Apparently Not Ready To Come In From The Cold (A Continuing Series)
January 8th, 2010 at 11:15 am by CrankyWell how about that, Peggy Noonan reads the Buffet.
I spoke a few weeks ago with a respected Republican congressman who told me with some excitement of a bill he’s put forward to address the growth of entitlements and long-term government spending. We only have three or four years to get it right, he said. He made a strong case. I asked if his party was doing anything to get behind the bill, and he got the blanched look people get when they’re trying to keep their faces from betraying anything. Not really, he said. Then he shrugged. “They’re waiting for the Democrats to destroy themselves.”
What can we as the grass roots do to help the GOP find their way? I don’t think the third party is the way to go, but if we build them up, maybe we can influence their choice in candidates and lean on the incumbents to do the right thing.
January 9th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I think that a third party is a good way for us to allow the Democrats to win! Third parties don’t work. We need to reunite the Republicans, and weed out the RINO’s. Our party doesn’t have a place for those who really belong on the other side. Those Benedict Arnolds just confuse everyone. We need to unite under a firm conservative banner and stick to our guns. We can win elections if we do. And, in my book, there is nothing more important than winning election this year and taking our country back from those who would destroy her. Please, no third party. Just an all-new, RINO-free, energized and ready to kick butt Republican party.
January 9th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Ginny’s right but there’s a big problem with the RINO Hunt – you would have to weed out the entire party leadership.
You really do have to destroy the Republican Party to save it from itself and it as much a regional battle as it is an intra-party one. The Northeastern, liberal, go-along-to-get-along elites hate anything to do with the South. They only have a token interest in giving lip service to issues that stir the base as wedge issues during an election year. They love big government as much as Democrats and they are running a country club where anyone south of Virginia might as well be considered a lawn jockey. With the exception of Florida where their efforts to establish a RINO retirement reserve have recently been thwarted.
Those people don’t care about the future of the country, or some nebulous brand of conservatism, the views of the people who the Tea Party movement appeals to or anything beyond maintaining the power they’ve obtained.
January 9th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
I agree that RINO purging would get rid of lots of our number, but they aren’t with us anyway! They’re are many very conservative people out there who are disenchanted with the Republican party because it’s so liberal and wishy-washy. They would likely come on board if we had a very conservative stance. Then we would have a party all headed in the same direction, with the same goals, and we’d be ready to open a can of Whup Butt on the Demi-Rats.
January 9th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Third party challenge is the only way to change the Republican Party. Some of you don’t seem to grasp the stranglehold of business and other special interests. Right now, this nonexistent third party is the best option for my particular blend unless the Republicans become truly limited government, truly conservative.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Donna, as I see it, the third party has to reach critical mass otherwise it is ends up being a protest vote for the Democrats.
Believe me, if the Democrats weren’t determined to fast-track this country into bankruptcy, I’d seriously consider protest voting for a third party or waiting until the danged GOP would at least pretend to want a Contract with America.
In my life, I’ve never seen the absolute moral bankruptcy of both parties, who would literally screw this country up beyond repair as long as they could bring a few million back for an unused airport runway, a rock-n-roll museum or an order of ships that the Coast Guard explicitly said it didn’t want. F*king disgusting.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Late to the party. Takes us Texans a while to get our knuckles up from the floor to the keyboard.
The GOP has become the Whig party they replaced. The Democrats remain the racist, elitist-led/fool-followed party they always were. As the party that panders to race-hatred, envy, greed, and other staple vices, the Dems are likely to outlast cockroaches, so we need to deal with the GOP if we want to keep our Republic.
The GOP needs to go the way of the Whigs: replaced by a party with the chine to stand up to the Dems. Critical mass? Look at the tea parties or, better, look at how fast the number who self-identify as Independents grows. The choice now is not to help the moribund GOP beat the vile Dems. We did that in 2000. How’d that work for us?
So, it’s a new party, as in the 1850s. Fail at that or back the rat bastards into too tight a corner and it’s the regiments, as in the 1860s. Fortunately, as always, the regiments are ours (mainly because the regiments are us). The political class, giving invertebrate life a bad name, will slither toward whatever emerges as a new venue for parasitic feeding, so the “need” for the pros is less than one might think. All we need do is put out a new feeder and like possums, ‘coons, and stays, they’ll come running.
It’s time to put the elephant out of its misery.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Walter makes several very good points. Which is why I vacillate on the issue.