I remember well the arguments over whether or not to give the franchise to 18 year olds back in 1971. I was to turn 18 in 1972 and at the time, many sober minded people actually believed that passage and ratification of the amendment would kill Richard Nixon’s chances for re-election. It didn’t, of course. To this day, 18-21 year olds are the least participatory age group in American democracy. But at the height of the Viet Nam war, the powerful slogan used by pro-26th amendment groups – “If they’re old enough to fight, they’re old enough to vote” – won the day and the amendment was ratified in almost record time.
Anti-amendment forces made the losing argument that 18 year olds were too intellectually unsophisticated to vote. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman at the time:
Representative Emmanuel Cellar, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a staunch opponent of the proposal who had routinely killed the measure in committee. Representative Cellar thought that “Young people are idealists. They tend to see things as black and white. That makes it easy to manipulate them.†Proponents of lowering the voting age feared that Representative Cellar would scuttle the legislation once again.
Cellar was wrong. Young people should not be denied the vote – especially when they aren’t the only age group who are idealists and “tend to see things in black and white.” Age has nothing to do with an inability to think and act like an adult. Just look at the self-destructive conservative wing of the Republican party today.
Rather than self destructive, perhaps we should refer to them as the Spoiled Brat wing of the Republican party. In a shocking exhibition of immaturity and intellectual shallowness, not to mention a cavalier attitude toward the safety and security of the United States, some conservatives have begun to throw the mother of all tantrums 6 months prior to the election because, quite simply, they are not getting their way. They are threatening to “punish” Republicans by, one supposes, staying at home on election day and allowing the Democrats a clear path to majority status.
If conservatives were to abandon the party and vote Democratic to effect that changeover, I could countenance their choice as one made with the full, honest realization that they were voting to promote a liberal agenda along with a worldview that many of us believe would threaten the safety and security of the United States. In a democracy, this is a legitimate way to “punish” your party of choice and “send a message” that they must change in order to win back your loyalty.
But the Spoiled Brat Conservatives are contemplating no such thing. Using the withholding of their vote as an unconscionable political ploy, they seek to affect a Democratic takeover literally by default. They are going to hand the country over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi not because they agree with them but because they value their own, selfish, petty agenda over the good of the nation.
It is one thing to become frustrated with the personalities and even the politics of lawmakers who make compromises in order that the business of the nation be carried out with a modicum of orderliness and dispatch. It is quite another to demand that the politicians of one’s party commit political suicide just to satisfy the legislative cravings of a minority. The fact of the matter is, we aren’t called “the base” for nothing. In order to win an election, even in a relatively safe district, a politician needs the votes of not only of us bedrock conservatives but also moderate conservatives and independents.
An argument can be made that Republicans have pissed off any number of these voters, some of whom will almost certainly be voting Democratic in November. But to posit the notion that the alternative is better in the short or, as some have suggested, in the long term is ludicrous. Counting votes two years out is an exercise in sophistry and worse, a demonstration of monumental stupidity. If we don’t know which events may or may not transpire in the next six months that will affect this election, how in God’s name can you make the preposterous assumption that an outcome more than two years away can even be guessed at?
In truth, the anger shared by all of us over immigration, spending, the pork barrel, and even issues of competence regarding the President pale in comparison to the anger we would all feel if the Democrats enacted parts of their agenda.
Have problems with the President’s immigration plan? Let’s act like 2 year olds being denied their way and watch as the Democrats eviscerate the President’s admittedly inadequate and modest proposals for enforcement and embrace changes that will send you to the medicine cabinet for your high blood pressure medication.
Don’t think that taxes have been cut enough? Sit in your recliner eating nachos on election day, gloating at how you “showed” those Republicans, and then watch as the Democrats make Sweden look like a tax haven.
Too much spending for your delicate sensibilities? Try to imagine the various social engineering schemes and legislative sops Democrats have ready to drop into the hopper in January of 2007. Along with the tax increases (which we all know will be spent on the pet projects of liberals and not used to reduce the deficit), how do taking steps toward socialized medicine, “reform” of the prescription drug bill, and other liberal big government spending initiatives sound to you?
Oh, and let’s not forget Iraq and the War on Terror. But then, what’s the security and safety of the United States of America mean when stacked against the foot stomping, ill natured “lesson” you plan to teach the GOP?
Let me make it clear that I’m not trying to defend the indefensible here but rather make the point that elections are about choices. That’s all they are. They are not about “sending messages” or “punishing” someone. You can tell yourself that until you’re blue in the face but that won’t make it so. By staying at home, you are making a choice just as surely as if you pull the lever in the voting booth for the Democrats. There is absolutely nothing intellectually sophisticated about withholding your vote for “strategic” reasons. It is, in fact, simple minded to have faith that you can effect change by not participating in the process.
And what of the congressional districts lost if Republicans go down to defeat in November? It will be no simple matter to win them back, I assure you. The power of incumbency is such that even in districts that lean heavily Republican, a clever Democratic politician can twist and squirm his way to acceptance. And, of course, being fanatically devoted to constituent services in the district always goes a long way to cementing a politicians political prospects. It is chimerical to believe that the GOP can win back lost districts simply by putting up a “true” conservative to run against a Democrat. History teaches us an opposite lesson.
We are at war. The party you are hoping comes to power uses quotation marks when talking and writing about the conflict we are in, as if it only exists in the minds of George Bush and a few misguided Republicans. How serious do you believe the Democrats will be about national security? Are you willing to take the chance of finding out?
And for those conservatives who continuously point to Ronald Reagan’s Administration as a model of conservative governance, I would suggest you read a history of that period so that you can be disabused of such fairy tales. Reagan’s term in office was marked by compromise and practicality, so much so that the President’s hyper-conservative Interior Secretary James Watt famously wailed at one point “Let Reagan be Reagan” – as if the Gipper could be anything else. I distinctly recall Richard Viguerie, whose OpEd in the Washington Post yesterday must set some kind of standard for petulant huffiness, doing a little wailing himself back then about the men around the President preventing RR from acting like a “true” conservative.
This ain’t the 1980’s. Reagan’s success during that period came about as a result of his ability to pull conservative southern Democrats along with him on a few big ticket items like taxes, defense spending, and some reform measures. This kind of bi-partisanship is not vouchsafed his successor as the liberals have purged the apostates from the south and now stand united, almost in lockstep against President Bush. This has made the President’s ability to maneuver, to wheel and deal on legislation in order to affect an outcome that would satisfy “the base” problematic indeed. With so few Democrats willing to peel off and support the President on any number of issues, in order to get anything done at all, Bush has had to govern closer to the middle – as Bill Clinton found out following the election of 1994.
So go ahead and throw your tantrum by not voting on election day. But do so realizing the consequences to the country and not just your ego or your political sensibilities. Working to change the party is hard work and must be done at the grass roots level. How much street cred are “real” conservatives going to have with party loyalists – the people who largely make up the grass roots – if the Democrats win in November and the blame clearly falls on you?
I personally plan on voting, seeing the act of casting my ballot as the only mature, responsible way to express my choice in our representative democracy. In my humble opinion, not doing so would be tantamount to placing your own personal interests over the interests of the country. And in a time of war, I find that enormously troubling.
UPDATE
Bravo to Bruce Kessler for expressing many of the same sentiments I did above, although he seems a little too sanguine about the prospect of forming an “independent conservative force” that would work to put forward a conservative agenda and conservative candidates. I would say that such a force already exists in spades. You can’t shake a stick in Washington without hitting a conservative think tank or presure group. That said, Bruce makes several excellent points in his must read post.
And Ed Morrissey also thinks like me, that conservatives are guilty of “unrealistic expectations.” Ed, however, is more polite and accomodating than I am, he being much more gentlemanly about his criticism of the Pouting Thomas Republicans.
9:58 am
Rick, thanks for your usual insightful, if ranting, article. I wish before you decide Republican Good, Democrat bad you would consider the impacts of the President’s and Senate’s illegal immmigration policies and legislation. Please consider the following:
Here is a highly simplified listing of my view of the alternatives:
1) Vote for the democrats (horrors) or don’t vote (drop out). The problem here is that if the Democrats win a majority in the US House of Representatives in 2006 and the White House in 2008, then the borders stay wide open, we throw open the gates to as many illegal immigrants as can walk across our borders; 10, 20, 50, or a 100 million (who knows). The result is the end of a two party system in America and the agonizing decent into a socialist, totalitarian state. America as we know it is gone, irredeemable gone, forever.
2) On the other hand, if we are loyal to our President and our GOP leadership, then the borders stay wide open, we throw open the gates to as many illegal immigrants as can walk across our borders; 10, 20, 50, or a 100 million (who knows), and the Democrats with millions of uneducated, un-assimilated, new block-voters sweep into permanent rule. The result is the end of a two party system in America and the agonizing decent into a socialist, totalitarian state. America as we know it is gone, irredeemable gone, forever.
I call Alternative #1 the “shoot me and get it over with alternative.â€
I call Alternative #2 the “stab me and let me bleed to death alternative.â€
If you do not believe the illegal immigration issue is as important as I do, then you may be right. If you do, then it doesn’t matter who you blame. Please see the rest of the argument and thanks again. I suggest action now, not waiting until the election.
1:18 pm
Ordinarily, I only delete comments that use profanity or are off topic.
But in your case, Steve, it would be hard to top your post for idiocy. And since I feel I have to maintain some standards on this site for intelligent discussion, your comment is gone.
2:38 pm
What you and those who agree with you seem perpetually unable to understand, is that we “spoiled brats” don’t give a rat’s ass about how much power, wealth, and influence the Republican Party is able to accumulate. We care about our country and our culture and the Law. The inability or refusal to come to terms with that, apparently because it interferes with some party or economic or pesonal interest, leaves you (plural) sputtering the tired old slurs and smears: spoiled brats, tantrums, racists, xenophobes, yahoos, etc., etc. Since it’s obvious that you will not change anyone’s mind with such puerile name-calling, the only conclusion one can draw is that you are using this sort of depersonalization of your opponents as some kind of shield to avert psychological dissonance, conflict, and anxiety. In other words, at some level you are aware that your position is a crock.
2:46 pm
You didn’t address my main point; that not voting gives the elections to the dems hence, you are choosing to have people govern who you disagree with more than Republicans currently in power.
This is not about power and I resent the implication that it is in any way personal. You also didn’t answer my question about national security. If the dems take over and we’re hit because they went lax on al Qaeda, I’m not going to blame them, bozo, I’m going to blame you. That’s because you had the opportunity to keep the country safe and you failed miserably by allowing people who you knew couldn’ keep us safe to win an election by your inaction.
Get off your high horse, climb down from the mountain and grow up. We conservatives make up about 1/3 of the country. And you want to govern the US as if the other two thirds of the country could go to hell.
It’s conservatives like you who kept us in the wilderness for damn near 50 years. And I ain’t going back if I can help it.
3:11 pm
It is a childish strategy of “since you didn’t do what I wanted you to do, I am going to punish you by not voting”. “I am going to make you as upset as you have made me”. “I didn’t get my pony for Christmas so I am not going to mow the lawn until you give me one”.
Large groups of people such as political parties have members of that group of many different positions and many different emotional states of maturity. While there might be many people that wanted, say, zero amnesty, deport all illegals, and rebuild the Berlin Wall on the Mexican border, only a subset of those people would react in this childish manner when they didn’t get what they want. Most would be mature and balanced and say something like “well, I didn’t get what I want but we did get some of what we wanted” and continue working with the party to move their agenda further the next time the issue comes up. But there is going to be a subset of emotionally retarded individuals that will become passive-aggressive, stamp their feet, yell and scream, and hold their breath until they pass out when they don’t get what they want. In a large group like a political party, there might be thousands of these types.
I further suspect that this subset of foot-stompers has these same problems and uses this same response in other aspects of their lives. I’ll bet a lot of them just seem like they are always angry about something most of the time. I might suggest therepy.
3:20 pm
Rick, rick, rick…you are disappointing me, man. I thought you were all about bridging the gap between conservatives and the rest. And then I find you over here still calling us names. I say “us” because even though I will vote, I still demand that those up for election EARN MY DAMN VOTE! I never want them to think my vote is just a given. I will not encourage them by glossing over their mistakes; I will not calmly clasp my hands and hope for better in the future; I will activly shout out that I will boot their sorry asses out of power if they don’t do the right thing! That is my right as an American, and I am really starting to resent your name-calling and castigation for it.
No. I will not roll over and let the Republicans get away with Alternative #2, as Loma Alta so eloquently put it above. You better bet your sweet ass I’m going to scream and holler my loudest so that those worthless politicians wake up and realize they’ve lost me and everyone else in MY Tribe. Then, and only then, will they realize they need to straighten up and fly right.
If we do things your way, then the Republicans stay comfortable – no scary conservatives to appease – and they get carte blanche. I’m not about to hand them a free pass.
I came over here because you requested a vote in the Wideawakes forum for this article at RCP. So naturally, I had to come read it first. I just took 20 minutes to dialogue on this so if you delete my comment, Rick, I’ll give you an earful in Widewakes. ;P
4:23 pm
Crosspatch, I suggest you lay off the psycho-babble. I’ve quoted you before on my blog, but your comment above is abysmal.
If the Republicans aren’t worried about losing US, their base, then they have carte blanche to do whatever they want, with no one holding them accountable. You guys who want to smooth over the rough waters are doing nothing more than compromising your principles in the name of getting along. It may feel like you’re taking the high-road, but you’re not – it’s really just the easy way.
I was a life-long Republican until last year. Now I am staunchly Independent. Never again will anyone get my vote just because they have an® next to their name – they had better well deserve it. Some people in this country still vote their conscience. That doesn’t make us whiny, crybaby footstompers – that makes us principled, unwavering conservatives. If you Republicans don’t want us, you know exactly how to get rid of us: make it impossible to distinguish Republicans from Democrats and voila! you’ve got your wish.
You both need to scratch a little deeper to get to the REAL ISSUE. You’ll never fix this problem by treating the symptoms (disillusioned conservatives), instead of the disease (rotten RINOs). Repubs are abandoning their CORE, their foundation. It is not the other way around. If RINOs lose in November, it’s not because of disillusioned conservatives didn’t go out and vote. It’s because those Repubs failed to lead and inspire those same conservatives to vote. The onus is on them. That’s the real issue, and you completely ignore it.
Eventually, this dialogue is going to have to evolve into a discussion of the reality that our two-party system is broken. It is broken when there is nothing to choose from except the lesser of two evils. Unless a miracle happens, that’s exactly what we face this November.
There is a huge block of disenfranchised voters out there who don’t believe either party represents them. We are taxed without representation, to wit. This is not what our Founding Fathers envisioned. I am an America First constitutionalist – neither Party puts America first. You know it, and I know it. And if the Repubs know it, then maybe it’s the first step toward reforming themselves. Until then, they better work harder toward convincing me and everyone else like me that they’re worth it. Because right now, they look like Democrats to me. And I’ll be damned if I vote for a Democrat.
4:39 pm
[...] Related: Ed Morrissey echos a similiar thought about the unchanging Bush. Rick Moran is on the same wavelength with a good piece Alexandra has a sound piece up which reminds us of what Natan Sharansky thinks of President Bush. Called as Seen has a series of related posts looking at what this is doing to the right and he is very rough indeed, on some of us. Much more so than me…I just glitter! Bernard, unsurprisingly, disagrees with me and finds that this immigration issue trumps all else, but he does it in his characteristically generous and gentlemanly way. [...]
5:09 pm
Red:
First off, I never delete a comment simply because someone disagrees with me.
Second, I say bravo to you for speaking your mind. If you peruse this site you would see how often I skewer the Republicans for everything that you do. I’ve expressed my displeasure every way that is open to me.
This is not about rolling over for the GOP or making them comfortable. This is solely about being a responsible citizen of the United States. And allowing your political enemy to use your non-vote as a weapon to come to power is nuts.
Anyone who votes Democratic or Libertarian or Constitional Party in November, I have no beef with whatsoever. And I applaud your principled stand for what you believe in. But in the end, elections (as I said above) are about choice.
Please don’t misinterpret my comments as being supportive of the piss poor job Congressional Republicans have done. It’s only when I think of the alternative that I shudder. Like asking an older person how they feel and they answer with the old saw “considering the alternative, pretty good.” That’s how I’m approaching November.
5:28 pm
Here’s my two cents (yeah, it’s worth at least that much).
I don’t support not voting, and anyone who talks that way is, to put it politely, intellectually challenged.
What I DO support, however, is voting for people who embody conservative principles regardless of party, particularly in the primaries.
That means eschewing `compromises’ of the kind that occured in Pennsylvania in `04 and saw people like Arlen Spector returned to the senate.
And it means forcing the major parties to come up with Presidential candidates that embody these values and will show leadership in the War on Jihad…the primary challenge of our time.
Right now,that unfortunately is NOT President Bush, but maybe, just maybe we as an electorate can vote enough decent men into office to give him the spine he so badly needs.
Communicating with your local legislators and the RNC when you get the fundraising letters also has an effect, believe me.So does the White House Comment line.
I think it was Churchill who said that people get the kind of government they deserve.
Let’s start insisting on being deserving.
6:02 pm
Cutting off one’s nose to spite their face isn’t exactly up there in my list of intelligence responses. Ok, I get the part about people are upset that they didn’t get everything they wanted. But politics is give and take. The Republicans don’t have enough of a majority in the Senate to just shove stuff down the throat of the opposition. You have to get what you can get and try for more next time around. Things are different in the House and whatever comes out of Congress is going to have to be reconciled between the two houses. People are getting upset about what the Senate votes as if it’s 100% sure thing that it will be in the final version presented for signing. It isn’t.
Sure, anyone has a right to be upset but the action of refusing to vote to “punish” someone is going to end up punishing the far right of the party more than anyone else. Putting Democrats into office will do more to hurt the position of “the base” than it will the more center positioned part of the party. So what they are threatening to do actually punishes them the most and punishes those they would want to punish the least.
What could be more effective is to vow to work in future primary cycles to unseat the more centerist Republicans and replace them with those more to the right. That would be an intelligent and constructive response. What I am seeing is a childish destructive response.
Also, in considering a response such as this, one might wonder what the reaction of the party might be. It might decide that there is a huge pool of voters in the center that have abandoned the Democratic Party but have registered Independent rather than Republican. If the party thinks the far right is not going to vote, it is offered little choice but to move to the center to capture those votes. In other words, not only is there a risk that the result might be very damaging to the right wing’s agenda if Democrats are elected, there is also the risk that the Republican Party itself might be moved further left.
If you want to have influence, you have to stay engaged. Playing a passive-aggressive game of disengagement might result in that subset of the party making itself irrelevent. In other words, those playing that game have more to lose than to gain.
You don’t always get what you want. If the Senate had tried to put the House bill through as-is, the Democrats would still be filibustering. We would end up with nothing at all. Even 20% of something is better than 100% of nothing. I am going to call it like I see it and I see the reaction of a small but vocal minority of the party as doing more damage to their own agenda than to the rest of the party.
6:29 pm
Sorry Red-you don’t know Goldwater.
Goldwater evolved overtime and as a man of Jewish origin there is no way he would stomache this crapola.
More importantly there is no way in hell that he would think splitting the base over the imagined invasion would be worth doing when our men and women are fighting and dying overseas. You know- a real war.
No way in hell. When he made that comment he was talking about the fight against Communism and he would equate the War On Terror with that not with your silly proported co-ordinated invasion of Mexicans. Ya first thing they say when they cross the border is- “one small step for me one giant step for Reconquista “.
Barry was a damn pilot he would recognize an over-reation and if you know Goldwater then you would know he didn’t at the end hold much love for Buckley where much of the whining has originated from-Buckley’s National Review. How are their numbers doing-btw?
Barry loved the Air Force Academy and the military there is no way in hell he would abandon us like Buckley and his ilke, and effectively say-I really didn’t believe in the war that much anyway with so much affected-ennui-Conservative fatigue or whatever they want to call it in their introspective narcissistic fashion while diagnosing their all important malaise.
Ennui fits best however because it’s soooo French and fits with the inability to believe in anything other than yourself for more than an election cycle. Nervous Nellies.
After Goldwater’s defeat he worked hard to unify the party and he would not be siding with hyperventilating Republicans succumbing to the greatest power of terrorism the distraction of worrying about every possibility-that’s how terrorism works. Unfortunately the asymetrical nature of it makes it impossible to gurantee that all and every scenario can be protected against. you have to unfortunately play the cold hard reality game of numbers. Can we protect the border from being entered by large vehicles the evidence for the past five years has been yes. Will we be able to prevent every single terrorist from entering? Never.
Timothy McVeigh was home grown.
7:07 pm
A two-pronged attack would get rid of the incentive for most illegals anyway and a third prong would just about make all the other provisions moot. What caused the current wave of gate crashers was word getting around of “catch and release”. Word filtered back to the home country that we weren’t deporting people if they were caught so they loaded up the truck and head for Beverly, Hills that is. Home Depots, landscaping companies.
Ending catch and release, which the President has already done by executive order (doesn’t require congress), is going to put a serious crimp on those arriving now. We are going to arrest them, hold them, and deport them.
The second prong is in the additional border enforcement. Adding some 300 miles of fence is less important that doubling the number of Border Patrol agents and adding surveillance technology. Now we have the ability to spot more crossers and arrest more crossers to hold and send back.
Now what about those already here? Tough question. Our law requires a deportation hearing. To hold 100 deportation hearings a day for 11 million people would require over 30 years. Now comes a third prong. You need to crack down HARD on people that hire anyone under the table. That is difficult because the number one employer of illegal aliens is the average US homeowner. You know, the guy that goes by Home Depot and picks up some labor to install that new sprinkler system or build that new deck. You have to start arresting Joe Sixpack. Then when the supply of jobs dries up coupled with the end of catch/release coupled with increased chances of getting caught at the border to begin with …. it starts making entering the legal system of getting a work permit look better.
Until we start arresting people that hire cash labor (and that includes ALL cash labor, not just migrants) we are never going to stop the flow because supply of jobs always meets supply of labor. If we build a fence, they will tunnel under it or hang-glide over it, or take a boat around it. They will still come as long as their OWN country is so screwed up.
Say, whatever happened to that “giant sucking sound” of US jobs that were all supposed to go to Mexico with NAFTA? Perot was so, so wrong.
7:38 pm
My greatest concern is not that the Conservatives will stay home, rather they will vote 3rd Party in a display of displeasure. That too will hand American government to the Democrats. That is part of what happened to Bush I – Ross Perot.
7:39 pm
Hey why don’t you aim your slings and arrows towards those Republican Congressmen and Senators who are threatening to break up a winning streak by going against the wishes of those who sent them there.
And calling our fears regarding immigration petty is…pretty remarkable. Consider that during President Bush’s term nearly 8 million people have crossed the border illegally. Thats not petty.
What is well and truly amusing though is watching how the people who are for Bush right or wrong, NEVER FAIL to call people like me names. Amazing…
Hint that doesn’t make me more likely to vote them…
7:41 pm
On Immigration, are we better off now than when we had Democrats in office?
Not amused with the Republicans. Not amused with those partisan hacks on the right who constantly berate me for calling the Republican party on its contradictions regarding illegal immigrants. Democrats are supposed to be irrational…Republicans are…
7:42 pm
Links and Minifeatures 05 22 Monday
Carnivals
Carnival of The Capitalists Recommended:
7:51 pm
Hey why don’t you aim your slings and arrows towards those Republican Congressmen and Senators who are threatening to break up a winning streak by going against the wishes of those who sent them there.
What do I have to write that will make you people understand I’m not excusing Bush nor am I excusing the Republicans? How thickheaded can you be not to see that NOT VOTING is the same as pulling the lever for the Democrats?
If you want to vote Democratic, fine. Or anything else for that matter. But you and your ilk seem to not want to take responsibility for the consequences of your inaction. Not voting is cop out. There is nothing principled about nor is there anything noble about it.
If you and others stay home on election day and the Republicans lose, then please keep your mouth shut about what the Democratic Congress is going to do. You had a chance to stop them and you didn’t. And that’s the bottom line.
9:25 pm
Well, like I said, I’d never consider not voting. I can’t speak to that theory. Nor have I ever been considered passive-aggressive. Actaully quite the opposite. But I do aim to vote FOR someone – not AGAINST someone. Meaning, I won’t vote for trash just because the alternative is puke. Theway2k hit the nail on the head. Yes, I WILL vote for a Third Party – and admit it, that’s what’s really got everyone worried. The bottom line is that a Man or Woman of Principle may not be able to win against the Party’s Loser, but that doesn’t mean He/She won’t earn enough loyal votes to crash the corroded Republican Party into their own mess.
The point is that you’re shootin’ at the wrong people. If the Republicans lose any race at all, it’s because they’ve lost the people who are voting for someone else, and not them. That is THEIR fault. They are right now trying to buy their future votes at the expense of the ones who put them in office. My grandaddy would say, ‘Dance with the one that brung ya.’ Repubs are whoring themselves out for cheap, uneducated votes. OK, I guess they’ll have to see if they can win playing the game that way. Their risk.
Again, if you guys want to get all pissy, get angry at the ones who are actually splitting the Party – hint: that would be the RINOs.
Roanoke said: “splitting the base over the imagined invasion”
Here’s an open invitation to the Texas border, handsome. I’ll show you a war zone that would rival Mosul. Mmm…kay?
As a veteran, there is no way I’d ever jeopardize our troops and their mission. However, securing our border is Priority Number One when it comes to the war on terror. Read this and catch up.
Timothy McVeigh was home grown.
McVeigh was a moron and didn’t work alone and you know it.
Well, Rick, I just read your last comment and I can’t argue with you about it because we’re talking about two different things. You seem to have this idea that there are just millions of us out there who will ruin everything by staying home and not voting. Unfortunately for Republicans, that’s not true. We’re educated, we have money, we’re pissed off, and we WILL vote. In fact, we’re ready to vote for ANYONE better than them. Simple as that. It’s time for an Independent.
10:17 pm
Okay, then you weren’t a member of the group I was speaking of. That was exactly the response I was calling passive-aggressive and was what the entire rest of the “emotional retardation” spew was about. So you were complaining about what?
I voted for a third party many times. I was even registered Libertarian for many years. I finally changed to Republican mainly because A: the Libertarian Party tends to run nuts for office so I was voting Republican anyway and B: I didn’t get polling place instructions or sample ballots as a Libertarian. You have to be one of the major two parties to get that information in California, I suppose. Our polling places are generally in a neighbor’s garage and it changes from election to election as different people volunteer to host the polling place. If you don’t get the thingy in the mail, you have to research it yourself.
But voting for a third party isn’t a bad thing. And I don’t think anyone was getting pissy at all. I believe what many people call “the base” (al Qaeda in Arabic) is smaller than a frustrated center. In fact, California currently has 25% of its voters registered Independent. The Democratic registrations are a falling percentage while Repiblicans have held about steady at something like 38%. What some people might call RINOs are probably the majority of the party. And a center-right candidate along the lines of a Rudy Giuliani could probably grab a big chunk of that 25% of Independents at the expense of maybe 5% on the far right. In a case like that, the far right could become irrelevent. They could more of a detriment to the party than an asset. Why? Because they refuse to compromise and that is a bad thing in politics. They expect the rest of the party to step closer to their view but are unwilling to consider accepting the rest of the party’s view even for the sake of a national election. They don’t care it they damage the party for short term satisfaction.
The problem is that you can’t just say we will give the Dems some seats this cycle and get them back the next. An incumbent is hard to get out of office. It is easy to lose one by not voting but it’s harder to get one back once lost. The Republicans are lucky in this Senate cycle because 40R seats are not up for election so even if the Republicans lost every single race the Dems still wouldn’t get a 2/3 majority in the Senate.
This reminds me of some changes I would like to see the Republican Party make. The biggest one is that I would like to see an end to “winner take all” primary states. I would like to see the delegates split according to the votes of the people. This would mean that candidates come to the convention with a number of delegates that is more representative of their true popularity. This notion that someone can win with 1% more of the vote and get 100% of the delegates is not a good thing. Particularly if a candidate does something or says something or takes a position that is extremely unpopular late in the primary cycle.
10:54 pm
hehe…So you don’t excuse the Republicans and Bush, but they still deserve a vote because then we can work within the machine to change them come next election, or next election or maybe never? So we vote in this election and then try and change a political machine that has completely ignored us at best and is lying to us at worst? You are an optimistic sort of guy eh?
Course according to you the immigration problem is a petty worry on our part eh? So is the spending problem…? So is that nasty habit of the Republican President of calling Islam the Religion of Peace..? The Repubicans need a wake up call and those of us who feel these are desperate times have no other leverage availible to us that will affect immediate change other than threatening to withold our votes. Indeed any comprimises so far on the immigration debate have come about not because people like you are promising to vote for them no matter what but because they are honoring the threat by people like me. But yourside of the debate demands, at the point of insults, that we throw that away and simply bow and say thank you sir may I have another!
And Rick why are you so angry? Why are all the people on your side of this split in the Republican party so darn angry? Its amazing to watch a bunch of people who want to convince people like me of your position whilst y’all call us all sorts of names. Is this some new form of mind control at work?
Still not impressed and becoming less and less impressed by the moment the more I learn of President Bush’s lies regarding Immigration and Islam. This is a man I once thought could have walked on water. Not sure what happened to him perhaps everyone is right and his warts were there for all to see. Indeed right from the start he declared that Islam had been hijacked, I always thought this was some sort of tactic that he didn’t really buy into, wrong. His stand on immigration has not changed one iota in all these years…even after 9/11. Even after his unfortunate dinners with terrorists…indeed right at this moment we are welcoming Saudi students back into the states.
But I am supposed to set all this aside and follow the party line…not likely no matter how many funny names I am called. But thats not what the Republican party will miss…no what they will miss are all the man hours put in by people like me manning the telephones and donating money. They are tossing that all aside to appease illegals from Mexico and Muslims from Saudi Arabia…I hope it works out for them.
And indeed I will speak out when the Dems get into power. I don’t vote for the lesser of two evils.
11:51 pm
Yall should follow that trackback above to the anchoress’ website and this post. I think it’s awesome.
10:10 am
OK, so we still vote for the GOP and nothing changes. So how does one get the attention of what Rush calls “RINO’s”? Seems to me the only way to “send the message” is to say it with votes. A lot of elections have come down to a choice of “the lesser of two evils”, and is a sad state of affairs. But how to get the message across? I have returned every fund raising letter back to the GOP with a note saying I’ll contribute again when I see the elephants acting like elephants again, instead of donkeys. This is a big quandry for a lot of conservatives like me who feel abandoned by incumbants in Congress.
10:19 am
To one and all:
Thanks for your comments – even if you’re a little steamed at me. The only points I was trying to make were 1) not voting should not be an option. It is a civic duty, not a weapon; and 2) we are at war. And if by not voting you hand control of the national security purse strings to the dems (and the possible election of a liberal in ‘08) how are we going to blame if their laxness in security results in a terrorist attack?
10:34 am
The “I” word
Impeach President Bush? Ideologically, I’ve never been more than a lukewarm supporter of the president, as I’m a libertarian who has simply learned to swallow my pride, hold my nose, and vote for what I perceived (rightly or wrongly) was…
11:24 am
I don’t always agree with you Rick, but I think your title of this article pretty much summed up the situation.
We have become the Party of Bratty Foot Stompers.
The best explanation I have seen and most accurate timeline is given over at The Anchoress. No, this is not just a wonderful Bush article but it pinpoints the exact moment that The Brats came out to play. Then it traces the path of no control stompers.
Redhead Infidel has it all figured out but unfortunately suffers from delusions on his figures. Red and other Stompers think that they are the base. I will even allow that on illegal immigration you are the base. The problem with your logic though is that you will never win an election to enact your views. Or if you did, since you are a one issue winner, you are then done. Of course you do not believe me who you casually would label RINO.
Only discovered this year that I might be…..it was quite a shock since I never agreed with a single one of those Congressmen you label RINO. Oh well, so be it if you have to be listed under a label. If you make a list under Bush Republicans, add my name. I even disagree with Bush on some of the illegal/border problems because I would be slightly tougher.
It’s about Choices. You give me a choice of being a Bush Republican or what has decided to label themselves as the True Conservatives, you lose every time. This puts me back to Red and his figures. Patch is correct. You do not have the majority. You will never have the majority except on a couple of issues. That’s it. Like it or lump it.
Rick says to just vote, regardless of outcome. I have been there and done that and label myself a coward for it. That is a nice way to be able to Stomp without having to ever own up to your actions. Everyone from the voter to the UN World to our esteemed Congress wants Bush to take responsibility for his actions. That’s quite a bit when things do not go right.
You only have to be responsible for ONE vote and it’s result. I call that rather uneven. So if you want to play the delusioned challenger, or The Wrecker….help yourself. You do not have the numbers except on a couple of issues. That’s it.
So I say you are doing exactly what you rail against, but without a clue about your own behavior. After all, you voted. You are not responsible for the mess.
12:07 pm
Really, what it comes down to is what are your priorities in terms of the importance of each issue, and do you think how those issues are dealt with would be different if the Republicans or Democrats are in charge of Congress (and in 2008, the White House), and, even if you do, would two or four years of having the other party in control make any difference?
Lots of people justafiably see barely any difference between the parties on the immigration issue, because there are politicians from both parties who are either pro or anti the current plans in the Senate. But unless you think the War on Terror really is an overhyped ploy by Republicans to scare the voters, or think having Democrats control the congressional pursestrings in 2007-08 when it comes to funding the war won’t make any differnce in the U.S.’s efforts to prevent any future terrorist attacks on our soil, then you really have to think long and hard about staying home in November when it comes time to cast ballots.
Richard Viguerie’s piece in the Washington Post lambasting Bush is a 20-year-down-the-line repeat of his writing Ronald Reagan out of the conservative movement because he wasn’t hard-line enough to suit Richard. That makes him simply an older, right-wing version of Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, who also takes the my-way-or-the-highway attitude towards failure to follow his marching orders on the left. Kos and his followers are something like 0-for-19 right now in getting candidates they’ve heavily supported elected to office; if people on the right decide to take the same attitude and say unless you’re right on 100 percent of the issues you don’t have my vote, they’re going to find their percentage of supporting winning candidates dropping like a rock over the next few years.
11:48 am
[...] UPDATE #2: Right Wing Nuthouse thinks that calling people like me names will win the argument. Perhaps it is indeed better for them to stay away from discussing the issues. To call the illegal immigration of upwards of 8 million people in the years of the Bush administration, petty is remarkable. [...]