Redstate

Posted at 12:00am on Mar. 10, 2008 Why Don't You Sit this Next One Out Champ, Stop Talking for a While

By Ben Domenech

I understand that it's the only way for Brent Bozell to get in the WaPo editorial page, but attacking Fred Barnes and Mark Helprin as being "McCain surrogates" - who are somehow acting on the candidate's orders when they say they believe conservatives will suck it up and vote for the man - just doesn't pass the laugh test.

Posted in 2008 | Brent Bozell | conservative crackup | John McCain — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:35pm on Feb. 14, 2008 Redstate Roundtable II: How McCain Can Reach Out To Conservatives

By Ben Domenech

REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE II: HOW McCAIN CAN REACH OUT TO CONSERVATIVES

John McCain will need conservative voters to win in November. Some, of course, will support him automatically, either out of a sense that he's conservative enough or out of a desire to keep the Democrats out of the White House. But what can McCain realistically and credibly do between now and then to win over enough of the GOP base to have a fighting chance against Hillary or Obama? Which parts of the base will be the most fertile targets for his appeals?

Posted in 2008 | conservative crackup | John McCain | Redstate Roundtable — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:19pm on Nov. 5, 2007 Game Theory and Party Politics

By Thomas

It's another Giuliani/Huckabee diary. If just those five words are enough to turn your stomach, you should probably read something else.

Anyway: We're in the middle of something a lot of folks haven't really seen since 1980, and perhaps haven't seen in their lifetimes: A well-and-truly contested Republican Presidential Primary. Now, because we're unused to it, it's my theory that we don't remember how to react; and because the Party was a very different animal then, the coalition of groups who compose it have little to no institutional memory of how to resolve formational problems before they get out of hand.

Put differently: Depending on which candidate is ascendant at any given time, a lot of otherwise good-faith Republicans are threatening to take their ball and run away, because they don't know precisely what else to do.

I'm not going to sit here and argue that anyone must vote for this guy, or must not vote for that one; I'm not going to get into the middle of the what-happens-when-the-general-comes argument. I have enough headaches without engaging that.

What I'd like to do is offer every camp an insight into why we are where we are, and point to some possible resolutions of the problem. I would suggest that we need to get this done now, rather than, say, September 2008. So, if you have some time, read on.

Posted in 2008 | conservative crackup | Mike Huckabee | Republican crackup | Republicans | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (39) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:35am on Oct. 16, 2007 Nope. Absolutely wide of the mark. Except for one thing...

By Thomas

On general principle, I try very hard to avoid disagreeing with my fellow contributors anywhere but in the comment sections of their pieces; generally, it feels unseemly to turn the front page, or diaries, into a back-and-forth on some issue or another. This is just me; Heaven knows others have different perspectives, and have displayed them.

That said, I'm breaking that personal rule this time to take issue with almost everything Erick said here. Before I wander out on this thin-looking tree extension, I'd note that I have no small amount of respect for Erick as both a man and as a thinker. Generally, I don't publicly disagree with him because I have the luxury of seeing most of what he writes as essentially correct. Nothing that I write here changes any of that.

With that said, I think with respect to this specific piece, Erick's wrong in general, wrong in his initial premises, and wrong in most of his conclusions. I'll explain why below the fold, but I do want to ask you to follow me there, because there is one thing I think he's absolutely right about; and that one thing contains within it so much awful truth, I'd like you to not only tell me why I'm wrong, I'd like you to prove it.

Click the link.

Posted in conservative crackup | Death of the McChicken | GOP War | Republican crackup | Republicans — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:58am on Oct. 5, 2007 Keep it Together, Part 2

Strap it up and get your head in the game

By Ben Domenech

Stay in the huddle, boys and girls.

Yeah, I know. We were big for a while. Back in '94, we were on top. BMOC. And in this century, we won narrow, yeah, but we won. Those guys, they got so frustrated, they lost their composure...fielded teams with crazy yells, ascots, weird Vietnam obsessions. They were angry about losing, so they played angry, so they lost.

But then we got sloppy. We got stupid. We drafted some lames, and one or two guys worse than lames - people who didn't deserve to see the field got major minutes. We let people get cocky, and then get stupid. We started fighting over who should get the ball. We started talking behind each others backs. We started demanding bigger contracts - gotta feed the family, ya know? Or maybe buy that yacht.

And you know what they did? They lost so much, they finally fired enough bad coaches and found a few mediocre ones. They didn't get a lot smarter, just a little. Just smart enough to stop thinking squash games, and start thinking NASCAR. Just smart enough to say it was okay if everyone didn't have the same playbook sections on school prayer, on abortion, or guns - never run those plays any more, anyway. Just smart enough to send Heath freaking Shuler after us.

We laughed.

But dammit, they won. You have no idea how much losing can hurt until you've lost to Heath freaking Shuler.

Maybe we need a reminder about what this is all about, and about who it isn't about. Get your head in the game, and pay attention.

Look over there. You see that guy on the sideline? The one we all thought was taking us to the promised land a few years back? He proved what he could be, and what he couldn't. Yeah, he did some good things. But remember "building a permanent majority"? Remember "let's go to Mars"? Remember "Harriet Miers"? Yeah, you remember.

Some of you might hate him. Lots of you do. I don't, I still respect the guy, but that's okay, we don't have to agree on everything to play on this team.

But guess what: it doesn't matter, dammit. It does NOT matter. Let me clue you in to a freaking truth here: that guy ain't long for the sideline. His time is running out. He knows when he's packing up. And when he's gone, it's not going to matter any more what he thinks. We're still gonna to be out here on this field, fighting our guts out, unless we give up and go home crying. And you're not gonna do that, are ya?

Some of you are all torqued up about who the next guy is gonna be calling the plays. Some of you feel like you don't fit into his scheme, so you're already whining about it, about deserting the team depending on who wears the headset.

Hell, I hear ya. I don't have a lot of confidence in any of these guys they're talking about in the papers. I know I'll get pissed off if they start calling quarterback sneaks every play, I've already got a bum knee.

But you know what? I'm still here. You're still here. And you know what, here's the truth, whoever it is: they ALL need us if they're going to win.

So stop it. Stop the whining, stop the excuses. Stop looking over to that sideline for leadership. You look here, you look in the huddle, you look at your teammates. It's not his job any more to get us on the same page - it's ours.

The Gipper ain't walking through that door. And good thing, too. If he were, he'd be ashamed.

Pull that turf out of your facemask. Get your head in the game. Start thinking about what we can do together when we put our minds to it. What we can do right.

No one else can do that. This is on us. Let's take it back, starting now.

Posted in conservative crackup | Republicans — Comments (81)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:45pm on Oct. 2, 2007 Keep it Together, Part 1

Time to huddle up and get things right

By Ben Domenech

All right, boys and girls. Time for a huddle.

So what's this all about? You like going off on your own, like you don't need anybody else? You like getting pushed off the line? You like the other team pointing and laughing?

You know they've been saying we were going to choke. Even our fans have been saying it. The run is over. We got old too fast, we care about different things than winning these days.

Maybe we're stupid. Maybe we've gotten cracked on the skull too many times to know what's good for us. Maybe we should just give up, take the easy way out, hug the mat til the bell rings and we can crawl back to our mamas and eat some fried chicken.

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe they've been saying we were doomed forever, wishing it were true. And still we keep coming back, cause we're too stupid, too knotheaded, or cause we don't want that damn chicken yet.

We just won't stay the hell down. And this time is no different.

Enough. What they say doesn't matter. What we do here, now, that's what matters. Time to shape up, or we're going to get the crap beat out of us. That's the truth. We keep it together now, or we're going down hard. And if we don't get on same page here, we'll be going down without a fight.

That ain't me. I know that ain't you, neither. So let's make them prove something. Let's make them show if they're made of more than soy and good intentions. Time to remember what team we're on. Time to remember what's at stake. Time to go to our strengths, and make them stop us.

Let's hit them in the freaking mouth.

Posted in conservative crackup | Republicans — Comments (53)/ Email this page » / Read More »