GOP’s Problem Isn’t Conservative Viewpoints

March 20, 2013 Leave a comment

When Americans hear conservative plans they tend to support them by clear majorities. Especially so when those plans are lined up against liberal proposals. However, when voters hear that Republicans support those conservative plans suddenly voters are turned off. The problem the Republicans face heading into the 2014 and 2016 elections isn’t conservative political positions. The problem they face is that people don’t like and don’t trust the party. Of course, the party is interpreting the 2012 election all wrong. They want to move the party to the left when in reality they need to be rehabing their image while coordinating a response to the left-wing press.

In the last two elections the GOP nominated candidates who weren’t conservative. John McCain has always been more comfortable being the “reasonable” compromiser as he sides with Democrats over conservative Republicans. Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts as a progressive Republican and largely governed like one. He was never comfortable articulating conservative positions and when pressed often retreated to his liberal foundation. From the defeat of two moderate to liberal Republicans the GOP has decided the party needs to move even further left. They apparently learned nothing.

The answer to the GOP’s woes isn’t to provide illegals with amnesty, give up on the right to life issue or support homosexual marriage. The answer doesn’t lie in abandoning social policy or the legion of Christian conservative voters who have been responsible for GOP victories for most of the last three decades. The answer lies in sticking with conservative principles because the country remains a center right country. The political end of this problem ought to be easy but with the GOP nothing can ever be easy because the progressives who run the party don’t really like the conservatives. They just use us to further their own power, which they don’t have on any real level in government because moderate to liberal candidates couldn’t beat Obama.

The GOP’s biggest problem is messaging. It isn’t so much the people who deliver the message, Sarah Palin aside, that is the problem. The problem is that our candidates and ideas are under relentless attack from the liberal media. Just look at the sequestration debate last month. The country supported the cuts but the media presented the cuts as catastrophic and they presented the Republicans as mean, evil and hateful. During the second Presidential debate last year Candy Crowley shut down the Benghazi issue and may have won the election for Obama by declaring the President right and Romney wrong. That she was wrong is an after thought, the damage had already been done.

Fair or not there isn’t much we can do about the media. They’re going to present Mitt Romney as Thurston Howell III and John Kerry as a man of the people even though Kerry has double the assets of Romney. What the Republicans need to do is figure out a way around this. It begins by sticking to principles despite the media’s relentless attacks. The reason why people believed Crowley rather than Romney is because Romney wasn’t trustworthy in the first place. Why wasn’t he trustworthy? Because no one believed he was a conservative, no one believed that he truly believed anything he said. Switching positions on homosexual marriage like Sen. Portman just because your kid says he’s gay isn’t the way to go. It suggests that one doesn’t have a base morality or a base belief and thus are subject to whatever will please others.

Despite the party being a mess we have a number of potential 2016 Presidential candidates who seem to have a basic moral core and can articulate their positions without pandering. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio in particular demonstrate these qualities. Even when they disagree, their positions are long standing and as such they clearly aren’t pandering for votes. Those guys and a number of others need to be the face of the party. We need to get rid of the consultants and liberal party leadership that gave us McCain and Romney. Their liberals failed, the answer for the future isn’t to listen to these losers and move left. The answer is to stick with our conservative principles because the country still agrees with us while at the same time rehabing the Party image. We can do this but not if the party moves left.

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Some Thoughts On The CPAC Conference

March 16, 2013 Leave a comment

We are supposed to care deeply about the CPAC conference taking place this weekend in Washington. This is the same CPAC that voted for Romney last year in a straw poll. This year we are supposed to gaze in awe at Marco Rubio and Rand Paul while we wonder aloud which of them will control the Republican Party in the future. The endless speeches, the endless calls for the GOP to be the party in “favor” of something instead of against everything, it’s all so tiresome. What are Republicans supposed to do, just agree with everything the media and/or Democrats support otherwise we’re a party “against” everything?

Perhaps we could be like Sen. Rob Portman who magically changed his position on homosexual marriage because his son is a out of the closet as a sexual pervert. This is a Senator with no principles who is willing to change his view to appease his children. He has no moral grounding, which is part of the problem with the Republican Party. We lose an election by 2 percentage points and that’s proof that we need to change our view on illegal immigration. Either we believe in the rule of law and that people should come here legally or we don’t. It seems the CPAC version of the GOP can’t decide if it has principles or not. Half seem to want to lick their finger and stick it in the wind before deciding on a position.

Would Sarah Palin please go away? Better still, could she start dressing her age? Could we stop pretending like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is a viable candidate for President. This man may be a good Governor but he is a dreadful public speaker. Every time he’s in the spotlight, he delivers a dud of a speech. Rick Perry is right about a lot of stuff but he has no chance to win the nomination after his dreadful 2012 campaign. He got some big applause lines the other day but any Republican could have delivered them.

The media seems prepared to declare the battle for 2016 will be between Rubio and Paul. Perhaps it will end up being that way but isn’t it a little early to make that sort of declaration? We’re two years away from the first Presidential debate. While it seems pretty clear Rubio and Paul will run, we have no idea who will join them in the race. Giving a good CPAC speech is certainly good for both of these Senators, but the notion that we’re going to decide which camp we’re in based on two largely forgettable speeches at CPAC is ridiculous. But leave it to the Republican media, which wants this battle to take place so that conservatives split the vote and give the nomination to Chris Christie or some other dreadful liberal, to draw the line years before it needs to be drawn.

Rather than focusing on an election that’s over three years away, Republicans would be better off focusing on finding good conservative candidates to run for House, Senate and in local elections next year. The obsession CPAC has with the White House and redefining the party leftward is what gave us candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney. It also helped the conservative overreaction via the Tea Party and candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle. There isn’t anything particularly conservative about CPAC other than all conservative Republicans have to pander by making an appearance. Remind me again why we’re supposed to care.

 

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Who Should Romney’s Running Mate Be?

April 14, 2012 5 Comments

A long time reader asked for a run down of potential Romney VP picks. This is a subject that will get tossed around for the next few months until Romney settles on a running mate. There are a lot of good candidates out there but what Romney absolutely must do is pick a conservative. He must shore up the conservative Republican base otherwise he risks alienating what should be the core of his votes. Most of us are already disappointed in a liberal winning the nomination, to pick another liberal would destroy Romney’s chances.

With that in mind, let’s toss out Chris Christie and Condi Rice. I like both of these people but neither one of them is solidly pro-life. If there’s ever a group of people the GOP must appease at all costs with the VP selection it’s the pro-life majority in the party. No one trusts Romney on the subject, if he picks a pro-abortion liberal his candidacy is over. Christie is likely too bombastic and prone to the sort of gaffes the current VP makes on a regular basis but which are never reported by the media. The Governor of New Jersey gets more press coverage for his bombastic comments than the current Vice President gets for his. It would only be worse for Christie if he were the VP, the press would love the opportunity to attack a Republican. Condi would be great, if only she were pro-life.

Everyone wants to talk about Marco Rubio. He would be a great choice. He’s pro-life, thoughtful, the Tea Party likes him and he’s known nationally. There are any number of good things to say about Rubio, he would be a terrific choice. But let’s look at some of his drawbacks. He’s only been a Senator for two years. Before that he was a state Senator in Florida. It sounds awfully familiar to a certain current President. Point being, he doesn’t have a whole lot of experience in DC and equally as problematic he doesn’t have any executive experience. If there’s a drawback with Rubio, it’s this.

A month or so ago the media decided that Romney was going to pick Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno as has running mate. This would be an interesting selection. But what do we know about this guy? Is he pro-life? He was elected Governor in the New Progressive Party Party yet he’s a member of the RNC. He sounds about as conservative as Mitt Romney, in short not very. This guy would get the media going but ultimately he wouldn’t be good for conservatives in the party. Which is perhaps why he may be the selection, it’s an opportunity for the leftists in the GOP to take over once and for all and win without us.

Nikki Haley, Governor of North Carolina, has been tossed around. She’s a Tea Party favorite but like Rubio she’s only been in her office for two years. Rep. Paul Ryan has been mentioned and he would certainly be helpful to Romney as he has an intimate knowledge of Congressional politics. He of course is hated by Democrats, which places him in a good light with conservatives. His budget proposal is well liked by independents. Rep. Allen West has also been mentioned as a potential running mate, Sarah Palin has gone so far as to speak of him as a good choice. West spent most of his life in the military and is beloved by the Tea Party. But like Rubio and Haley, he’s only been in office two years. His military experience is perhaps his biggest asset.

One more candidate worthy of mention is Michele Bachmann. Behind the scenes she is positioning herself for the nomination. The left hates her but she appeals to women. She did a good job running for President, she showed herself more than competent in numerous debates. Bachmann would be a nice complement to Romney, she’s conservative, a woman, an evangelical Christian, just about everything Romney is not. Her problems are two fold. She’s a Congressman and historically members of the House aren’t selected for VP. Her other problem is that she’s from a state Romney isn’t going to win and thus won’t help him win the White House. This could perhaps be offset by her nomination getting conservatives excited about the Romney campaign ala Palin in 2008.

I don’t know who Romney should pick yet. There are other candidates out there, perhaps some dark horses no one is thinking about right now. If I’m Romney I’m looking at Rubio, Haley and Bachmann. The two women can kill off what’s left of the Democrats war on women strategy (though like Palin they’ll just say these women vote against their “interest”). Haley can shore up North Carolina and maybe Virginia. Bachmann could swing Wisconsin and would get the grass roots evangelicals all a tizzy for Romney. Rubio could give Romney Florida and he would play well with hispanics, who could be the difference in this election. But of course, there are others out there and we never know if Romney will pick someone obscure like Bush did with Cheney in 2000.

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Obama Calls Republicans Racists

October 14, 2011 5 Comments

Yesterday President Obama spoke to something called the Forum on American Latino Heritage. He hawked his jobs bill at this particular function declaring that he believed America is “a place where every child, no matter what they look like, where they come from, should have a chance to succeed.” After listing off what he believes in Obama declared that “none of this matters to Republicans in the Senate.” Thus he said that Republicans don’t want an America where every child, no matter what they look like or where they come from, should have a chance to succeed. The race card game begins.

The President is in desperation mode. He’s losing the support of the American people. Hispanic support for Obama has dropped 20 points. Obama knows that if Hispanic vote the same way they did in 2004 (46% for Bush in 04 compared to 66% for Obama in 08) he will lose the White House. Unfortunately he believes the only way he can keep Hispanic, and probably other minorities, is to scare them into thinking the Republicans hate them because of their race.

If Republicans hate everyone who isn’t white, how can Obama explain the popularity of Florida Senator Marco Rubio? How can he explain the sudden surge of Herman Cain? Republicans and Tea Partiers have never been interested in the fact that Rubio is Hispanic or that Cain is black. They’re interested in their ideas, which just so happen to be the ideas we share in common. They believe in smaller government, lower taxes and a strong national defense. While the left doesn’t care to believe it, the right doesn’t care about race in the least. We care about ideas.

Herman Cain and to a lesser extent Marco Rubio threaten to shatter the left-wing talking points about race in America. Cain grew up poor in segregated Georgia. He worked hard and became a valuable corporate executive, rescuing various divisions in major corporations and rescuing Godfather’s Pizza from bankruptcy. He didn’t blame America for past racism but rather worked hard viewed America as a place of opportunity. In other words, he views America in the opposite way the left views it.

The left wants to rattle off everything that’s wrong with American history and they use race as a giant gotcha. I wonder sometimes if Cornell West believes a racist hides in every refrigerator. Cain will tell you that racism doesn’t keep anyone behind anymore. He wants blacks, and all races, to get over past racism and work hard like he did. He sees a boundless future for everyone in this country, no matter what the race is of the people. Cain is a direct threat to Obama and the left.

Rubio is just as much a threat because he would tell you essentially the same thing as Cain. If Rubio is on the GOP ticket or if he runs for President in the future he’ll face the same racist onslaught from the American left that Cain is facing today. It isn’t Republicans who are holding Herman Cain’s race against him, it’s far left Democrats. This of course hasn’t stopped the far left from accusing the right of racism. You see we’re supporting the black candidate because we’re trying to deflect our racism don’t you know. Because logically white racists would of course want a black man in the White House. The left’s arguments are of course ridiculous.

President Obama is gearing up to play the race card next year. He’s already trying to play the class warfare card, without much success. Now he’s going to move on to his next strategy, which is trying to divide the races against each other. No President in our history has tried to divide the people more than Obama. We can only hope that all Americans will look at his plan for the future and compare it with the Republican vision while putting absurd ideas of race aside. The GOP isn’t out to keep anyone down, they never have. We can only hope the majority of Americans can see through Obama’s absurd rhetoric.

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