We are ways too harsh on each other. But I have to say that Huckabee didn’t get anything that he dish out himself. We do have to be kinder to each other.

In my experience, it is the people who can’t rationally defend their positions or candidates that instead lash out with insults. Conservatism should be build on intellect, reason and fact, not on raw emotion. Let’s get excited about our candidates or issues, but let’s argue like adults, with facts and logic not insults and name-calling.

He’s going to want to spend that cash savaging Republicans. I fully expect every conservative site to be full of infiltrators who do nothing but attack other candidates than their “picked” candidates. We may not be able to tell who they are. But they will certainly bring the level of discourse down to their level. As conservatives and republicans let’s remember two things.

1. All real conservatives and republicans agree on most things. So we’re not really enemies. Don’t treat each other as enemies.

2. The Democrats are a proxy party for the communist party. They are not an American political party. They do not have the good of America as one of their goals. They will treat we conservatives like enemies, so we need to acknowledge the morale war they are waging against us and focus on them, and their savior Princeps Barackus Kenyattus Obamai, as the real enemy.

Don’t be lured or tempted into attacking Republicans. Save your ammo for the bad guys, and there are plenty of them in the Democratic Media Complex.

“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” –Alexander Hamilton

Study at Redstate University

Now where’s my credit card?

but the campaign season’s just beginning…

Well, and beautifully said, Errick..

I hope in turn Red State will monitor trolls, concern trolls and other time wasting effluvia. Also what is the point of people repeating the same criticism of a candidate time after time after time, ad nauseum.
That is unless they are trolls.

Erick, I’ve read your piece twice and I can’t think of anything that needs to be added.

As a strong Palin supporter, I have been known to respond to those who rely on the “she’s stupid” meme or the “quitter” meme. I know that when a person resorts to that tactic, they are on the losing side of the argument before they get started. I do not disparage the character of another candidate, with the exception of Jug Ears.

When I encounter a supporter of another candidate, I will listen and ask questions. When I encounter someone who attacks Palin’s character or intelligence, I usually accept their attack as a reflection on them and not Palin. Sometimes I don’t, but then realize that I’m falling into their trap. When I read the rantings of a PDSer, 95% of the time I end up letting it go. Sometimes, I fail totally and jump right into the middle of it. I guess I’m still a work in progress.

Just remember Redstaters, you have a unique opportunity to actually convince relatively like-minded people here to support ‘your’ candidate (financially/volunteering/voting), by making reasoned, fact-based arguments.

But you won’t get there through ad-hominem attacks, overreaction and hyperbole.

and I totally agree! Even though FreedomWorks has launched a huge expensive campaign to destroy Mitt Romney, we must turn the other cheek. Their intentions are honorable aren’t they!
Righhhhtttttt?

The reason Sarah Palin supporters, myself included, have such a short fuse on any slights directed at her is very simple…

Who was defending her loudly and vocally when she was being attacked, joked about, smeared and stabbed in the back by the Republican insiders, bloggers, politicos and Washington insiders for those two years after the election?…. who stood up and defended her?
Did you? Were you loud and vocal about pushing back on all the attacks and smears? or were you one of the ones snickering in the background and making jokes too?

Lets take just one smear…. this liberal garbage that even gets repeated by some on the right about being a quitter. Where do you think the Tea Party would have gone to if Sarah had not left office, come down to the lower 48 and brought national TV attention to it and a legitimacy when the Republican Establishment was laughing at them?… who was the “cheerleader” for the Tea Party that was able to get National TV coverage during that initial period? I remember the so-called genius advisors, bloggers and politicos attached to the Republican Party downplaying those stupid people. And its easy to go back and read what everyone was saying back in 2009…. right?

So, as far as I am concerned, good for the Palin supporters. Keep it up. Its bad enough that the left attacks her every day…. its even worse that there are scumballs and slime on the right that are still doing it.

Sarah Palin will roll over all the bitchers and complainers who now realize that if she gets in, then their gaming of the system for money and power is going to be in jeopardy.

Just waiting for the movie. Popcorn time coming up.

We could have used it in 2008, when McCain operatives were under strict orders not to attack his opponent.

and here’s to many more robust discussions between now and next summer; and then can we all, please, kiss, make up and work our behinds off to defeat the real enemies of this country

anybody – and I mean anybody – who will defend, preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America by defeating the scurrilous little creep currently occupying the White House.

I don’t care if it’s Sarah or T-Paw or Cain or Mitt or whoever. There are some I’d rather see on the ticket, and some I’d rather not see, but so help me, whoever is the GOP candidate in November 2012 is getting my vote and every single vote of every person I can get to the polls.

The time is now, because we won’t get another shot at stopping the socialists. Our nation is teetering on the brink of economic ruin and they are urging it on. We have only a short time to determine whose assets get us closer to victory, and whose defects might cause us to lose. We have to become more objective to do this.

I respectfully suggest that we all put on our big girl panties and find a way to figure out and unite behind whoever can attract the base and the independents, cause I have a feeling that it’s gonna get ugly out there, really quick.

We know what we are facing so do not add any more fuel for the left

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

I have two points about the hyperpartisan hypersensitivity. The first is that if people are so unwilling to consider “their” candidates faults, and the positives of other candidates, the we as a party will not get the most out of the primary process. Our goal is to field the best candidate to beat Obama and further our conservative principles. That means these people have to compete against each other, and let the best man win, period.

My second point won’t make many people happy but it is what I believe. One of the reasons why many are so prickly and defensive is that they know their candidate IS flawed, quite possibly to an extent that they can not beat Obama. If we had someone Reaganesque, would we really have 5 or 6 camps out there warring like Italian city states? I think not. I think people are defensive, as opposed to excited, BECAUSE we have no one that stands head and shoulders above the rest; at least not at this point.

Romney, Palin, Pawlenty, Cain, even Johnson or Luap Nor, we could elect any of these over Obama if we had to. I think it’s time we retire the ‘unelectable’ meme once and for all.

Erick is right, we need to get past this school yard mentality of “my daddy can beat up your daddy”. My candidate is Pawlenty, but I realize he has fleas and am willing to talk about them. If someone wants to attack his record or what he says, thats fine I dont treat that as if someone just insulted me. But how many of us on here is that not true for?

I am more worried about the Zealots in government. Who do you think populates the halls of the EPA — Zealots. There are many many more in the various bureaucracies.

It’s just too darned easy to slip from rational, reasoned criticism and debate into negative attacks, and then into ever nastier confrontations, building resentments and animosities between multiple camps simultaneously each step of the way, and eventually making the unity required to win the general election problematic to achieve.

Each of our candidates and potential candidates has their own policy schematic and narrative, there are certain to be differences. But those differences are minute in comparison to all of our differences with the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime. We can’t let them divide us to the point we can’t come together and work enthusiastically for whoever the nominee turns out to be.

We can and should tussle regularly and even brawl on occasion. But no knives, axes, or machetes, and let’s avoid the circular firing squad, mmmkay people?

having the “O” around or the possibility of having him around four more years then you’d better be prepared to support candidates that may not be your first choice. 2008 is a great example. Many of us held our nose while voting for McCain but realized the alternative would be much worse. That was certainly true. The Dems and the leftys in the pro “O” media will try their best to thwart any challengers to the throne. They will still get “a shiver down my leg” when “O” speaks whether he’s actually said anything of importance or not. The Dems will be digging up all the dirt they can (true or otherwise) on any candidate other than the messiah. The point is…let’s not help them. Support your candidate as far as they go but don’t help these marxists. If they don’t have anything on a candidate they have already proven that they will make it up if necessary. If you’re going to beat someone up make it a Democrat. Let’s not let infighting give this clown four more years. The country cannot stand it!

The world of instant communications and the fear of any candidate being diminished in an election which is 18 months away, is beyond me. President Reagan made it clear to speak no ill (publicly) of a fellow conservative. Maybe a little wisdom would be appropriate.

…unless they haven’t been able to produce a long form birth certificate.

Just kidding.

Good post! We should be approaching this election season like the mature adults we are (at least I hope), because the stakes are higher now, with all the debt and deficits, and no more accounting tricks to play (when LBJ patched together Bretton-Woods) or gold windows to close. The stakes are higher now than they have ever been in any of our lifetimes.

I like to compare and contrast what we are going through to the election cycles between 1854 and 1860. While I do not believe we’re headed down the same path that generation went down, although anything is possible, I believe there is much to learn from the demise of the Whig Party and remnants of it being rebuilt as the Republican Party. There are many general similarities between the reasons the Whigs went “poof” – as in matters of principle – and the struggle between the Tea Party movement and old school Republicans.

That period of history is exciting to read about, but my sympathies are with the people who had to live through it in real time because the evolution of the Whigs into a party that was more focused on what they believed were the issues of their time wasn’t pretty. It was slow and clunky with many a bruised ego, and worse, along the way. But the result, in a political sense, was grand. With the new party, the Republican Party fully rebuilt and focused on the issues of the day, the consequence was the implosion of the Democrats. If anyone is interested in the details (and if you like to read about all kinds of corruption and political tricks) google Covode and The Demise of the Democrat Party – 1860 and you can download a scanned copy of the Congressional report from the world repository.

What’s even better than that, though, is once the Democrats imploded they wandered in the political wilderness for decades. And I think that is what we really want – beyond all the rest – because we know what they have in mind for our country, which is something most of us cannot tolerate.

So, in the name of unity and trying to get through this in the most respectable manner as possible, and win, I pledge to consider the seriousness of our situation and conduct myself accordingly. The only exception that I may make, however, are statists whom I believe to be counterproductive to the cause of refocusing on the party on tackling the issue of how we got to where we are. Therefore, I do not count branding someone a statist as a personal attack if I also provide examples and proof of such.

wake up America before it’s too late. Don’t be so juvenile, we have to be strong, smart, stick together, and just make sure that Obama is a one term President, who is now slowly destroying this country on all fronts.

all have a tendency to attack the messenger. It does no good to attack anyone on these post. there is nothing they cn do to fix their candidate to be what you want them to be or to make them go away. A lesson I learned when I managed a garden center many years ago:

“The best way to get rid of weeds in your yard is not to go out and pull them out but to plant really high quality grass and then water and feed it and it will push out the bad things.” So it is with candidates. If you pick a good one and support them they will rise to the top and all others will just go away. You don’t hve to attack anyone’s opinion or ideas. One more saying and then I’m outa here: “Never wrestle with a pig… You get dirty and the pig likes it”. rwt

… Erick, “Well said, old mole!”

I totally agree and herewith pledge to never use stronger language than an old fashioned, very polite Texan “Bless your heart!”

(For all damnyankees and other non-Texans, that freely translates to “You are a stupid SOB, a waste of space, and should not be on top of the grass.”)

People need to stop and take a breath. Otherwise they start to sound like unhinged democrats!!

I come here to learn things about candidates and politics that isn’t found on TV or online in places as it should be. I see nothing wrong with criticizing candidates but going after each other gets old fast. Plus it only encourages members to drop out. No need to beat down on a member just state your opinion without trying to bully them or run them off. Share the facts, no need to get hateful.

We should take all that is now on the Internet with a grain of salt after all Obamaommunist has appointed a watch dog to protect his position on line using government funds to support his campaign efforts. Who is to say that he and his crew are not the ones out trashing the Republicans and Tea Party candidates, all under the guise of being loyal? we have already seen how they will run fake tea Party candidates to take votes away from real Republican candidates to allow the democrats to win this is all part of the play book for the Marxist campaign.