
The current GOP is so religious that it is toxic to the body politic.
Posted by: Crusader on March 1, 2009 01:20 AMHey, did you know that Abramoff gave just as much money to Dems than to Republicans? You wouldn't know it from reading the papers or watching the news or listening to Nancy Pelosi because he was always referred to as "Republican lobbyist". What they did was reprehensible but has nothing to do with R vs D, but rather everything to do with the size of government which makes it imperative that companies spend billions attempting to influence legislation. If the fed govt were smaller, for example if they only did the things laid out in the Constitution, there would be no need to lobby with your billions.
Posted by: Calvin A on March 1, 2009 07:14 AMDespite some elements of truth within your comment, the fact you believe I'm sympathetic at any level to Crusader's point of view speaks to how wrong you are and to the continued incorrect assumptions you hold regarding my beliefs and the purpose of my posts.
Meanwhile, your continued repetition of the errant notion that Jindal is somehow the anti-social conservative speaks poorly of your actual understanding of him. That in turn raises questions about the depth to which you've learned more about the candidates you support and oppose.
Lastly, your continued comments on this score raise an interesting question. As much as the GOP should continue to be the party of social conservatives at the national level and should not revert from those positions, do you really believe that the economy and related issues are not at the top of voters minds right now (particularly those that voted for Bush in '04 and Obama in '08)?
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 1, 2009 09:31 AMThe economy will soon be Obama's. He won because it was Bush's.
Republicans will have an opportunity to enunciate a clear, conservative economic alternative. Many voters in 2008 believed Republicans controlled Congress. Republicans have a lot of educating to do.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on March 1, 2009 10:05 AMBy all means, chase those out that you disagree with. Have them flock to a third party that will help drive the GOP further into irrelevance by dividing the vote, leaving fat pickings for the left.
Bigot.
Posted by: Hinton on March 1, 2009 10:48 AM-opposition to abortion
-opposition to gay marriage
-promotion of school choice
-drilling for our own oil
-using proven nuclear technology rather than expensive pie-in-the-sky wind, and solar schemes.
-protection of our borders and enforcing immigration laws.
All of these issues clearly illustrate the differences between conservatives and "progressives". If we run on them. We win.
The real racists in the time of Darwin were these people:
"A prominent physician of Mobile 151 gave it as his opinion that "the brain of the Negro, when compared with the Caucasian, is smaller by a tenth and the intellect is wanting in the same proportion," and finally asserted that Negroes could not live in the North because "a cold climate so freezes their brains as to make them insane." About mulattoes, like many others, he stretched his imagination marvelously. They were incapable of undergoing fatigue; the women were very delicate and subject to all sorts of diseases, and they did not beget children as readily as either black women or white women. In fact, said Nott, between the ages of twenty-five and forty mulattoes died ten times as fast as either white or black people; between forty and fifty-five fifty times as fast, and between fifty-five and seventy one hundred times as fast."
Who was this "prominent physician"? None other than Josiah C. Nott, M.D., Mobile, 1844.
In 1857, one year before Charles Darwin pushed The Origin of Species, Josiah C. Nott and George Gliddon, creationists who argued that science supported the Biblical account of creation, published Indigenous Races of the Earth.
Yup, the founding "creationists" were the big racists.
As far as the above quotes, the idiot Ragnar has obviously not read the book he supposedly quotes.
In contrast to the existing views on race, Darwin showed that:
People cannot be classified as different species
All races are related and have a common ancestry
All people come from "savage" origins
The different races have much more in common than was widely believed
The mental capabilities of all races are virtually the same and there is greater variation within races than between races
Different races of people can interbreed and there is no concern for ill effects
Culture, not biology, accounted for the greatest differences between the races
Races are not distinct, but rather they blend together.
It is often pointed out that Darwin frequently used the term "savages" when discussing the tribal people whom he wrote about. In his use of the term savages, however, Darwin was simply using the standard lexicon of his time; it was a term that everyone, from Popes to Presidents, used.
And hwo said this in 1858 (the year Darwin published On the Origin of the Species):
I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
Another racist? Hmmm. Maybe the founder of the republican party?
translation: A junkie who got lucky picking Microsoft stock in the early 90's.
Posted by: Liberal Junkie on March 1, 2009 11:21 AMSecond, the republican party of today encompasses the deep south rejectionists and racists that USED to be in the democratic party (ooops!). But you either already knew that or you are incredibly dimwittted.
Did David Duke run as a democrat? What party had more votes against the renewal of the civil rights act?
And my point was that the idiot Ragnut, who has not even read the works he has cited, is WRONG again.
If Ragnut is trying to call Darwin racist, then the founders of the republican party and the scientific creationism movement are MUCH more racist.
Ragnut = Hypocrite
Posted by: correctnotright on March 1, 2009 12:09 PMNo, I don't believe that, and never said that I did.
Yet, an overtly social conservative Bush won exurban voters in spades in 2004. The reason those voters were lost in 2008 was the combination of the financial sector meltdown occurring when it did and John McCain's own incoherence and ineffectiveness on the topic of the economy (and most other domestic issues not related to earmarks & spending).
The point being, social conservatism is a winning issue for the GOP as a national party. That said, going the Huckabee route and having a social conservative uber alles is a loser (as Huckabee's own weakness among in the GOP primaries among voters not in the "southern Evangelcial" demographic proved). You and I would agree running him in 2012 would be one of the great electoral disasters of our time.
Nonetheless, the nominee in 2012 should be a social conservative and one with whom religious conservatives are comfortable (Bush 43 and Reagan are good examples of what I'm thinking of).
Concurrently, a regular read of my blog posts on similar topics verifies that while I believe that, I also believe the GOP should be comfortable with more moderate candidates when appropriate to the jurisdiction in which they seek office. Dave Reichert, for example, is a good fit for the 8th CD here in WA, even if he is by no means a down-the-line conservative. Likewise, a socially moderate GOP candidate like Meg Whitman for California Governor makes sense too given the overall electoral landscape there.
All to say, I think you're oversimplyfying the issue. The GOP needs an agenda that applies its principles to the top issues of the day (which I think we can all agree include the economy, taxes & spending, healthcare, etc.). At the same time, it cannot and should not abandon the coalition - which includes social conservatives - that makes it possible for it to be a majority party (and which it was prior to 2006 and 2008).
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 1, 2009 12:28 PM"Savages are intermediate states between people and apes"
"This includes the degraded morals of lower races"
"Making slavery understandable, though of course distasteful now"
"Mass killings of savages is understandable as a type of species extinction"
And for the record, your boy Hitler was a fan of Darwin. Ernst Haeckel was a German biologist, and a contemporary of Darwin, who faked drawings to support evolution (and was found guilty in a university court). He and others laid the foundation of racism and imperialism that resulted in Hitler's racist regime.
Sir Arthur Keith, a well-known evolutionist, assessed Darwin's impact on Hitler and Germany: "We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the only real basis for a national policy....The means he adopted to secure the destiny of his race and people were organized slaughter, which has drenched Europe in blood."
Even the title of Darwin's book is overtly racist: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Whom do you suppose Darwin tagged the "Unfavored Races?
Darwin's disciple and main defender, T. H. Huxley, wrote, "It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men, but no rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man.... The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins...." Darwin never repudiated him or his statements. How would "dusky cousins" be received down at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People?
However, it gets worse. Henry Osborne, who was professor of biology and zoology at Columbia University, declared, "The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters. such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens."
Edwin Conklin, was professor of biology at Princeton University and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said that Blacks had not evolved as far as Whites and "Every consideration should lead those who believe in the superiority of the white race to strive to preserve its purity and to establish and maintain the segregation of the races, for the longer this is maintained, the greater the preponderance of the white race will be."
The major haters of the last 100 years have been evolutionists
Men such as Nietzsche who often said God was dead (and I didn't even know He was sick) called for the breeding of a master race, and for the annihilation of millions of misfits. Hitler, Mussolini, Marx, Engels, and Stalin were all outspoken evolutionists, and those people and their theories and policies have been responsible for the slaughter of multi-millions of people, and the destruction of freedom all over the earth. It is amazing that so many liberals, radicals, fascists, communists and the easily impressed worship at Darwin's shrine.
Yes, the foundation of racism, hatred, and violence in the last hundred years is based in evolutionary teaching. Chuck Darwin was the fountainhead of racism and YOU evolutionists are stuck with him.
NOTE to the KoolaidMustachedIncorrectAndAlwaysWrong:
Did you happen to notice those cute little punctuation marks ( " ) EverStupidIncorrecAndAlwaysWrong?
Those signify a DIRECT QUOTE.
Nice try.
And for some great cosmic irony we now have a half-black president working on his personal roadmap to walk Hilters path.
This week President Obama exercised for the first time a policy decision that shares a trait held in common with Adolf Hitler.
President Obama is moving policy on public health into the direction of doctors being forced to act against their conscience. (For liberals educated in public schools, a conscience is that little voice inside you that used to inform you as to what was right or wrong.)
President Obama wants them performing abortions, whether they believe it to be an immoral thing or not. And while the comparisons to Hitler are made either on eugenist or racist grounds--but you cannot escape the impact.
In the 1930's and 40's as Hitler wished to use his captive "lesser-humans" for "experiments" in his final solution. He too forced doctors to do things they did not wish to do. ...
...In today's scenario Obama wants doctors to exterminate "lesser humans" for the purpose of immediate solutions to his social experiment.
Put another way Obama's policy shift would be the equivalent of forcing those who believed slavery to be immoral and never even owned slaves, to begin purchasing them, beating them, raping them, and exploiting them. ...
...As to all the comparisons that the left made in 8 years of the previous administration, they never once had such a clear comparison that so vividly laid out the exact parallel between the dictator who thought it moral to gas people in chambers, and now a President who believes that live babies should be left to starve in soiled utility closets of hospitals, even if it violates the voice of God telling the doctor to do otherwise.
Gotta love the karma.
Hope!
Change!
Heil!
Then we're going to remain far apart on this issue since I think running religious conservatives out of the party would be a widespread net loser for the GOP.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 1, 2009 01:09 PMThere is no religion problem within the GOP. That would be like saying there is a racism problem in the Democratic party. Dems have to pass laws and govern from a position where they give an unfair advantage to minorities because those minorities are such an influence on their party. Whereas Republicans want all races, sex, and creeds to be given the same opportunities. Yet, similarily within the Republican Party, they have to, or at least should, look to pass laws and govern from a socially conservative position as the social conservatives have a similar power base in this party as the minorities do in the other.
Eric,
I understand Jindal's position as well as Steele's and other Economic Conservatives who happen to be social conservatives. I've been trying to explain to you that their's and your position that we need to minimize the importance of our social conservatism is a losing position.
Healthcare is a losing issue, cutting long-term costs for the govt. by controlling medicare, social security, govt. pensions, etc. is a losing issue. Cutting education funding has always been a losing issue. You are talking about putting out there issues that we know we are right on, but there is no way we can win on, never have and never will. McCain didn't win on cutting earmarks and pork barreling, either.
There is only one economic issue that historically Republicans have won on...cutting taxes. But the Dems have stolen that from us and will get away with that in the future because the media is on their side.
Hence, back to the basics. George Bush II was easily the most impressive election winner in a long time. (I'm not arguing whether he was good or not for us just that..) he should have never won either the first or the second time. But he was outwardly social conservative so people believed what he said.
Candidates who are not outwardly - or near uber- social conservative (Dole, McCain, even Bush I) do not have the ability to immediatly gain the trust of the large portion of the electorate and must find another way to win or have other factors that allow them to win.
In this Republic voters actually care about the perceived character of the people they vote for, more than they do about policy. Couple that with the fact the Republicans hardly ever win when talking about healthcare, social security, education, etc. that means one thing... the RNC shouldn't be talking about those things that much and instead trying only to block what the Dems are doing.
Posted by: Doug on March 1, 2009 01:16 PMIf the economy continues its downward spiral Obama will no longer be the face of Hope and Change, he will be the face of the Grim Reaper.
Republicans will be able to portray Obama and the Democrats as the people that went to war against the companies that have been laying off American workers, just for starters.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on March 1, 2009 01:48 PM"Americans identifying themselves as Democrats outnumber those who say they are Republicans by 10 percentage points, the largest gap in party identification in 24 years.
The gap has widened significantly since President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, when it was a mere 3 percentage points. But by the time Mr. Bush left office in January, less than a quarter of Americans approved of his performance.
These days, 38 percent of Americans say they are Democrats, 28 percent call themselves Republicans, and another 29 percent identify as independents, according to an average of national polls conducted last year by The New York Times and CBS News.
Whether President Obama is able expand that gap to favor his party will probably depend mostly on Americans under the age of 30 who have yet to form strong partisan ties."
Keep up the misquotes from a book you have not even read. The bottom line is that Darwin was much less of a racist thna Lincoln OR the fellows who started scientific creationism.
So - go on with your bogus claims that are not supported by the fact. You can scream racism all you want - but the FACTS are that the Lincoln and the creationoist were far more racist.
Also, since you forgot to READ the quote about "savages" referring to all primitive people and races referring to things like cabbages - it is no wonder that you misinterpreted the above quotes.
Thanks for proving what an idiot and moron you are, once again. It is only too much fun to blow away your puny arguments with real facts, instead of your misundertood and ot of context quotes. Are you always this ignorant or are you just putting on a show?
Thanks for playing the fool!
I'm perplexed why you keep insisting the Bobby Jindals of the world are trying to "minimize the importance of our social conservatism." In Jindals case he's speaking to issues that are the fore of voters minds. Moreover, as a Governor, the issues he naturally deals with by nature of the job fall more into what you're classifying as "economic conservative" rather than social issues. Thus, your continued argument along these lines substantially devalues the merit of your other comments.
Could you please point to one article, one speech, one published piece of anything where Jindal has declared his intent or practice in trying to "minimize the importance of our social conservatism"?
Meanwhile, what you've essentially said on education, healthcare, Social Security, etc. is tremendously limiting. There are times where those issues are very important at the national level - healthcare in particular coming to the fore presently. Your declaration that the only GOP response to such issues is to cut funding is utterly simplistic and ignorant of the actual reform proposals at the federal and state level that have been put forward by conservatives in years past. If you honestly believe cutting funding is the only rational GOP response to those issues and otherwise we should "just say no" to D propsoals then you're playing right into their hands.
You simply can't have Republican candidates for major office without serious plans on issues voters care about. Maybe they won't be winning issues, but sometimes there is profound value in minimizing Dem advantages on issues (like W did with education in 2000).
In sum, your continued factually-challenged statements on Jindal AND your insistence on the GOP taking a pass on major issues of the day is a profoundly troublesome combination. You understandably chide people like Crusader who propose a highly limiting vision for the GOP, yet you in turn propose one that is equally limiting. In some ways it's more so. At this point, I can't even take it seriously.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 1, 2009 02:28 PMThe percentage of Americans who call themselves liberal: 22%.
Dinosaurs have more relevance than liberals...and clearly more intelligence than IncorrectAndAlwaysWrong.
Now I wonder, will the humilated IncorrectAndAlwaysWrong go back to trying to defend his racist Darwin?
Of course not. That would take some very inconvenient intelligence, facts and courage... all in short supply by todays liberals... and IncorrectAndAlwaysWrong in particular.
Run, IncorrectAndAlwaysWrong RUN!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on March 1, 2009 02:46 PMYou are forgetting one element - the loyal opposition must be able to communicate and resonate with the public because the media is mute when it comes to spreading the message unless it is perceived that they have to. So the opposition needs to put pressure on them to talk about why the economy is failing - if that happens to be the case. You are also forgetting that the public is dumbed down and almost brainwashed into believing Republicans are bad news All of the TV news media with the probable exception of Fox News Channel automatically sides with the current administration - the Government-Media complex is in full force.
Progressives will continue to be engaged in culture war attacks on the right - mindless hoping that we become a clone of Europe statism, just read Incorrectandalwayswrong, demo kid, No facts, Cato and other trolls that obsfuscate and bloviate their verbal toxin.
Posted by: KDS on March 1, 2009 08:09 PMEric, You need to get off the Romney band wagon, and face the fact the sheep are not going to follow that shepard. He's been shoved down our throats once already, and we spit him out. I think what Doug is trying to get across is that voters pick the person they like and trust the most. Like it or not, the young people really liked Obama, and not McCain...or Dole. To paraphrase you, I think we've already witnessed an electoral disaster, and it was because of you and your elitists friends' unreasonable backing of Romney.
Posted by: Lynnwood Evangelical on March 1, 2009 08:48 PMHad Tim Pawlenty or Bobby Jindal or John Thune or any other leader in the Republican party said what Romney said I would have posted their speech and made the same points because I think they are important for where the party needs to be right now. The point wasn't the person, the point was the message.
In the meantime, I realize you aren't impressed by Romney (just as I'm not impressed by Huckabee). But, please don't bore with with the idea that Romney was "shoved down our throats." Please. We had a highly competitive, multi-candidate primary. Every one had a chance. By virtue of the chaos of politics, some did better than others. Get over this chip on the shoulder mentality.
Speaking of which your discussion of me and my "elitists friends' unreasonable backing of Romney" is insulting and laughable at the same time. If you think I'm surrounded by elitist friends (or that was the extent of Romney's backers) then you don't know me in the least. I don't question your character or motives for backing Huckabee with such vigor - even though I disagree with your choice mightily. You could be kind enough to return that common courtesy.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 1, 2009 09:17 PMAnd, I'm sorry, but Romney was shoved down my throat. I had to put up with Rush and Hannity and Coulter and O'Reilly every night praising him and his liberal record, all the while bashing the other contenders. I don't disagree that everyone had a chance, nor did I insist otherwise. And, I'm not going to say anything was unfair.
However, I call things like I see them. And, when I see a candidate with as much media clout behind him fail as badly as Romney did, I'm going to suggest we find a candidate that the party will swallow.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I did not mention Mike Huckabee at all. In fact, all I did was reiterate that Bobby Jindal would be a great choice. There's the likebility issue that he'll need to work on, but he has shown himself to have led his state according to conservative principles...unlike the guy who ran Massachussets into the ground and then suggested the Fed bail out the Healthcare mess he caused...and continued to praise while on the campaign trail, I might add.
I'm sorry to say this was as much courtesy as I can spare someone who is obviously unable to recognize his own blindness. Indeed, I'm trying to do you a favor.
Buy, you go ahead and respond while I get my violin.
Posted by: Lynnwood E. on March 1, 2009 09:58 PMYou want to break out a violin on my behalf, which trust me is more than unnecessary, while you say this:
"And, I'm sorry, but Romney was shoved down my throat. I had to put up with Rush and Hannity and Coulter and O'Reilly every night praising him and his liberal record, all the while bashing the other contenders."
Let's not pretend that such conservative commentators - even if they did line up behind Romney very late in the primary season - are the only source of information for GOP primary voters (though perhaps you might want to honestly assess why so many nationally recognized conservatives rejected Huckabee at the same time). Meanwhile, more widely viewed/read MSM coverage of Huckabee from late 2007 was largely fawning, giving him a huge boost. Concurrently, Romney often came in for highly critical coverage from those same news sources. So, let's not pretend anyone candidate was shoved down anyone's throats (indeed, McCain got no small boost from traditional media as well late in the season, after taking a beating earlier on). As you seem to acknowledge in part, every candidate has pluses and minuses they way the campaign and all its dynamics unfolded. Why not just leave it at that than continue this intellectually weak claim that Romney was merely a creation of what you apparently deem to be faux conservatives.
But again, if you consider me - or people that likewise backed Romney in '08 - to be elitists then be my guest. That, however, strikes me as further proof of a chip-on-the-shoulder mentality that is completely destructive to both the conservative movement and the GOP. And if it's not that, your read on other people's political motives is questionable. Just because you're calling it as you see it doesn't make you correct.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 1, 2009 10:39 PMYou keep bringing up Mike Huckabee, while I've not. My critique is about the "conservative" media's worship of Romney throughout the primaries.
You go ahead and insist that these commentators got behind Romney toward the end of the primary season; the fact is they were behind him from the beginning, and were extremely upset that he lost Iowa by "He who shall not be named.", despite outspending all his competitors. Again, they were upset when he was trounced by McCain. Their excitement showed when he managed to bribe Michigonians with a promise of a bailout, but their spirits fell flat when he pulled out of South Carolina.
As for the other MSM outlets, they are irrelevant. Conservatives and Republicans don't watch or listen to them. They trust Rush and Hannity--and you--to inform them. I don't care what they said about "He who shall not be named." He probably deserved it too. I do care that they lied about Romney's record over and over again and propped him up as the "True Conservative." I attended my caucus and was amazed at how uninformed Romney voters were about their own candidate.
It always amazes me when you elitists complain about how poor the MSM reports things and then go on and report other things poorly.
I know somewhere in here we'll all find a middle ground. And when we do, the Republicans will lose another election. Thanks for that.
Posted by: Lynnwood Evangelical on March 2, 2009 07:21 AMI still reject this idea that conservative media were behind Romney throughout the cycle. I was a great consumer of such media at the time, and other than kicking the crap out of McCain during the immigration implosion there was no unity in what was coming out of those outlets through much of the primary season. Yes, notable talking heads became visibly pro-Romney toward the end of the primary season (beginning really with the National Review's endorsement), but your memory that there was some great pro-Romney bias to conservative media throughout the election cycle simply isn't correct.
Meanwhile, let's discuss your claim that "as for the other MSM outlets, they are irrelevant. Conservatives and Republicans don't watch or listen to them."
That statement displays a stunning lack of understanding about the full scope of where Republican primary voters, let alone general election voters willing to vote Republican, get their news. Yes, conservative media sources matter. Yet, rank-and-file primary voters very much do still get a lot of their news from MSM outlets, including newspapers and network TV - local & national. Indeed, there was some very interesting polling done particularly in Iowa and SC during the primary season that verified that point. Clearly, activists and political junkies such as you and I don't fit that paradigm, but many people who wouldn't attend a caucus but will vote in primaries do. Your insistence that the MSM is irrelevant raises fundamental questions about your understanding of the electorate and how it operates.
In the end, you earnestly believe Romney is a faux conservative & closet liberal. Fine, that's your right. But your continued belief that he somehow cost conservatives the 2008 election is nonsensical. Who was going to win? Huckabee? Thompson? Giuliani? Accepting your disdain for Romney and fusing our probable shared dislike for McCain, who among those three gentlemen was capable of doing anything but getting their ass handed to them by Barack Obama?
More importantly, I don't ultimately believe its productive for us to keep re-hashing '08. You had your position. I had mine. Now, we at least agree that Jindal shows great promise and has the potential to be a unifying figure within the GOP. I just think it would more productive if you could find a way to express your opinion without declaring people that disagree with you about Romney are "elitists." You don't see me calling you an "idiot" because I think your take on Romney and those that supported him in '08 is flat wrong, do you? Impugning people that have generally shared philosophical views but who happen to disagree on one candidate just doesn't strike me as all that beneficial.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 2, 2009 08:55 AMI stand by my statement that most Republican primary voters and caucus goers get their information from conservative sources, especially talk radio and shows like Hannity on Fox News. If you disagree, then I don't care.
I place a great deal of blame on Limbaugh and Hannity, et al for suppressing our vote early on by the negativity toward McCain and "He who shall not be named"; this had to have a lasting effect and probably caused lots of George Bush voters to either not vote or vote for Obama. Even so, I believe any one of our final 3 contenders could have beaten Obama in the general. McCain had a huge amount of excitement after he picked Sarah Palin. I think he fell short in being able to utilize that excitement effectively. Furthermore, his nonsense about suspending his campaign and then voting for a pathetic bailout all made him look erratic. It's hard to be a maverick and not look like Bush when you end up supporting his pathetic bailout.
That's my $.22. Moreover, you go ahead and call me an idiot; that would be inaccurate. However, my calling you an elitist is completely accurate, and therefore entirely productive.
Posted by: Lynnwood E. on March 2, 2009 06:16 PMMeanwhile, it appears during the course of this conversation, and those we have had in other posts, that you have made assertions that are not backed - and in some cases contradicted directly - by actual data that is available. In the midst of a robust disagreement, in does us little good for you to cling stridently to positions that are based on your impressions and recollections. We can't have a serious discussion if that's the case.
Lastly, I wasn't calling you an idiot. I was pointing out the imprudence of your use of the "elitist" label. Since you're stuck on that, however, there's no point in thus continuing this conversation.
Posted by: Eric Earling on March 2, 2009 07:36 PMI guess I'll take the last word, then. Why, indeed, did McCain win? Let's hope the next time around, Rush, Hannity, Coulter, and Hewitt et al, stay the heck out of trying to influence the herd. Divided we fall, and they were instrumental in dividing us, leaving us with McCain.
Your second point is interesting, because you've not argued here based on anything other than your impressions, either. Though, I don't think it is required, at this point, since most of our disagreement is philisophical.
If there is a bright side, I am very open to Bobby Jindal representing me, as I said earlier. However, if the party leaders continue to push Romney to the leadership position, I and--I believe, but do not know for sure (even though I do)--many others will reject the party. For, what is elitism if not the belief that people at the top know better and smarter than the rank and file? The Rank and File in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Floria, etc. all made up their mind in 2008. Let's not repeat it.
Posted by: Lynnwood Evangelical on March 2, 2009 08:16 PMI guess I'll take the last word, then. Why, indeed, did McCain win? Let's hope the next time around, Rush, Hannity, Coulter, and Hewitt et al, stay the heck out of trying to influence the herd. Divided we fall, and they were instrumental in dividing us, leaving us with McCain.
Your second point is interesting, because you've not argued here based on anything other than your impressions, either. Though, I don't think it is required, at this point, since most of our disagreement is philisophical.
If there is a bright side, I am very open to Bobby Jindal representing me, as I said earlier. However, if the party leaders continue to push Romney to the leadership position, I and--I believe, but do not know for sure (even though I do)--many others will reject the party. For, what is elitism if not the belief that people at the top know better and smarter than the rank and file? The Rank and File in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Floria, etc. all made up their mind in 2008. Let's not repeat it.
Posted by: Lynnwood Evangelical on March 2, 2009 08:17 PMI guess I'll take the last word, then. Why, indeed, did McCain win? Let's hope the next time around, Rush, Hannity, Coulter, and Hewitt et al, stay the heck out of trying to influence the herd. Divided we fall, and they were instrumental in dividing us, leaving us with McCain.
Your second point is interesting, because you've not argued here based on anything other than your impressions, either. Though, I don't think it is required, at this point, since most of our disagreement is philisophical.
If there is a bright side, I am very open to Bobby Jindal representing me, as I said earlier. However, if the party leaders continue to push Romney to the leadership position, I and--I believe, but do not know for sure (even though I do)--many others will reject the party. For, what is elitism if not the belief that people at the top know better and are smarter than the rank and file? The Rank and File in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Floria, etc. all made up their mind in 2008. Let's not repeat it.
Posted by: Lynnwood Evangelical on March 2, 2009 08:18 PM