Conservatism as a second language
A superb post-mortem on our national suicide by Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator:
And so, another moderate fails.
Governor Romney is a good person, a great business leader.
But, alas, he is also a moderate Republican.
As were Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and John McCain. Making Mitt Romney a historical asterisk as the tenth moderate GOP nominee (Dewey was nominated twice) to lose the White House.
The exceptions to the rule are Dwight Eisenhower, who won not because he was a moderate but because he was the general-hero of World War II. Richard Nixon campaigned as the moderate he was in 1960 and lost. By 1968 he had won the nomination of a party that had shifted back to its conservative roots and he campaigned accordingly -- as he did in 1972. He won narrowly the second time, by a landslide the third. George H.W. Bush ran as the heir to Reagan in 1988 and won. Governing as a moderate he lost -- and lost badly in his 1992 re-election effort. George W. Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" -- which is to say a moderate -- in 2000 and 2004 and squeaked by the first time thanks to the Supreme Court, winning the second time by a bare 100,000 votes in Ohio.
On Tuesday night, it comes clear, as this is written using the latest Fox News figures, Mitt Romney lost to President Obama by 2,819,339 votes.
And the news ekes out that Moderate Nominee Number 10 Romney received some 3 million Republican votes less than Moderate Nominee Number 9 -- John McCain in 2008.
Which is to say, 3 million base GOP voters simply refused to vote for Romney. Doing the available math, that means had those 3 million Republicans voted for Romney he would have, as this is written, a margin of victory in the national popular vote of 180,661. Depending on the state spread, potentially an Electoral College victory as well.
Does the message get through here?
Well, for some in the GOP -- no.
[...]
Let's review the fundamental principles again. One cannot plunge the country into astronomical debt without there being a financial come-to-Jesus reckoning. One cannot tempt aggression with weakness. One cannot tax one's way to prosperity. One cannot build a behemoth federal government and expect the country to prosper. One cannot, as Mark Levin puts it, not understand the "interconnection of liberty, free markets, religion, tradition and authority" -- and not pay a price for that lack of understanding.
Were these conservative principles true in 1980? Yes. They were also true in 1780 and 1880 and they will be true in 2080. They are to the world of politics and government what Newton's law of gravity is to the physical world. And to the extent that they are ignored, one is -- politically speaking -- jumping off the Empire State Building without a parachute.
Has the country changed since 1980? I would hope so. Change in human life is unstoppable. But as Reagan himself -- a staunch advocate of change -- smartly said:
"History comes and goes, but principles endure…" [...]
Continue here.
Is it possible that Gingrich or especially Palin could have beaten Obama? Did too many Republicans fail to vote because they weren’t fired up about Romney or had some problem with him, like his religion? Again, were enough Republicans that criminally stupid, given the alternative? Is that why Romney, or rather the USA, lost? Because too many Republicans sat this election out?
And yes, I got a distinctly bad feeling when Palin was shut out of the RNC. Apparently, there was something to it.
Still, given the current circumstances, including Obama's appalling track record and obvious unsuitability for his office, and given the huge stakes, there's no way to blame anyone or anything for his re-election except massive voter dysfunction. I have long thought that there was an inordinately high proportion of stupid people, but evidently I underestimated the problem. It is not necessarily a matter of education or IQ, but rather insight and discernment. It’s certainly possible to be highly educated and/or even brilliant in a certain sphere, and still be quite hopeless, or worse, for most if not all practical purposes. There is also, of course, the phenomenon of perverted intelligence, hence the exceedingly numerous noxious “intellectuals.” However, for the purposes of this election, the key problem appears to have been the astonishing extent of downright dangerous stupidity, meaning effective stupidity, among more or less average voters. Unfortunately, democracy cannot work with a dysfunctional majority or something close to it, because the results will be inevitably dysfunctional, if not disastrous. Those who re-hired Obama absolutely own that and its consequences, and no amount of analysis will change that.
asombra...Palin got shut out of the RNC because she never endorsed Romney.
Knowing that, what in the world was she supposed to say?
Please vote for the guy I won't endorse?
Apparently 'tuna fish sandwich and a side of cucumber salad' didn't do it for Palin or for many others.
You may be right.
Apparently people who didn't like tuna, opted to force feed hemlock to the entire country instead.
Look at what the voter tantrum by 3 million has wrought. Idiots.
I keep going back to the same point, over and over again.
"Hard-core" conservatives - I consider myself a hard-core conservative, but because I take the stand that social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage are issues to be decided by the people of the individual States (Federalism, what a revolutionary concept!), I am labeled a liberal, a RINO, etc - have yet to come up with a candidate for the GOP nomination who can actually WIN the GOP nomination, and that somehow is the GOP's fault.
The problem with the GOP, if there is one specific thing that can be pinpointed (there are many problems) is that Democrats have a clearer vision of the end game than we do...they just want to beat us, and THAT is their primary ideological thrust.
Meanwhile, the right in this country is concerned with ideology, and we're splintered. And if that weren't enough of a problem, then we have the unappeasable wing of the party, those who will not vote for the GOP nominee because that nominee does not rise to their standard. They are a minority within the Party, who can't field a viable candidate, and won't support any candidate that doesn't suit them. They can't win a primary, so they opt to lose the general election instead
That wing's legacy is now two terms of Bill Clinton, and two terms of Barack Obama.
Luis, you and I are exactly the same page. I detest abortion. I think its is murder, pure and simple. But if we were a Constitutional Republic it would be WE THE PEOPLE in each of the states that would decide whether or not it was legal. If we are true conservatives who believe in the rule of law and the Constitution, then that is the only way. I have given a lot of thought to the debacle that befell several of our candidates who faced abortion questions. The answer, if you are a true conservative, would be as follows:
"I detest abortion. I think its is murder, pure and simple. But it is the law of the land. And, no, I will not answer a hypothetical legal question. Next question, please."
Luis, Palin didn't endorse him while the nomination was still undecided, but she did support him after it became clear he'd be Obama's opponent. If the Romney people and the Republican establishment had courted her support more, I'm sure she would have given a barn-burner of a speech at the RNC and elsewhere, but I expect they kept her at arm's length, segregated and marginal, due to fear and possibly spite. It was a mistake, a bad one.
Asombra, agreed 100%.
If, in fact, enough Republicans "protested" Romney as the candidate by not voting, so that their abstention cost Romney the election, then those people are even worse than the Dems who voted for Obama. They are certainly at least as bad, and at least equally responsible for the consequences to us all. I cannot fathom such stupidity and irresponsibility. It's not only cutting off your head to spite your nose, but cutting off the heads of other people. If we not only have to contend with the Kool-Aid drinkers, but also with "purists" quite out of touch with reality, we're toast.
asombra, Palin gave Romney a lukewarm (at best) nod twenty-four hours prior to the election.
That's not an endorsement.
"If the Romney people and the Republican establishment had courted her support more, I'm sure she would have given a barn-burner of a speech at the RNC and elsewhere, but I expect they kept her at arm's length, segregated and marginal, due to fear and possibly spite. It was a mistake, a bad one."
Palin needs to decide whether she is a Republican or not. If she is then she needs to go all in, not just wait around until people come begging her to "save" the Party. If she wanted to run, she should have run...she did not, and that was HER choice. What she wants is to be a kingsmaker. I have no need for that.
If anything, Palin and the rabid Palinites who may have abstained from voting this election are as much to blame for everything that is about to happen, as the morons who voted for Obama.
Maybe even more so.
Luis, in practical terms, what would have been better, to court Palin (even if that meant catering to her presumed vanity) and thus get her to increase Republican voter turnout significantly, which may have won Romney the election, or ignore her and her clout as dispensable factors, as was actually done?
Yes, she could have been more forthcoming herself, but again, I’m talking about practical reality here, about what was most likely to maximize turnout, not about Palin being a perfect person and behaving in an ideal way. Everyone knew all along that Romney was not even the second choice of many Republicans for the nomination, let alone the first.
I am NOT even remotely excusing anyone who was anti-Obama yet failed to vote for Romney, as I have already clearly expressed above, but Palin could have helped, maybe a lot, and her potential for doing so was wasted. Unless the Romney and Republican establishment people really tried to get her on board and she simply refused, which would make it all her fault, then they dropped the ball.
I remember that before the RNC, some reporter asked her about not being scheduled to speak at the convention, and her response was something like “Well, what can I say?” or, in other words, if they don’t want me, I can’t help that. Frankly, I don’t think they wanted her, because they were more worried about turning off so-called independents than about firing up the base. If Republican voter turnout was as low as reported, inexcusable though that surely is, their strategy miscarried. And how.
The failure of the Republican party to invite Palin to be a prominent part of the convention was a huge mistake. The comment I heard so often from my Republican friends, that she should not be the nominee because she is unelectable is stupid to the max. Why are we allowing our candidates to be vetted by our enemies?
It wouldn't matter if you put Marco Rubio or the immaculate Pat Toomey up for nomination, the press and the left will ruin the reputation of whomever we choose.
This is war to them, and they play hardball and we know where nice guys and gentlemen finish. We have to get serious and play down and dirty, too. I hoped Romney's choice of not bringing up Benghazi in the third debate would work. But it didn't.
We have to smear them like they do us. But the difference is we tell the truth.
"Luis, in practical terms, what would have been better, to court Palin (even if that meant catering to her presumed vanity) and thus get her to increase Republican voter turnout significantly, which may have won Romney the election, or ignore her and her clout as dispensable factors, as was actually done?
Those practical terms cannot work if only one side of the equation is required to act in a practical manner.
Sarah Palin ran and won a governorship as a Republican, ran as the Republican Party's Vice-Presidential nominee in 2008, and to this day continues to self-identify as a Republican.
In practical and traditional terms, Sarah Palin should have discharged her duties as a member of the Republican Party, and done exactly what every other member of the Party did, including those members of the GOP who actually ran against Mitt during the primary season (with the exception of Ron Paul), and endorsed Mitt. It was her duty as a member of the Party to fall in step behind the GOP candidate, and show unity. In practical terms, Palin owed it to the GOP to fully throw everything she had behind the Republican nominee, because before the GOP picked her to be McCain's running mate, she was a veritable unknown.
To acquiesce to Palin to the degree that you suggest, would be to turn de facto control of the GOP to Palin and NOT to the nominee, and by doing so, make a minority faction of the Party the controlling faction. We would have a shadow Presidency.
Palin knows that on her own she will never win the Presidency, so I think that she wants to become a power player by virtue of her following.
If you allow that, then you no longer have the coalition of like-minded individuals caucusing under as a single entity that is a political party.
Palin either needs to be in the GOP, or out of it...she wants to do both. Her calculated cat an mouse, wit-until-the-last-minute-to-endorse-Romney game sent out a clear message: Romney is no different than Obama, and in doing that, she must bear a healthy share of the fault for everything that happens to the country under Obama these next four years.
I don’t share your take, Luis, but obviously you’re entitled to it. The Republican Party has been quite ambivalent at best about Palin in particular and the Tea Party in general, and she may well feel she’s been mistreated, not to say ostracized. She had to be insulted that she wasn’t asked to speak at the RNC, where a plum spot was given to that obese blowhard and Springsteen fanboy Christie, who later played straight into Obama’s hands days before the election. He endorsed Romney, alright, and a fat lot of good it did us.
Nobody would ever believe Palin thought it made no difference which candidate won, and quite a few people are seeing the Republicans more and more as Dems Lite. Typical Republican politicians are perfectly happy to be in office even if they have no effective power and generate no real change, and when they’ve had that power, they’ve squandered the opportunity miserably. There’s been far too much complacency, “playing nice” and going along to get along. It may well be that many chronically disappointed Republicans figured Romney would just be another version of Bush with his “reaching across the aisle” and “compassionate conservatism.”
Anything that would have increased Republican turnout enough to win this election would have been worth it, even kissing Palin’s ass. I think those in charge on our side simply figured she was not needed and would actually be a liability if they used her. I wouldn’t be surprised if they deliberately discouraged her behind the scenes because they wanted to keep their distance. True, she should not have been needed at all; this election should have been an absolute no-brainer, but too many Americans now have seriously dysfunctional brains.
"The Republican Party has been quite ambivalent at best about Palin in particular and the Tea Party in general."
Could that be because the T.E.A. Party ran candidates against established Republicans?
How about the fact that the T.E.A. Party supported Check DeVore in California while Palin backed Fiorina?
How does that make any sense?
Sharon Angle beat the front-running GOP challenger to Harry Reid's seat in Nevada, then lost miserably.
In Delaware the GOP lost an in-the-bag seat due to TEA Party write ins for O'Donnell. Then she lost the election and we lost the seat.
The TEA Party chose to work AGAINST the GOP, then demanded that the GOP respect them?
Luis, an awful lot of "established Republicans" deserve rather little respect. They care more about being "established" than about anything else.
Again, this is not about Palin per se, this is (or was) about the most practical approach to get the Republican base fired up enough to get out and vote, which simply did not happen to the degree it could and should have. I think there was serious miscalculation, though hindsight, naturally, is typically much more accurate than foresight.
asombra, in this debate with Luis you are correct.
Until we are all principled conservatives on our side we have no prayer of winning anything.
The Club for Growth and the Tea Party are the goodies in this country and the rinos are the baddies of our side.
Sarah Palin is not an ego that needs to be assuaged. She perhaps took the Galt route and I can't say I blame her.
She endorsed McCain and made a lot of people angry, but she wanted to help the Reps win. She is darling, smart, on the right side of our issues and the party ignored her. She may not have specifically or enthusiastically endorsed Romney until too late, but she did endorse him and spoke all along about how important it was to defeat Obama. Palin was important in getting that 2010 congress as well as the Club and the Tea Party. Yet she got no credit.
What I hate is that the other side sticks together no matter what. The president is residing over a horrible dangerous economy? So what he has a nice smile and a beautiful family and he "cares. Every decision Obama made in the Middle East yielded disaster? So what. He cares about women's private parts.
He is responsible for getting four good Americans killed and that would have been for 34, but 30 were saved by seals that went against orders to stand down. But the msm and the dems hush it up and blame Romney for having an opinion about it and the electorate buys the crap.
But when it comes to our side, we criticize our own.
Palin is wonderful, she always was and remains so.
Now we are all screwed. I am depressed and fearful.
How about you?
Yes, they do. But what did we gain in California, Nevada and Delaware?
Splintering the vote guarantees a victory for the opposition.
So Palin and her followers either throw their support in with the GOP, or stand alone as a political party. You can't have two parties running inside the organization known as the GOP, and THAT is my point.
Work WITH the GOP, WITHIN the GOP power structure, or get out of it, I can support either one.
What I can't support is Palin self-identifying as a Republican, and not working with the GOP of her own accord, or supporting GOP candidates running against Democrats when that's the only available choice.
THAT is the standard definition of RINO.
The mid-term elections are in the horizon, and the GOP train best get rolling.
Once that train rolls, everyone better be seated and ready to roll down the track. There's no room for anyone hanging on to the platform handrail, or out the windows. Palin needs to decide on whether she wants a seat, or wants to ride in a different train.
I'll take Michelle Bachmann over Palin ten times out of ten.
We did pretty well in the midterm elections of 2010. We got a lot of good new conservatives into our government at all levels. And we bounced some rinos out which is just fine by me.
A primary is there to sift the least good people from the better ones. That still means working within our party.
Why bring Bachmann up? I like her a lot too, but she never took hold the way Palin did.
This is not about Palin. I only mention her because she was mentioned.
But it is about moving our party to the right and that is what I want to do.
Palin implicitly supported the Republican candidate all along. She certainly opposed Obama all along. But she had to get the message, directly or indirectly, that she was considered too risky for comfort. That is precisely the message *I* got from her virtual exclusion from the RNC. In other words, she got the message that her help was not wanted, and she didn't go all-out to give it. I'm not saying she's blameless, let alone perfect, but the Romney people and the Republican establishment, which DOES resent/dislike her, failed to see how valuable she could have been if fully and properly deployed. The outcome does not validate or support her effective exclusion.
The Club for Growth and the Tea Party are the goodies in this country and the rinos are the baddies of our side.
A RINO is a person who calls themselves a Republican, and works against the Republican Party.
Like the Party, or don't. It makes no difference.
But to say that the Party is the "bad guy", then call yourself a Republican makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
"What I hate is that the other side sticks together no matter what. ~~~ The Club for Growth and the Tea Party are the goodies in this country and the rinos are the baddies of our side ~~~ But when it comes to our side, we criticize our own."
Read that to yourself over and over again, then explain how we "beat" the other side when we call people on our own side RINOS and "baddies".
When Republicans hate Democrats only slightly more than we hate ourselves, then WE are the problem, and people like Palin feed from and into that problem.
We expose the cracks in our walls to our enemies, then wonder why their battering rams penetrated our defenses.
It must stop now.
"Palin implicitly supported the Republican candidate all along."
Demonstrably wrong.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/palin-endorses-romney-sort/story?id=17643106#.UJ6i84c0V8E
The "train" is the GOP, and if passengers are busy throwing other passengers out of it, we lose every election going forward.
Luis, I said "Republican candidate," not Romney. She very clearly opposed Obama all along, so since his official opponent was Romney, who was the only person who could replace Obama as president, who else could she have been suggesting or implying people should vote for?
I define RINO as a nominal Republican who functions as a watered-down Dem. Do I wish there was a VIABLE alternative to the current Republican Party? Yes, but there isn't, and there won't be one anytime soon, certainly not soon enough. That means the only choice for those who viscerally oppose the current Dems is between a RINO-type approach or a reformed Republican Party with distinctly non-RINO politicians. That's what we're really talking about.
Luis, I am responding to your comments here.
I did not say our party is the bad guy; I said the rinos are the bad guys of our party.
You implied that it is okay to support Rinos. Well, if that's all we have, then we have no choice, but if I can replace a rino with a Toomey or a Rubio, etc. in a primary, I am eager to do that.
Also why are you quoting ABC News about the "sort of" endorsement? That's like allowing the msm to define who is electable for our side.
The debate here is clear. Do we want to win seats no matter who is representing our party just so we can have numbers and then we compromise our freedom and country away? Or do we try to replace watered down rinos with principled conservatives when we have the chance? Yes, sometimes we lose. But when we don't one of the principled ones is worth ten of the rinos.
It is because of RINOS that Reagan's achievement was largely squandered or frittered away, and I have nothing but contempt for the responsible "established Republicans."
Honey and asombra...
While we work on purging our Party, the Democrats take every seat they can, with no exceptions. They even have Jesse Jackson Jr.'s seat saved for him pending his release from a mental health facility.
They don't care, they just want to beat us.
I don't use the word RINO because in attacking our own, and I believe that to be a negative tactic, even when I violently differ with their actions or opinions.
I disagree with much that the GOP does, but I opt to work from within the Party, and not against the Party.
Reagan was a Republican, working within the Republican Party and the Party structure. He had issues of his own...surprising issues in retrospect. Here's an excerpt from his autobiography "An American Life":
Imagine that Reagan, today's conservative standard bearer, had issues with hard-line conservatives in his day.
He was their "RINO".
Today, the hard right continues to attack GOP candidates, they continue to be those dissatisfied radical conservatives that Ronnie spoke about.
We had a Ronald Reagan not because of the conservatives within the GOP, but in spite of them.
In Reagan's time, hard-line conservatives were highly critical of him, some still are, in spite of the fact that we have now all but canonized him as the patron saint of conservatism.
I believe that I will never see another President like Ronald Reagan, but I have not blinders on. I know his flaws and his faults.
If we are to truly hold Reagan up as our role model, then we need to listen to him:
"Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."
Your assumptions are not correct Luis.
When Reagan compromised he was satisfied with getting 75 or 80% and fighting for the rest later. With today's liberals, you do not get 10% of what you want. You get nothing and then get blamed for not compromising. If I am going to get blamed for not compromising anyway, then I am going to ask for the moon.
Who wouldn't be satisfied with getting three fourths of what you want? Do you think that is where the fight is now?
Dealing with today's liberals is like Israel trying to deal with the Palestinians. They say we want to kill you, we want you wiped off the map and Israel is urged to compromise. How do you compromise with such an attitude?
Today's liberals have their Pravda press and very left wing progressives who say you are wrong; we are right, and be reasonable do it our way. Anyone who would call it compromise to work with those odds is suicidal. I love this country. And the left today does not. Period. There is no basis to compromise with them. Let them compromise with us for a change.
And again I work within the Republican party just like you do. But if I can push it to the right, that's okay with me.
Luis, I’m not advocating being “pure” like Barry Goldwater was, or like those self-defeating idiots Akin and Mourdock with their asinine pro-life “purity.” I’m not talking about being all-or-nothing, which is obviously unrealistic and counterproductive. But there are too many “established Republicans” who are indeed Dems Lite, consistently, and who are largely useless when they’re not actually harmful. While Dems are all about about being in power, RINOS are all about being in office, even without any power. When Dems get power, they USE it; when RINOS get it, they mostly sit on it till they lose it.
Yes, as you note, the unscrupulous always have an advantage over those restrained by principles, and we have to treat Dems for what they are, just as we need to treat our Arab enemies for what they are. That also applies to the entire liberal/leftist establishment, across the board, not just the professional politicians. We cannot continue enabling these people because that will only come back to bite us in the ass, again. I keep hearing the old saying: “Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos.” If you raise crows, they’ll eventually pluck your eyes out. If you raise vipers, you’ll eventually die of their poisoned bite.
We have to wise up, big time.Forget being liked, let alone being popular, and work on being respected, if not feared. George W. Bush was a very nice man who meant well, and so is Romney, but that did not and will not cut it against the Dems. Even the relatively "reasonable" Clinton only compromised because he had to, and because he was smart enough to realize he could turn it to his personal advantage (he's still bragging about it as if it was his idea done on his initiative, as he did at the DNC).
Palin has been treated like radioactive waste by the Republican establishment because they're afraid of being truly and unapologetically conservative, and they're terrified of the SNL treatment, so to speak, even though they'll wind up getting it anyway, even if not so viciously and directly as she has. I'm convinced the Romney camp did NOT want her help, that they were afraid of her getting too close, so they shut her out. Again, this is not about Palin per se; she simply illustrates a big problem with the current Republican Party. Too many of them want to be in the kitchen but don't want the heat, and we all know how that works, or rather, how it doesn't work.
asombra, you echo me to a tee.
"Did too many Republicans fail to vote because they weren’t fired up about Romney or had some problem with him, like his religion?"
Apparently his religion probably wasn't an issue.
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/11/07/poll-evangelical-turnout-increased-in-2012-over-2008/
"New polling data from the Faith and Freedom Coalition, headed by pro-life advocate Ralph Reed, shows that the evangelical turnout was up in 2012 for Mitt Romney compared to the 2008 numbers for John McCain. ... A national post-election survey commissioned by the Faith and Freedom Coalition last night found that the evangelical vote increased in 2012 to a record 27% of the electorate and that white evangelicals voted roughly 78% for Mitt Romney to 21% for Barack Obama. This was the highest share of the vote in modern political history for evangelicals, Reed said."
So who are these people on our side who stayed away in the millions from voting?