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Poll: Tea Party beats the GOP
According to Rasmussen, if the Tea Party were its own political party it would be more popular than the GOP. Highlights:
- In a three way generic ballot, Democrats would attract 36% of the vote, Tea Party 23% of the vote, and the GOP 18% of the vote.
- Among Independents, 33 % would vote Tea Party candidate, 30% are undecided, 25% would vote Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
- Almost as many Republicans would vote Tea Party (33%) as would vote GOP (39%).
- Seventy percent of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement, 43% of Independents have a favorable opinion, and 49% of Democrats have no opinion one way or the other.
- Forty-one percent of all voters nationwide say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that we need a new party.
Could we be looking at the rise of a third political party?
Topic: Politics, WorldMagBlog
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back to top94 Comments to “Poll: Tea Party beats the GOP”
If I were the head of the GOP, I’d pay attention and get with the program.
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A strong, feard, third party would do wonders for our country I believe. I think I would be inclined to pray for such to happen. Palin?
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You could do this with the Dems too if you polled the Progressives against the mainline Labor Democrats. It doesn’t matter. We may only have two parties, but our parties are coalitions of different interests not smaller dealing ideological groups forming coalitions.
If we had multiple parties (split each in two), the Progressive and Labor parties would still assemble the same coalition in congress that we currently call the Democratic majority. And the “Tea Party” and the Corporatists would still assemble the same lame Republican minority.
If anything, it would be worse for the right to depart from the two party system, since the Progressives might arguably outnumber the Labors in congress. And Corporatists like Snowe and Collins would not have to worry about the effects of blow back from Tea Party voters, because they would have a gap between their coalition and their affiliation that would provide shelter for them to make Labor compromises.
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You Betcha…
A recent interview with Palin for a very popular TV host (who supported Obama) sent that program’s one time viewership through the roof….
I think Palin is much more popular than the liberals want to admit, despite their encouragement to run Palin next time around…
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A couple of recent and related stories from my neck of the woods, for anyone who might be interested:
A passion rising, Spokane Spokesman-Review, 06 Dec 09. The re-emrgence of the “militia movement.” Includes the requisite dire warning’s from SPLC spokes-pansy Mark Potok. Interesting thing is, only one “aryan nations-type” showed up at a local “freedom festival” last month … and he didn’t stick around long.
Resist DC: A Step-by-Step Plan for Freedom, by State Rep. Matthew Shea (WA-4th). Actions the states can take to put the federal government in its rightful place of servitude rather than arrogant superiority.
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Palin’s spunky and a pretty face, but unless she changes her globally-belligerent and Israelist perspectives, she’s still be a Statist.
We can’t simultaneously have a government that’s both too small to threaten domestic liberties yet big enough to police the world. (Heck, our government is ginormous already, and we’re not doin’ so hot at policing the world anyways … )
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IOW, if we try to combine domestic populism with global militarism, it’ll be Fuhrer time again …
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I think a third party for right wing nutters is a great idea! It will put them right where they belong – the outskirts of society. Palin is unelectable, so she’d make a perfect candidate.
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With the US at the helm?
Somehow I’m very skeptical Frank…
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I actually agree with Mynock….the Progressives have done an incredible job in co-existing with main Labor Democrats and their message has been central. Unfortunately Republicans have been trying to play to the moderates instead of being what they had always been in the past – conservatives. Whereas, I love the Tea Party movement and think it is a healthy form of protest against a far left, Progressive government and the intrusions and takeover of private enterprise, I do not think the Tea Party and the Republicans can learn how to play together, too many fundamental differences.
With that thought it will only be over reach by the Progressives that will give the Republicans or conservatives any chance of gaining some momentum in the 2010 elections.
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Polls, schmolls.
Watch out for the word “if.” What usually follows it is a profound lack of wisdom. Perhaps not always, but almost always.
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Roger Panto wrote; “A strong, feard, third party would do wonders for our country I believe.”
Right!!! It would definitely do one thing for sure (no doubt): put far-left Demcorats in full charge of all our political institutions for the rest of our lives. Beyond that, it would do absolutely nothing.
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Democrats are far more loyal to party and partisan principles than Republicans. Democrats tend to be more proud to be Democrats (many exceptions of course). That’s why third party candidates are slightly less likely to effect them in the big picture.
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#7 – Frank in Phoenix, you comment is the WORST kind of nonsense. Using stereotypes about “populism” and the military to draw some comparison with Hitler is as illogical as it is intellectually dispicable.
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Thomas1 – “Palin is unelectable,” why is she unelectable?
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Meanwhile, back here on earth, the “Tea Party” is not a political party in any fashion, shape or intent. Treating it as if it were is a waste of time and mind. When it becomes an actual political party, then let’s run some polls.
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One thing I like most about Sarah Palin is that she is as far from being a “statist” as a successful politican can get. But there must be more to consider than that, so I still don’t know if I would support her in a Republican primary.
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Pastor Roy @ 15: Palin is unelectable becasue she says and does a lot of stupid things.
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Thomas1 12.07.09 AT 1:03 PM
Pastor Roy @ 15: Palin is unelectable becasue she says and does a lot of stupid things.
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Like what? If Obama can says and do a lot of stupid things. An win, so what can she not win?
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You do know that she cost McCain the election, right?
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More from the nutter files:
Talk radio and Fox conservatives fear-monger to keep their audience coming back. But a happy unintended consequence of constantly telling your followers that the nation is heading off the cliff is that it attracts advertisers who depend on stupid, ill-informed, terrified consumers. Like shady firms that sell gold! So: suddenly Glenn Beck’s post-apocalyptic survival tips include amassing vast stores of gold, which you can purchase (at a massively inflated above-market price, of course) from Beck sponsor Goldline!
Here is a quote from a remarkably forthcoming Beck advertiser:
Peter Epstein, president of Merit Financial Services, which advertises on Beck’s show, says gold retailers expect favorable coverage from commentators on whose shows they pay to advertise. “You pay anybody on any network and they say what you pay them to say,” said Epstein. “They’re bought and sold.”
Yes. Well. But some people are not happy with their purchases:
In one such complaint, Mary Sisak of New Castle, Pa., wrote in August that she contacted Goldline because she saw a television ad featuring Beck, and online endorsements from Levin and Thompson. After spending $5,000 on Swiss Francs, Mary said she learned she could have purchased the same number of coins for $1,600 less.
“How could I be mislead by Glenn Beck, Fred Thompson and Marvin [sic] Levin?” she wrote.
I don’t know, Mary. I just don’t know.
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Thomas1 12.07.09 AT 1:10 PM
You do know that she cost McCain the election, right?
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No McCain cost himself the election by refusing to fight. She was the one who brought the votes in for him.
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THOMS !: Take a couple of aspirin, and calm down before you have a stroke. Realy!
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I’m quite calm and headache-free, Roger. But thank you for caring.
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The term “tea party” can apply to a very pleasant dining party. My wife and I and our daughter and her partner and our granddaughter have had pleasant tea parties.
The term “tea party” can apply to an occasion when the colonies of Great Britain refused to pay taxes on tea.
The term “tea party” can apply to something from the satirical book Alice in Wonderland, portraying a quite crazy but imaginary occasion. If people in real life acted like the people in Alice, I would think they are crazy.
Which leads me to the question I am asking this week.
Are you sane?
Now you are quite likely to give a quick, spontaneous answer of “Of course I am sane. If I were not sane the people I hang out with would tell me.”
Hmmm….
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Random, I saw Alice last night on the SyFy channel and enjoyed it immensely.
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That’s nice, Thomas1, but are you sane? How do you know?
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I’d say I’m sane by most standards. I don’t have conversations with myself on the subway, I bathe regularly, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, my work proceeds apace, and my family and cats seem to enjoy my company. Were I Looney Tunes, much of that wouldn’t make sense.
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No, McCain lost the election because God wanted him to. And now there is a lot of buyer remorse, with the middle of the roaders forming this Tea Party.
“Democrats are far more loyal to party and partisan principles …”
It isn’t loyalty. It’s blindness and an unwillingness to question. They are sheeple.
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NJLawyer – ““Democrats are far more loyal to party and partisan principles …”
It isn’t loyalty. It’s blindness and an unwillingness to question. They are sheeple’
look what happen to Joe Liberman, went for being someone who ran for VP and then get kicked out of the party because he dared to vote against them.
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Lieberman’s got guts. Few of them do. None of them are demanding that the media tell them the truth or cover stories that Fox will cover. They’d rather dis Fox. If anyone is giving them “faux” news, it’s the MSM, and they go along with it.
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I’ll admit I’m a nominal Republican; one that belongs to the party but doesn’t participate. I’ve voted in every election since Reagan and I’m content with voting for candidates that espouse values similar to my own. But, after hearing of the radical position of Scozzafava and her endorcement by none other than Newt Gingrich, I’m ready to jump ship. If a new political party is ever established, based on the original intent of The Constitution, then I’m already gone. No more socialism!
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NJLawyer 12.07.09 AT 2:48 PM
Lieberman’s got guts. Few of them do. None of them are demanding that the media tell them the truth or cover stories that Fox will cover. They’d rather dis Fox. If anyone is giving them “faux” news, it’s the MSM, and they go along with it.
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that the catch all these Dem who say they will not vote for Obama Care will vote in the end, out of fear of being the next’s Liberman.
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It is hard to vote straight-up GOP when RINOs are the best that the GOP will offer.
One example is the guy who posed for Cosmopolitan. Or is this just a Massachusetts breed of politician.
Is this what the Dems have been talking about when they say the GOP is out. Even Dems can spot a RINO when they see one to “shake hands across party lines with.” Gives a whole new meaning to bipartisan.
People have to BOLT from the RINO party BEFORE the ELECTIONS so votes against Dems won’t be wasted.
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Hey PASTOR
Why not hold out for the cash Obama is offering these days for their vote?
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CCC 32
Isn’t there a Constitution Party?
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news2me 12.07.09 AT 3:05 PM
Hey PASTOR
Why not hold out for the cash Obama is offering these days for their vote?
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I am sure that is going to happen.
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Thomas
WHO told you Palin lost the election?
McCain? his handlers? her handlers? McCain’s camp don’t want the responsibility for mis-handling his run for Pres. They have to blame their failures on someone else.
Democrats who continue to go after her because they think she might be a contender in 2012? They are camped out in Alaska. When she left the Gov. Office and went on the road, they started a blog just for her demise.
The so-called “news” channels you watch or listen to? Self-explanatory.
McCain should get a different group of handlers. We are hoping to replace him soon. We are looking for someone who isn’t so willing to compromise with the Dem. Party. When Dems. say bipartisan, what they mean is that we come over to their way of thinking.
Most people ONLY VOTED FOR McCain because of PALIN.
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News2me, I truly do hope that Palin runs in 2012. She has about as much chance of winning as one of Dante’s snowballs.
You betcha! *wink*
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/the-first-ten-lies-from-e_b_356347.html
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Sarcasim gets no one credibility.
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Thomas1 Obama does not want to run against Palin,
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Thomas! (#39),
I’m still not sure if Palin will run in 2012 and if I would vote for her if she does, BUT…
the link you provided has no credibility. It’s just a hit piece by a left-wing hack who is using the column to promote his own book.
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Scott, try this one instead: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/going-rogue-the-18-bigges_n_359837.html?slidenumber=5tMcv6O11h4%3D#slide_image
That’s 18 additional whoppers.
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a link to huffpost – a reliable “news” media–NOT!
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Scott,
There seems to be a pattern from the left with regards to Palin. They won’t stop talking about. They also seem to want to make money off her, as Thomas’ link does. Here’s another.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/07/video-second-most-pathetic-book-promotion-idea/
“Apparently, Democrats rely on Palin for income more than Republicans:
“This is not quite as pathetically parasitic than The Nation’s attempt to recycle its old Palin columns in a copycat cover and title, Going Rouge, but it’s close. Can’t Plouffe market his book without relying on the Left’s favorite bogeywoman? Are sales so bad that he needs to frame his promotion around the wildly successful competing campaign memoir from the former Republican VP candidate?”
Thomas,
Your book guy is mentioned to. That would be The most pathetic book promotion idea. What is with the left? Does character assasination really pay that well?
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Same song, different verse.
Really, if one of us tried to persuade you by linking to a Fox News article, would you take it seriously?
Besides, some of those ‘lies’ seem pretty petty. Thanking the staffers for their hard work and support and then saying differently in the book? Wow, what a shocker.
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Thomas1 do you see the huffpost as part of the news media?
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THOMAS
Is the liberal media going to tell us why it was Palin’s fault SHE lost the election? Read about it first in the McCain camp?
And the vote against McCain had nothing to do with people not wanting another Bush?
Just like people voting FOR Bush had nothing to do with not wanting another Clinton.
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#47 PASTOR
uh-huh
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Thomas1,
After re-reading my post at #46, I apologize for the use of “us”.
I am not implying that you are a “them”; you are who you are and I should have cleaned up my post before posting it.
Sorry about that.
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There are people who want Palin to run for Pres.
I met some in the book signing line.
The only people they are feeding with the negative media are their own people.
Ya know, if they had just left her alone, she might still be in Alaska trying to do her job as Governor. (But the President has to deal with Governors all the time–so Obama probably wanted her out so he wouldn’t get caught treating her differently than other Governors.)
Are liberals beginning to go into withdrawal–running out Bush bashing steam?
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I would love to see Palin run for the White House. Now would I vote for her I do not know at this moment.
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I think people would vote for Palin just because they KNOW she is Christian. And they KNOW she is American. And they KNOW she is FOR our country.
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I mean Obama could get saved, repent of sin’s, work to undue all the harm he is doing. AN turn out to be a great man.
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Reid the Rat, Democrat Senate ‘Majority Leader’ (read Socialist pimp), just said that if you were against nationalizing health care, you support enslaving blacks and denying the vote to women.
What pieces of work this clown and his fellow Looney Tunes in D.C. are.
I suspect that he, like his buddy Obama, is quite desperate to get something through, before their Bastille is stormed by the American people. And so his scaly lips grow even looser than usual, in the fever of his despair.
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Hi, Drill.
Are you sane? Thomas1 gave me a fairly reasonable answer when I asked him.
I am probably not. Perhaps you could use me as a yardstick.
[Can't be any more of a straight man for drill than that.]
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drill – it is call the hate tact. if you can not win you paint those who stand in your way as being filled with Hate. Obama and Reed has the tact down cold.
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Why do people act as though there are only two political parties?
May I recommend the Libertarian Party?
There are also the Constitution Party and the Conservative Party and a few others.
People can join a third party anytime they muster up the courage to do so.
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Joseph Liberman switched to became an Independent, not a Republican. His reasons were almost exclusively with regard to his support for the war on terrorists and his differences with Demcorats on that score. With regard to most other issues, domestic and across the board, Joe Liberman is still very much a liberal. His vote could’ve stopped the gov’t Health Control bill but he chimed right in with the Demcorats–lock step. He caucuses with Dems too.
Liberman gets tons of credit from conservatives, without him having to be conservative hardly at all.
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CCC,
I also want no more socialism. We are getting more of it in Minnesota however because too many angry conservatives voted for Barkley (a 3rd party candidate who had no chance of winning) instead of Norm Coleman, and thus we now have Al Franken as a senator. And as the 60th Senator who is likely to be the one vote needed (#60) to ensure that socialism will come to us through the Health Control bill, it is Franken who will take America into more socialism.
You’re right; Newt was wrong. Scozzafava was a bridge too far. Palin had a better take on that one. But Norm Coleman should not have been a victim of excessive conservative anger and that mistake will be profoundly costly to Minnesota and to America.
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Joel Mark the key is his voting for the war on terrorists cost him his spot in the Party.
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KYLE A, wrote; “People can join a third party anytime they muster up the courage to do so.”
True enough, as long as you define “courage” as being willing to be controled by Demcorats at every level of government and most levels of culture for the rest of our lives.
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#61, Pastor Roy.
Point well taken. I understand and give Liberman credit on that score. Your point goes to the blind loyalty Demcorats have and their willingness to punish and exile dissenting insiders, even fellow liberal dissenters.
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Joel Mark I do not believe it is blind loyalty Demcorats as more of it is having loyalty out of fear of the Demcorats leadership.
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Do you hear anyone talking about Max Baucus and his ethics lapse? Not only did he cheat on his wife, but he nominated his girlfriend to be a US Attorney. Do you hear about that day in day out the way you heard about the governor of SC? No.
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who is Max Baucus ?
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Hi Random Name:
I am insane by your definition because I say I believe in invisible stuff.
But you are insane by my definition because you say you do not believe in invisible stuff.
Perhaps we are both insane.
But I like my insanity better because I believe in not only what is not invisible but also what is invisible. It is a much bigger playing field.
My insanity is much bigger and much more interesting than your insanity. It allows for all kinds of things you cannot even imagine. It, in fact, allows the universe (what ‘is’) to be miles and miles more interesting than what you are stuck with.
You, Random Name, are like a blind guy sitting on the ground, feeling depressed because, somewhere, you hear birds singing, but you can’t see them and you are not sure what they are.
An apple hits you on the head. You pick up the apple in your hands and then carefully and thoroughly examine it, with your fingers.
“This”, you say to yourself, “is a sort of round smooth object. It hit me directly on the head. I know not for whence it came and I know not why it came. It is all there is. No more can ever be said about it or anything else.”
And, saying that, you strap a football helmet on your head in case anything else should try to hit you on the head, and that is that.
I, Drill, am like a blind guy sitting on the ground right next to you, feeling pretty good because, somewhere, I hear birds singing, even though I can’t see them and I am not even sure what they are.
An apple hits me on the head. I pick up the apple in my hands and then carefully and thoroughly examine it, with my fingers.
“This”, I say to myself, “is an apple. It fell from a tree that I cannot see, but which I am certainly sitting under. And this tree is perhaps only one tree in a beautiful-beyond-belief orchard. And there are beautiful birds sitting on the branches of the trees in the orchard all around me; the birds are singing most marvelously.”
“And why, then, if this is an orchard, there must be a sort of Being to plant and tend this orchard, as it were.”
“And perhaps if I listen carefully for His voice, He will stop and speak to me – and even open my eyes so that I can see.”
So you see, I get more out of both visible and invisible stuff than you do out of just visible stuff, Random Name.
And if that is being insane, I just wanna be insane.
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Thank you, Drill.
I don’t particularly enjoy believing in imaginary things to make myself feel better. You do.
Pretty much seems to sum stuff up.
Your mileage and your sanity may vary.
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People don’t believe in God — who is not imaginary by the way — to make themselves feel better. In point of fact, choosing to lead a Christian life often does not make a person “feel better.” It’s not easy, and I, for one, fail at it every day.
Max Baucus is a Senator, a Democrat, which is why you haven’t heard that he cheated on his wife with a woman who was cheating on her husband. He nominated her to be a US Attorney, but that’s been withdrawn because they want to live together.
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I have to say, I thought Joel Mark’s remarks earlier were accurate.
The Tea Party folks share a similar attitude as the progressives on the left: both wings value their principles, some times (often?) to the harm of their politics. Despite desperate assertions to the contrary, the purist positions of the Tea Party crowd do not possess the sort of large-scale appeal necessary for electoral success.
Of course, as a Democrat, I couldn’t be happier: go ahead.
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Well, Random Name, there are imaginary things . . . and then there are invisible things.
You tend to conflate the two, although they (in general) are necessarily entirely different.
Well, they are different: Unless, of course you live in a sort of little box with your eyes screwed tight shut and your ears stoppered all up, hoping against hope that nothing exists outside that little box, and that the sounds you seem to hear from beyond the walls of that box are just reflected phantasms, ghost distillations from the random firings of neurons spinning one by one into the bottomless well of your ever-revolving, inward-turning, forever-contracting consciousness.
But you just might be wrong.
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As I understand it, the Tea party people are just Americans who are seeking a new way to be heard by both Democrats and Republicans and others in office.
The sad thing is that those in power, the Democrats, are not only not listening but in many ways are even disrespecting the Tea party people (so that they can feel better about not listening to them). .
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Harris wrote; “The Tea Party folks share a similar attitude as the progressives on the left.”
I disagree with that.
Good evening.
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#71 Yes, I might just be wrong.
However, there are many Gods and many religious beliefs. So if you want to be sure you are right you have to be sure you have stuck your hand in the “I will live after I die and my life has some external meaning” grab bag and pulled out the correct one.
Of course, another way of looking at it is that the various religions of humanity’s history proves only that human beings find dismay in the knowledge they will cease to exist and that they can create denial stories of great complexity and imagination.
All of these may be stories, or one is the correct story, thought based on very dubious evidence, and all the others are just stories.
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Joel Mark, yes, Democrats are likely to stay in power if we leave the Republican Party. However, my conscience matters more to me than an R after somebody’s name. I have been used by the Republican Party for over twenty years to get votes, and I can no longer do it and look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t become a Republican because I like elephants better than donkeys. I actually believed in the Republican platform of the 1980’s and early 1990’s (helped write it, actually).
The Republican Party has left me. It has left me by not criminalizing abortion, by not reducing government spending, by not lowering taxes, and by not deregulating business. I joined the Republican Party in order to see my views become public policy. A lot of good that did. I was a delegate at county and state conventions, I volunteered in campaign headquarters, and I was even a precinct chairman. For what? To elect two Bushes? To have to vote for McCain?
I am very tired of settling for “not quite as bad as the Democrats.” Why settle for “not quite so bad” when you can have much better?
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Kyle A.,
Welcome to the club.
My Dad was a union Democrat. I still remember him telling me: “The only thing you need to know about politics is that the Republicans are for the rich guys, and the Democrats are for the working man.” (I also remembering thinking later how ironic it was that it was “his” Democrats who pushed for racial hiring quotas. Dad was justifiably ticked that there were blacks on the job with him at the new Federal Building that “couldn’t tell a quarter inch from an eith of an inch.” But I digress.) Suffice to say that Dad’s political “convictions” didn’t particularly influence me one way or the other.
I graduated HS in ‘79 and joined the USAF in Jan. ‘80. I spent the next 10 months listening to a bunch of Vietnam-era vets kvetching about the sad state of the service under Carter (no/few pay raises, no parts to keep the planes flying, etc.). Not to mention the botched Iranian hostage rescue. OTOH, Reagan had promised to rebuild America’s military and take care of its members. So I voted for RR.
A few months later, I was converted to Christ through the ministry of an off-base Baptist church. Needless to say, for the next decade or so, in my circles, family values/the culture wars went hand-in-glove with the GOP. Voted Regan again. Got informed by the likes of Dobson, Buchanan and Limbaugh (and many others). Then voted GHWB in ‘88.
FF> to the 1992 campaign. Turned out GHWB was no Reagan. (And I discovered later that even Reagan was no Reagan — i.e., the reality didn’t match the legend.) Limbaugh talked up Buchanan. (Until that weekend George and Babs put him up in the Lincoln bedroom.) One day, I Buchanan had his good friend Howard Philipps (I think they had both been Nixon staffers) on his radio show and they had a cordial debate: Philipps arguing that Conservatives/Constitutionalists needed to abandon the scheming and maniplulative GOP, and Buchanan — while admitting that the GOP was scheming and maniplulative — arguing that, in a two-party system, Conservatives/Constitutionalists needed to remain with the GOP and reform it.
I voted for Howard Phillips that year, and never looked back at the GOP. (As a party, that is. I have voted for GOP candidates whose principles I shared. I’ve just never shared any of the principles of the GOP’s presidential candidates since 1988.)
Just my journey (in brief, I hope) to where it sounds like you are today.
Stand strong. Don’t settle.
And always cast your vote in faith — the event (election) itself is in the hands of God.
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Frank, yes. You got there before me, but I have been headed in this direction for a long time. I intend to cast all my future votes in faith–faith in GOD rather than the GOP.
The Republican Party would have to win me back–just as a cheating husband has to win his wife back with acts of contrition and evidence of true change.
However, I see myself becoming more and mor libertarian, so I don’t look for it to happen. I also don’t see myself as taking a politically strategic view anymore. My integrity won’t allow it. I could settle for a less-than-perfect candidate, but I do not want to settle for a Bush or a McCain again.
It was an agonizing decision. I would say that I was in deep emotional turmoil for two years over it. Now that I am here, I look back and it all seems and feels easy and natural.
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Warning that the Democrats will win if conservatives vote for a third party tends to be self-fulfilling. As long as most conservatives believe that and continue voting Republican, there is no way a third party can have a significant impact.
Like Kyle A., I voted Republican for over twenty years, thinking it was a vote for the principles I believe in. But in the past several years, I concluded that in terms of standing for those principles they were mostly talk and not reality.
I would rather vote for a party that stands for what I believe in than one that only claims to.
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KYLE A,
Your conscience???
What is so wrong with your conscience, Kyle, that makes you consciously willihng to usher in socialism, run up gov’t spending, debt and size, empower egregious social injustice, institutionalize abortion and make sure that marriage will be re-defined and deconstructed? All this will take place with Democrats in charge of our culture and our political institutions, which you intentionally know will result from your stance.
I can see that you are WILLINGLY to usher in the destruction of decency in our time.
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KYLE A wrote; “I have been used by the Republican Party for over twenty years to get votes…”
Then shame on you, KYLE, for letting yourself be used by a party to get votes. I am a Republican and they have NEVER “used me” to get anything that I did not, as a mature and free adult, decide on my own to give–and after prayful consideration. I actually take responsibility for my actions and decisions. I never had the illusion that I was electing myself when I voted for a Republican. So shame on YOU for letting yourself be used and also for blaming a party for what YOU yourself let happen.
I have a couple questions, sir:
1. Who was it that EVER asked you to become a Republican becuase you like elephants? That makes no sense.
3. Don’t you even know who is actually “using” you now? Just look at the leftists on this very thread who express sheer delight in your stance.
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FRANK IN SPOKANE,
I mistakenly called you Frank in Phoenix a while back but I meant Frank in Spokane.
Frank, your comment at #7 is the WORST kind of nonsense. Using stereotypes about “populism” and the military to draw some comparison with Hitler is irrational and viscious. You harbor a mindless hate, in my view.
My Dad was a union Democrat. I still remember him telling me: “The only thing you need to know about politics is that the Republicans are for the rich guys, and the Democrats are for the working man.” (I also remembering thinking later how ironic it was that it was “his” Democrats who pushed for racial hiring quotas. Dad was justifiably ticked that there were blacks on the job with him at the new Federal Building that “couldn’t tell a quarter inch from an eith of an inch.” But I digress.) Suffice to say that Dad’s political “convictions” didn’t particularly influence me one way or the other.
I graduated HS in ‘79 and joined the USAF in Jan. ‘80. I spent the next 10 months listening to a bunch of Vietnam-era vets kvetching about the sad state of the service under Carter (no/few pay raises, no parts to keep the planes flying, etc.). Not to mention the botched Iranian hostage rescue. OTOH, Reagan had promised to rebuild America’s military and take care of its members. So I voted for RR.
A few months later, I was converted to Christ through the ministry of an off-base Baptist church. Needless to say, for the next decade or so, in my circles, family values/the culture wars went hand-in-glove with the GOP. Voted Regan again. Got informed by the likes of Dobson, Buchanan and Limbaugh (and many others). Then voted GHWB in ‘88.
FF> to the 1992 campaign. Turned out GHWB was no Reagan. (And I discovered later that even Reagan was no Reagan — i.e., the reality didn’t match the legend.) Limbaugh talked up Buchanan. (Until that weekend George and Babs put him up in the Lincoln bedroom.) One day, I Buchanan had his good friend Howard Philipps (I think they had both been Nixon staffers) on his radio show and they had a cordial debate: Philipps arguing that Conservatives/Constitutionalists needed to abandon the scheming and maniplulative GOP, and Buchanan — while admitting that the GOP was scheming and maniplulative — arguing that, in a two-party system, Conservatives/Constitutionalists needed to remain with the GOP and reform it.
I voted for Howard Phillips that year, and never looked back at the GOP. (As a party, that is. I have voted for GOP candidates whose principles I shared. I’ve just never shared any of the principles of the GOP’s presidential candidates since 1988.)
Just my journey (in brief, I hope) to where it sounds like you are today.
Stand strong. Don’t settle.
And always cast your vote in faith — the event (election) itself is in the hands of God.
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Apologies to all–I did not intend to print all of Frank’s previous post above. I had copied it because I wanted to comment on it, but decided to go with a response to #7 which was more serious. Then I forgot to delete what I had copied.
My apologies for my early morning glitches. But I stand by my point that Franks Hitlerian analogy is horrific.
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Joel
Did you take my comments as critical? I certainly did not mean them that way: you comment early on polls [@ 13] was one I would affirm — I suspect, for many of the same politically pragmatic concerns. So too, how you approached Gov. Palin – that “wait and see” approach, that valuation of what can be done — those are habits of thought I try to copy as well (albeit from the other side
).
And if I may quibble: you truncated my quote to make it sound as if Tea Partiers and the Progressive left were moral equivalents. Ah, no. (But let’s not go there). Rather, it’s that both end up prizing their commitments or virtue before their politics. What the Tea Party does not want to become or do is to become the conservative movement’s version of Ralph Nader/Green circa 2000. I.e., electorally self-defeating.
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NJLawyer
“Max Baucus is a Senator, a Democrat, which is why you haven’t heard that he cheated on his wife with a woman who was cheating on her husband. He nominated her to be a US Attorney, but that’s been withdrawn because they want to live together”
Oh, he did a Jesse Jackson
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Harris, no I did not take your comments as critical of me. I just disagreed with that one line that i quoted, and that’s all I tried to express. I just wanted to clarify. But reading your last response, perhaps I did not understand you.
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To Kyle and Frank,
Here’s where I am coming from. Here in Minnesota, we had a decent Republican senator named Norm Coleman who voted with conservatives about 80 to 90% of the time, maybe more. But the angry Independent & Libertarian factions here (which are growing) just demonized him relentless ly as if he were worthless. Many refused to vote for him in his race with Al Franken. They wasted tons of votes on a guy named Barkley. They felt smug about it and gave the undistinguished radical and agry leftist Al Frankin, the 60th senator giving the leftists a super majority. Socialism, here we come. It was irrational, overly emotional and uninformed. Libertarians in particular are often more radically pro-abortion than Democrats, yet they exploit people’s legitimate frustration with liberalism to get their votes. And Libertarians rarely have to face accountability because they rarely get in office at all. So they talk a big talk.
Perfectionism does not work in politics. We should know that going in.
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I usually come late to these conversations and don’t contribute much, but let me chip in to say that Limbaugh recently condemned third parties for conservatives, saying they will only help the liberals win. Third parties for liberals are great, but for conservatives we should fight for the GOP because that’s an established party with many conservatives in it and conservative ideas in its platform. I think what Joel Mark says in #86 is great illustration.
Long live World magazine!
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JM (86): Libertarians in particular are often more radically pro-abortion than Democrats …
Frank: I don’t presently have the time to address your numerous comments, so I’ll only briefly touch on two.
Re. abortion: I admit there are some “libertarians” who are only interested in libertarianism as a political justification for their hedonism. E.g., some advocate legalization of marijuana so they can smoke it. But many others detest drug use as much as you and I, they just don’t think it’s a legitimate government function to punish behavior that is sinful but not truly criminal.
Likewise, there are some “libertarians” who are sexual hedonists. Free love, gay sex, abortion on demand. But a funny thing happened to me about 10-15 years ago, right around the time that I realized that what I thought libertarians believed about abortion (i.e., pro-choice, right down the line) contradicted what they said was government’s job, namely, protecting the weakest against the aggression of the strongest.
That funny thing was, I started actually meeting many, many pro-life libertarians. And voting for them when they were candidates for office.
You see, non-aggression is one of libertarianism’s most foundational principles. While they usually believe in the right to use violence, if necessary, in the defense of innocent life, they do not believe in the aggressive use of force by anyone. This is the principle that drives pro-life libertarians.
Thus virtually all libertarians oppose federal abortion laws — whether they are pro-life, or pro-”choice.” They believe (rightfully, IMO) that laws against abortion belong at the same level of government as laws against murder and assault — i.e., the state level.
Now the hedonist “libertarians” think that a woman should also have the right to choose at the state level. But principled libertarians (e.g., Ron Paul) want abortion to be a crime at the state level, they just want the individual states to determine for themselves how to punish it.
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That is all the argument the partisans need to stay beneath the GOP’s ever-shrinking tent.
The interesting question, to my mind, is how those loyal 18% would split if (as happened in NY), the Republican dropped out of the race, leaving it between the Dem and the TP candidate. By my calculations, the TPs would need to pick up 86% of the formerly Republican vote to win.
In other words, if even 15% of Romney supporters decide to vote for Obama after Palin’s golly-shucks and, too, her, you know, just to connect with real Americans forces Romney out, then Obama wins.
(This, of course, years before the presidential election and a highly hypothetical scenario.)
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And the other comment I wanted to touch briefly on is your denying that populism plus militarism leads to totalitarian tyranny.
Please note: I am not saying that Sarah Palin (or anyone else on the political horizon, for that matter) could be “the next Hitler.”
All I am saying is, don’t make the same mistake as Make It Man at (9): “It can’t happen here! This is the US!”
Any nation that is on the ropes economically can see the rise of a charismatic, populist/militarist leader who can scapegoat his nation’s problems and rouse the people to support horrendous things.
Any nation. Even the US.
And while the reasoning may be clear to you, how you equate my remarks here with “harboring mindless hate” is quite unclear to me.
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I have to agree with Frank in Spokane’s 90.
When my mother came home to the US in 1938 and heard Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt’s speeches, she thought they contained the same language she had heard from Hitler before leaving Germany. People easily fall prey. Look how easy it was to believe in “change” — no one asked what Obama meant by change. And now those same people are shocked and appalled. The worst thing we can do as Americans is to become complacent and not vigorously guard our rights.
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NJLawyer are you saying that Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt’s and Obama’s speeches are at the level of Hitler speeches?
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90: Any nation. Even the US.
No truer words have been spoken, as the pro-abortion plank in the DNC Party Platform attests. This manifestly evil plank has been publically paraded in the DNC Platform for over thirty years!
Just as Hitler was set loose by countrymen blind to his ambitions, a generation of blind Americans has set loose an abortion holocaust under the guise of a constitutional right. For the remnant who have eyes to see, the DNC is unknowingly performing a public service by parading the emperor without clothes.
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“You do know that she cost McCain the election, right?”
McCain cost himself the election when he tried to run a same platform of “Change”. His campaign was run by moderate rino’s who had no clue even how to use a rookie like Palin…
Somehow I dont see you arguing that McCain would have won with anyone else. In essence your saying Obama only won because of Palin. I’d disagree with that. I think his campaign was good.
But if this your defense its poor. Biden was obviously electable despite the stupid things he says/does.
I can give you several reasons why Palin wont win. 1. She caters too much to party rhetoric, rather than expressing her own ideals. 2. Will get beat down by most of the Republicans if not the media 3. She’ll be old news by then. 4. People wont be trusting the pretty face for change next go around… 5. Chas will get more votes 6. She’s not one of Tiger’s mistresses, yet.
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