Regards

Maybe because the jerkoff who was Committee Chair didn’t give a damn about seeing qualified conservative nominees get to the bench.

The pinheads you’re so proud of pretty well kept any progress from being made in terms of focusing on smaller government or getting conservatives into critical positions. See the UN Ambassador’s job for starters.

I know the argument. “If we only stayed true to principle we could win these elections.” That argument only works if the moderates and centrists respect your convictions even if they disagree with you. That was McCain’s failing, he didn’t realize that voters will accept ideological disagreements if they think you are trustworthy, honest, and down-to-earth. That’s how Obama got such a large percent of the pro-life and anti-tax vote.

HOWEVER, this strategy doesn’t work if you tell the moderates and centrists to go f* themselves. THAT’s what’s worrying me. The most important concept that gets people to go out and vote is a sense of ownership of the outcome, make them feel that they have a personal stake in it. That’s what depressed conservative turnout in states like Ohio this time around, McCain couldn’t do that. It’s important to stay principled, but it’s also important to make moderates feel like they’ve got a stake in the party. Saying that we don’t need them is not a good way to do that.

Perhaps greater minds could explain it.

Regards

Not necessarily the wild eyed,rabid Pelosi type Demoncrat, but more the ’90s liberal Demoncrat.

If only they had the courage to admit it and change parties.

Regards

Just go away.

Regards

Lack of a firm stand on many issues by those two, and others has cost us the Congress and now the White House.

I ran into a lot of people that disagreed with Reagan very strongly, but they respected him because you never had to guess where he stood.

Regarding “moderates” such as Specter, every time I turn around it seems someone is bringing up the “big tent” again.

It should be obvious to everyone by now that the ” big tent” “folded.”

Why pursue a losing strategy over and over?

Regards

They accept moderate/conservative Dems when they have to. IE: Ben Nelson from Nebraska.

In that same vane, I would be fine with Lindsey Graham if he was the GOP senator from Maine or New Jersey, but there is no excuse for a state like South Carolina to be represented by a moderate. We should only accept moderate/liberal GOPers if they represent states/disctricts where they are the best we could hope for. For instance, if Pataki or Giuliani run for Senate to replace Hillary in 2010, I would be happy to get a GOP seat from New York, even if they aren’t pro-life, pro-gun, etc.

McCain was the candidate. He lost. We obviously had the “McCain wing of the party” front-and-center in 2008. And it obviously didn’t help. Try reading the many, many postmortems (including several here) that make it clear that “better Left than the Left” doesn’t work. Do a little research before spouting off here. This has been covered ad nauseum over the last three+ weeks here and in many other GOP/conservative circles.

There are certain values that are beyond compromise. Pro-life is one of them. We don’t buckle on what is right just to buy votes. If that’s what you’d like to do, then go right ahead and promote it - you can do it here, even. But you won’t be doing it from the RedState front page. And that is fine by the vast majority of those here.

Chill…the hardest of the hard core right that you encounter here on RS and are sparing with do not represent where the party stands on any range of issues, right now or in the future. Matter of fact, the party is turning inward right now not Left and not Right, and will only do more of the same after “The One” is inaugurated. How that is going to turn out beats the heck out of me.

If you want to beleive and spar with the hardest of the hard core posters here on RS and think that they represent mainstream thinking in the Republican brand, knock yourself out, but you’d be wrong and it’s a waste of time. Try instead finding things that you agree with the hard right on, instead of spending so much time finding things you disagree on.

Psst…here’s a small secret, even the hardest of the hard core far right folks here know the Republican brand is not turning their way, and I think that bugs them almost as much as “The One” is going to over the next four years. Hard Right politicians don’t get elected outside of a very few places right now, simple fact, but competent politicians who actually mean what they say and do what they say are getting elected, not ideologues of ether party. Breathe deeply and consider that fact. You’ll be a much happier camper.

If the process gets moving and Republicans actually decide to stand for something other than bipartisanship, we’ll start winning. Until then, enjoy the wilderness.