Tag Archives: gop

That Brand Is Taken, GOP

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What is it with the GOP and this incessant need to lurch to the left?

As is typical, conservatives are being blamed for the loss last week.  The fact we put Cruz, Fischer, and Flake into office isn’t mentioned.  The fact Senator Brown lost his seat running away from the Tea Party as fast as his moderate legs could carry him isn’t mentioned.  The fact the Republican nominee was yet another a moderate who, despite some strong positive campaigning, wouldn’t attack Obama a la McCain 2.0 isn’t mentioned.  But it must be our fault anyway, if only because Establishment politicians don’t take blame.

There’s just one problem with the theory that we now need amnesty and we can add support by attacking the rich.  That brand is already taken.  The Democrats own it lock, stock, and barrel, and with the MSM to back them up on retaining it, no amount of liberalism from the Republicans will so much as cause it to be knocked even slightly ajar.

Giving the Democrats what they want or ‘compromising’ with them has always resulted in them getting the credit and the Republicans getting the blame.  Bush 41 breaking his no new taxes pledge cost him his job.  Reagan granted amnesty in exchange for security considerations he never received and the Republicans promptly started losing percentages of the Hispanic vote (Want to know how to appeal to them?  Try looking at Texas first).  The House was retaken in 2010 by the efforts of the Tea Party along with gains in the Senate, and two years of the Republicans attacking them for it earned them the 2012 election cycle losses that should have been the other way around.  No one who retired over Obamacare need have bothered.

Say they plow through anyway and go full liberal, then what?  Not one liberal will peel away from the Democrats.  Plus, they’ll get the credit for ‘forcing’ the Republicans into line if the Republicans are even mentioned at all.  What’s left of their base will certainly blame them though, and not enough moderates and independents will be gained to make up the difference.

The GOP cannot win as a liberal party because liberal is already taken by a party in no danger of losing the title.  No current Democrat voters will want Dem-light if they already have the real thing.  At this point though, it might just Whig the Republicans out of existence.

News link credits:  Hot Air, GOP Is For Me

Here’s How The Capitulation Is Working For The GOP

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Today seems like a good day to talk about GOP capitulation, because they’re being attacked on the austerity they’ve supposedly inflicted on us all.  Yes, all of that hellish austerity is slowing down the economy.  It’s all the GOP’s fault.  Except that they haven’t actually done all that much by the way of budget cuts.

Here’s the bottom line.  They managed a few hundred million in cuts in a continuing resolution, and received a complete thrashing in their wholesale capitulation on the debt ceiling.  I’ll grant this presumes it ends with a deadlocked Super Committee, which is a good bet.  Their base isn’t happy with them now because not only are the Republicans not doing anything budget-related correctly, but they attacked their base as ‘childish’ for actually wanting something real done.  Didn’t buy any goodwill from the left in the end, did it?  Now both sides are going to be mad at the GOP.

Typical Republican fail.

Now the establishment wants Romney to be the nominee, arguing for his electability.  If you stop to think about it, he’s too far to the left to be electable.  He’s not distinguishable from Obama in any meaningful way.  His argument and that of every other RINO can be boiled down to something along the lines of ‘I concede that the Democrat way of doing things is the right way, but I’m better because I’m going to do less of it more slowly.  Oh, and the conservatives have nowhere to go so they have to vote for me and they can suck it’ (this is not a direct quote from anyone).  If he’s nominated, I’m sure he’ll give a beautifully delivered and polished concession speech in November against an incumbent that could not have won without him.  As a mislabeled Democrat, he’ll have capitulated on all of the arguments before the election even begins in a futile attempt to attract independents and annoyed the base he thinks he can take for granted.

The moral of this story?  If you’re going to be attacked for being conservative no matter what, be conservative.  It works and will give anyone who uses it actual successes to tout come election time.  The media and Democrats will never love Republicans, but trying to appease them can cost those Republicans the support of their base.  At the very least, they may get votes but can forget the manpower they they need to win elections.

Being the Other Democrats never works.  The sooner they learn that, the more they’ll win in the future.  Heck, the RINOs might even buy themselves a little leeway once they rack up enough real wins to get the wiggle room.  The Gathering Of Pansies approach, however, won’t continue to do.

News link credit:  Hot Air

GOP Has A Debt-Ceiling Countermove

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I’m not going to jump for joy over this plan, but I’m not going to deride it either.

The GOP produced and then announced a plan to raise the debt ceiling $2.4 Trillion, accompanied by $2.4 Trillion in cuts.  The down side is likely that these cuts are across ten years and may well not have much of a chance of remaining.  The up side?  No tax hikes, and now Obama has to put forth his own specific plan, accept this one to the fury of his own base, or hit the ceiling come August 2nd for refusing to do anything presuming the GOP doesn’t cave at the 11th hour.

Yes, I know about the GOP and caving, but that’s how it is until we get rid of more squishes come 2012.

It’s a good countermove, though something more substantive and front-loaded with cuts would have been nice.  As it stands though, the GOP has a plan without tax hikes that takes away Obama’s ability to demagogue them for wanting a default.  Since he and the Democrats have to be beaten into submission with public opinion before they’ll do anything worthwhile, this is a good start.

News link to the report at Hot Air.

The GOP Stops Obama Again

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Color me pleasantly surprised.

The GOP has stopped Salazar and the Department of the Interior from some regulatory-overreach driven land grabs.  Despite some squish here and there, they appear to be doing something about Obama after all.  After Boehner’s work, I’d say they found their spines, but more likely they found more to fear from us than the Democrats.

It may have finally occurred to them that the whole milquetoast thing won’t get them re-elected anymore.  Business as usual isn’t selling so well, and the Tea Parties they thought would dissipate have not done so.  That, and the whole matter of base apathy towards any moderate squish that does make it through their primary.  The shaming tactic of “primaries are the final say so be adults and fall into line” doesn’t hold much water after Murkowski.

It looks like enough of us are to the point where the Republicans either do their jobs or get themselves re-elected without us.  There’s no other reason they’re doing this, because they certainly don’t listen if they can find other ways to make us cooperate.  None of their spin, empty rhetoric, or snark are cutting it anymore or we’d be hearing more of it instead of seeing more action.

Staring into the abyss of permanent political irrelevance is motivational after all.