Top 20 reasons the GOP lost the mid-term elections.

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

bestseller92

Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Messages
1,038
Location
Oklahoma
20. Congressional page turnout unexpectedly high.

19. Underestimated the sex appeal of Nancy Pelosi.

18. Tried to channel the spirit of Ronald Reagan; ended up getting George McGovern's cell phone.

17. Republican base figured out "compassionate conservative" is a euphamism for "free spending liberal bastard".

16. RNC went broke paying Mark Foley's AstroGlide bills.

15. Three words: Robert Byrd's coattails (or should that be sheettails?).

14. Iraq-Grenada comparison didn't resonate with enough voters.

13. Party had no answer for that Kerry charisma.

12. Forgot whether they were supposed to be red or blue.

11. In retrospect, those attractively-priced voting machines from Soros Worldwide Inc. might not have been such a great bargain after all.

10. Telemundo ads featuring Dennis Hastert as the Frito Bandito failed to win enough Hispanic votes.

9. Candidates spent far too much time trying to turn Barak Obama in to the U.S. military for $25,000,000 reward.

8. George Allen's mother failed to get out the Jewish vote.

7. Not enough campaign ads on shortwave radio.

6. Changing party mascot from elephant to rhino backfired.

5. Strategy of winning black vote by handing out free samples of Afro Sheen failed miserably.

4. Deposited badly needed campaign funds into Duke Cunningham's prison snack food account.

3. President unable to get his first name changed to "Reggie" in time to do any good.

2. Overestimated appeal of "Vote for us, G*****n You!" campaign slogan.

1. Lee Atwater is still dead.

Yeah, I just made 'em up, and they sorta suck, but whatta ya gonna do. If you laughed, send me twenty dollars. If you didn't, send me fifty, so I won't do it any more.
 
Rush is right.

I hate to quote Rush, but this group of so called republicans apparently doesn't understand that Conservatism works every time it's tried. Bush may be a hawk in defending our country, but he is a died in the wool spending fool. Also the bunch of idiots we sent to congress sure don't act republican. Don't know why they were voted out by the dems. Had the dems been in charge they couldn't have done a better job wasting money or screwing the country over! :cuss:
 
I agree the unfunded, drunken sailor spending sprees were a factor but I'll add a few others. I don't think I have ever seen a more partisan, politically conscious administration ever. Their refusal to engage the other party, (or in many cases even the GOP) in constructive debate on such issues as... the war, intelligence reports, domestic spying, interrogation techniques, war contracts, etc etc etc, has left them holding the bag all by themselves. The results of the mid-term election were less an assault on the GOP, but more an assault on the Bush administration, and the GOP suffered from "guilty by association". Again, towing party lines hurt many GOP candidates because many, if not most, refused to acknowledge the many incompetencies of this administration that were so evident among the voters. When you are too weak to stand for your own intellect and choose to tow the party line, you tow it right to where you are now.
 
TCB--when was it "tried"? Just curious...what was a better time for conservatism according to Rush (Mr. Credibility himself :D)

The problem is that when you believe that governance is inherently evil and something that should be "drowned in the bathtub" (and don't get me wrong, I agree it has plenty of potential for evil, I just see some of the evil as a necessary evil), it's hard to actually govern.

Republicans failed to govern effectively for the same reason you and I would suck as gun control advocates. They're doing something they have this mighty cognitive dissonance about--they want to rule, but they thinking ruling is evil.
 
Last edited:
Helmetcase,

For your thesis to be correct, the 109th Congress would have had to have been filled with hundreds of Ron Paul clones. "Conservatism" is just a word to many of those in Congress, they didn't govern like conservatives due to the fact that they AREN'T conservatives.

"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." Fortunately, my Representative, Heather Wilson (1st District, NM), has never made any pretense about being a Conservative, so I knew exactly what I was getting when I voted for her to return to Congress. While I would truly like a honest to goodness Conservative as my Representative, I would rather have an honest Moderate than a phony Conservative. Additionally, she is a far sight better than the ultra-Socialist, Patricia Madrid, who ran against her. I am not always happy with Heather, but at least I know where I stand with her.

That said, I think that one of two things is going happen in the GOP:
1) Either people are going to wake up and we will see a strengthening of the RLC faction, and see more true Conservatives run for office, or
2) The GOP will grow more and more irrelevant, and find it hard to get traction at any level.

Phooey on "Compassionate Conservatism", we need more of "if a man won't work, neither should he eat." Leave the "Faith based" stuff to the faith based organizations by eliminating social programs, cutting taxes, and allowing me to choose which of those "needy who are always with you" to assist, and through which organizations.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, get your government off of my life, out of my wallet, and back to its Constitutional basis.
 
For your thesis to be correct, the 109th Congress would have had to have been filled with hundreds of Ron Paul clones. "Conservatism" is just a word to many of those in Congress, they didn't govern like conservatives due to the fact that they AREN'T conservatives.
Click to expand...
Not really; it's kinda the point--to do what "real" conservatives want would require leadership and effective governance. They'd have govern effectively and with conviction. These folks had a rhetorical and philosophical objection to govt, even if in practice they weren't particularly tight with the purse strings.

But that's not really the point. The point is these are folks who at least rhetorically are quite suspicious of govt; their governance reflected that. Whether they're "real" conservatives or not is a red herring.

The problem is that even though "real" conservatism may well be a touchstone for these folks, once they get to DC they realize it's simply not that simple to go after what "real" conservatism is ostensibly about. It's not the easy sell that it seems from the campaign trail and from listening to AM radio.

Anyway, the question remains? When was this heyday of "real" conservatism anyway?
 
Last edited:
The problem is that when you believe that governance is inherently evil and something that should be "drowned in the bathtub" (and don't get me wrong, I agree it has plenty of potential for evil, I just see some of the evil as a necessary evil), it's hard to actually govern.

Republicans failed to govern effectively for the same reason you and I would suck as gun control advocates. They're doing something they have this mighty cognitive dissonance about--they want to rule, but they thinking ruling is evil.
Click to expand...
This is just plain false. Conservatives support legitimate government. What we don't support is statism, i.e., the absence of legitimate government. Legitimate government is what the Founders imposed on the power of the State in order to tame it and bring it under the control of the people, rather than the blue blooded elite, as was typical of European States. Legitimate government constitutes the chains we the people place on State power, so as to make it our servant. It is not an enemy of Conservatives. It is the State that we mistrust because, like a ravenous lion, it forever seeks to break its chains and become the master and destroyer of its keepers. We wish to restore legitimate government, not destroy it. It is the State which wishes to destroy government, the better to exercise raw, centralized and unchecked power so as to turn the tables and enslave the people it had been forced to serve.
 
17. Republican base figured out "compassionate conservative" is a euphamism for "free spending liberal bastard".
 
Anyway, the question remains? When was this heyday of "real" conservatism anyway?
Click to expand...
Since it is the nature of real conservatism to look back to earlier times for our ideals, the farther back you go, the closer you get to THE ideal, to a point. The ideal was the beginning, 1789, but it was pretty darn good, in terms of liberty and our relationship to the State, in our view just 80 years or so ago. Why, back then, I hear tell, a person could live his entire life with very little if any contact with any officials of State. Yes, the super wealthy had to pay Federal income taxes, but that touched only a very small number of people, and only a tiny percentage of their incomes was taken, wrong as even that was. Today, every living human adult, apart from the occasional derelict, has to report to our masters in DC every year and tell them what we've done the previous year so they can tell us how much of our money we can keep, and I am only scratching the surface.
 
Last edited:
Americans got fed up with being patronized , handled , and managed like school kids.

But not enough so to actually do something constructive about it. Bless our FF.
 
You can only screw the people over for so long before they do something about it. Repubs would have been better off remembering that.

If the Dems keep their head down and say absolutely nothing, they could get a pet rock elected President in 2008. Granted, same thing could have been said about 2004.
 
The Republicans lost because Americans woke up and realized that America was being run people who only cared about big business, gaining absolute power, and wealth for themselves.
 
I think the first time I that I actually began to understand we Americans had sold ourselves out to the State was when my youngest son purchased a home about 15 years ago. He had $5000.00 cash to put down on it and the closer at the title company asked him where he got the money. I interrupted and said that is was none of her business where he got the money. It was his and it was cash.

She said if he did not disclose where it came from, he could not get a loan. Then I noticed the 6 inch pile of paperwork that was to be submitted to the government. The last time I had purchased a house, the paperwork was one sheet in which I agreed to pay back the money at a % of interest for a specified period of time, nothing more.

We have turned our lives over to the statists, willingly. They are republicans and Democrats, equally. What a shame. Pogo was right after all: "We have found the enemy and he is us."
 
compassionate conservative = free-spending liberal bastard

+1

But will that kind of Republican effort to 'reach out' to the Democrats and build consensus now be reciprocated by the Democrats? Or will they just try to shove a bunch of far-left legislation down our throat (such as gun-control at home and cut-and-run in Iraq)) and will the US survive two years of this before we get a chance to vote again? Have we jumped from the frying pan into the fire?
 
Afro-sheen, Frito Bandito? What's wrong with that, Brainstem?


Anyway, the Republicans lost because the American military is only for two things: killing the enemy and blowing up his stuff. If you try to use it for anything else, you're asking for big trouble. Turning Iraq into Bangladesh might seem like a worthy project to somebody, but it's no job for G.I. Joe.
 
TCB in TN
Member


Join Date: 06-23-06
Posts: 73

Rush is right.
I hate to quote Rush, but this group of so called republicans apparently doesn't understand that Conservatism works every time it's tried. Bush may be a hawk in defending our country, but he is a died in the wool spending fool. Also the bunch of idiots we sent to congress sure don't act republican. Don't know why they were voted out by the dems. Had the dems been in charge they couldn't have done a better job wasting money or screwing the country over!
__________________
There are only 2 people in this world I trust and you ain't one of'em!
TCB in TN is offline Report Post
Click to expand...

+1

S
 
Anyway, the Republicans lost because the American military is only for two things: killing the enemy and blowing up his stuff. If you try to use it for anything else, you're asking for big trouble. Turning Iraq into Bangladesh might seem like a worthy project to somebody, but it's no job for G.I. Joe.
Click to expand...
My sentiments exactly.
 
I'd go with 17 as well. The title "neo-con" seems to = liar. Sounds more like an ice cream flavor than anything else.

As for 08, the first party who can prove they listen to the people and actually communicate with them, wins. I hope.

GW had this country in the palm of his hands on September 11th, 2001 and blew it so badly that I shake my head. In some ways, he reminds me of Nixon, who would not communicate with the people and enlist their help.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top