Redstate

Thank you for this. Not only is it bold and classy to respond here, but I appreciate and agree with your response.

however, I feel the President and the Republican Congress lost a historic opportunity to kill the 60s liberals once and for all by abandoning our core values. It is great we are going back to our roots but until we have more victories, it appears it is simply the opposite tack from the Dems for the upcoming elections. Please prove me wrong. I'm easy, I am conservative and I will vote republican for the Supreme Court if nothing else but there are many straddling the fence. Let's stop screwing around. Time for harsh penalties for enabling illegal aliens, fiscal restraint and victory against our enemies. Thank you for stopping by, I look forward to more comments from the Congress.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us - Voltaire

Well done Congressman! Whoever advises you on blogs hit the nail on the head. Thanks for taking the time to come to Red State and address the concerns raised. By recommitting the Party to conservative reforms, empower individuals to run their own lives, we can work together to make this country a better place.

Republicans lost the House and the Senate for four main reasons. The first was the six year itch for a sitting President. It is a pretty predictable occurance and President Bush lost less seats in Congress in his sixth year than the average.

The second was the corruption charges against several of our candidates. There is never going to be a way to avoid those all together, but this past election saw the Republicans have more problems than usual. Let's hope that never happens again and lets try and get good, moral men and women to be our candidates.

The third was Iraq. America is getting tired of Iraq and Republicans and President Bush did not do an effective enough job communicating why we needed to be there and the dire consequences if we left premmaturely.

The final reason was that the Republicans in Congress stopped acting like conservatives. Spending got out of control. Granted, there were legitimate reasons for this like Katrina, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Global War on Terror and specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But people don't want to hear excuses. They want Congress to cut the spending, stop the pork and be responsible stewards of their money. The Republicans failed to do that and it disenfranchised many voters.

I don't know if we can really control the corruption scandals, but we should try our best. I don't think we can do much be keep up the fight in Iraq and try as best we can to effectively communicate why that is important. The six year itch is a thing of the past. So, I believe what Republicans really need to focus on for the next election is coming out strongly for cutting spending, cutting taxes and being responsible leaders. Democrats can say all they want, but they are not now nor or they ever going to be the party of responsible money management. They want to raise taxes and spend, spend, spend. We must differentiate ourselves from them. We must attack them on this issue and this time we really have to back it up.

Cutting spending, cutting taxes, cutting the deficit and being responsible managers of the taxpayers money is the best thing we have going right now. We must come out strong on this issue and hammer the Democrats with it. I hope the NRCC will do that this election cycle and I hope all the Republican candidates will do it as well.

about 15 of the seats we lost were in conservative districts that we let the Democrat look more conservative than us. They won by running as conservatives.

At age 64 I am a life long conservative. I like to refer to myself more as a "traditionalist". As a conservative, the Republican Party was about the only "water hole in the desert".Since the Republican Party took over the congress with the "Contract With America" it has come to look more and more like those Democrats they replaced. The party has lost this voter. I would never align myself with the Socialist/Progressives that constitute the Democratic Party, however I cannot in good conscience support a party that has strayed so far from it's base. Barring any unforseen drastic rebirth of the Republican Party around it's core values, I and many of my friends will simply sit out the next election.

For six years we saw the Republican politician commitment to cutting spending and limiting federal government. It wasn’t pretty.

I am age 66 and I too am a lifelong conservative, however, I can not abide by your decision to sit out upcoming elections apparently because of you disgust with some rot that has set in on the Republicans when they were in the majority. By not voting you are, in effect, adding one vote to the liberal side (i.e. Democrats). Do you really believe that they are the better alternative to govern? Hardly.

The better response is to seek outRepublican candidates who will better support your conservative ideals - not to sit out elections and thus enable the people who are least able to represent your values to acquire power (i.e. Democrats).

Halotosis is better than no breath at all.

Like others, I think we lost in 2006 on a few critical issues. First and foremost, there has been no action on any of the core conservative principles of comprehensive tax reform. There was tinkering, but no leadership on starting a dialogue with the country in regards to where we should go in terms of tax reform. Personally, the continuance of some to push for a national sales tax is just a stall tactic. A national sales tax is the most impractical of all the proposals.

Secondly, Republicans became the Democrats of 1994 on issues of corruption and honesty in government. Jack Abramoff and the ongoing scandals became the face of the Republican party. Congressional leaders stalled instead of demanding answers from those caught up in the scandal and still to this day they allow Members caught up in this mess to continue to serve in Congress (See Doolittle).

Thirdly, pork barrel spending and pet projects have gotten out of control. Republicans didn't act like Republicans. They talked one way at home in the district and acted another way in DC. That double talk caught up with them.

Finally, Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Republicans literally just took a roll on holding the Administration accountable for results as it related to Iraq. They didn't make sure the money was spent wisely. They didn't make sure we were making progress. They just kind of didn't do anything really. America wants results when men and women are committing their life to a cause.

Now, so far in Congress, Republicans have been against things that most Americans clearly agreed are priorities such as pay as you go spending, cutting student loan interest rates, and new ethics rules for Members of Congress. That's going to be a hard sell around the country.

House Republicans are going to have to step it up in terms of raising money, getting the message out, and recruiting candidates if they want any chance to take back the House in 2008.

I can't tell you how disgusted I get whenever someone comes at me with that same old conundrum, ie. either vote for this corrupt, unworthy Republican or you will get an even worse, corrupt, unworthy Democrat. When ANY political party in this country puts forward someone with the character, integrity, and moral compass that actually deserves to lead this nation, I then will step forward and lend my name, through my vote, to that cause. Until that time, you can continue your blind party loyalty and provide this nation with the same type of representation that was elected over the last 20 years.

At some point, some folks are going to refuse to have their fingerprints appear on the knife that was plunged into the very heart of this nation. I'm at that point now, thank you very much.

to sit back and allow the voters to see what the Democrat party actually is. Mainstreet America is not going to be happy about massive tax hikes, anti-business/pro-union legislation, multiculturalism, etc. The problem however, is that the media spends every last second of their airtime covering Republican "scandals" or any possible negative story to come out of Iraq. To be fair, the Republcans deserve some of that. It angers me immensely to think that we blew comfortable majorities in a matter of two years because of all the crooks and wasteful spending. But the media's given the Dems a complete pass on similar things, and that is equally outrageous. Nobody hears a peep about Diane Feinstein, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or William Jefferson.

I am a staunch conservative and Republican supporter, but I fear that I may fall victim to the so-called "media bubble". I need to hear SOMETHING positive about our cause once in a while.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”