The "RINO" Thread

[Toro]

This thread is for those who have left the party because they view it as being too extreme, or for the increasingly rare heretics in the party, the "RINOs."

First, scoreboard. The Republicans have lost 4 of the last 6 Presidential elections, the Presidential popular vote in 5 of the last 6 Presidential elections, and moderates in 5 of the last 6 Presidential elections, and will probably extend that losing streak if Hillary runs in 2016.

Next, math. According to FoxNews exit polls, moderates were 45% of the electorate in the 2012 Presidential election and voted for Obama over Romney, 56% to 41%. With 130 million Americans voting, that is a deficit of nearly 9 million voters. Obama beat Romney by 5 million votes.

For a party that reveres business, I find it odd that so many of the base believe that the best path to winning is to make the party more appealing to themselves and less appealing to everyone else. A successful businessperson wants to expand her market and sell her product to more people, not shrink the market and sell less. But that appears to be the course many in the party want to take.

As the base of the GOP does it's best to emulate the "success" of the Democrat party of the 1970s and 1980s by becoming too exclusionary and doctrinaire, think of this thread as a self-help thread for the Republican party as those who once considered themselves to be Republicans but are no more tell you why.

First, an assessment from Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speechwriter.

Republicans are now in the habit of editing their views, and they've been in it for 10 years. The Bush White House suppressed dissent; talk-radio stars functioned as enforcers; the angrier parts of the base, on the Internet, attempted to silence critical thinkers. Orthodoxy was everything, or orthodoxy as some defined it. This isn't loyalty, it's lockstep. It has harmed the party's creativity, its ability to think, when now more than ever it has to.

Noonan: Republicans Need to Talk - WSJ.com

And now, from one poster

I was a republican over 40 yrs and I am now an independent and so is many many used to be devout republicans. My leaving the party started not too much before the primary season, when the extremists were gearing up anyone that dared disagree with a single component of their platform or agenda was vilified and labeled a rhino and a liberal.
As a working class republican I was offended by the attacks on the public "WORKERS" not bums and skids and people looking for a handout...WORKING class people. I was offended by the rhetoric coming out of the mouths of newly elected republican govs.
In short the Gop went waaay to far and they lost votes here and they lost some there and they lost some there and they "LOST" the election. The most amazing thing to me is that the teaparty who made the republican party lose is still tooting their horns and beating their chests. Im not alone theres many that left the gop...and wont be back anytime soon.

 

[Mac1958]

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I've been trying for the last several days on various threads to get a right-winger to explain precisely how the party is going to be successful in elections if they are able to rid themselves of "RINOs" and moderates. Seems like a pretty reasonable question.

No luck so far. Maybe this thread will do it.

.

 

[Toro]

I am a Republican becuase I believe in our core values, the valuse that I am trying to return to the party. I believe in fiscal responsibility and social freedoms.

You are a Goldwater Republican. So was I. I have found that it is easier to be a fiscally conservative social libertarian as a democrat than as a republican.

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[Claudette]

I left the Rep party because I don't give a shit about gays or abortion.

I believe in letting people live as they please within the law.

I also don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes and religion doesn't mean jack shit to me.

I am however a fiscal conservative. I don't like the monster our Govt has turned into and I sure as shit don't like the way it spends our money.

Those Clowns in DC have done a fantastic job of taking care of themselves for life with our tax dollars.

Govt is way to big and I'm sure the FF would be turning in their graves if they got a good look at it.

 

[Toro]

Most moderates describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially moderate to liberal.

 

[LoneLaugher]

My brother is a "conservative". We have decided to avoid discussing politics at family gatherings in order to keep things pleasant. He struggles with this, however.

Yesterday, my daughter.....who is his favoriite niece, was talking about a freind of hers who recently passed away after a half-year fight with cancer. She told him that she heard that we would probably find a cure for cancer before long.....expressing hope for the future.

Well, he exclaimed, " I hope not".

My daughter was rocked. She asked him why he felt that way. Her voice trembled.

He said that we don't have enough money to support our population as it is and we can't afford to have cancer cured.

Not sure things will ever be the same between them.

 

[ba1614]

My brother is a "conservative". We have decided to avoid discussing politics at family gatherings in order to keep things pleasant. He struggles with this, however.

Yesterday, my daughter.....who is his favoriite niece, was talking about a freind of hers who recently passed away after a half-year fight with cancer. She told him that she heard that we would probably find a cure for cancer before long.....expressing hope for the future.

Well, he exclaimed, " I hope not".

My daughter was rocked. She asked him why he felt that way. Her voice trembled.

He said that we don't have enough money to support our population as it is and we can't afford to have cancer cured.

Not sure things will ever be the same between them.

So now you attribute that view of your brother to every Conservative?

 

[LoneLaugher]

Did I say that?

Just sharing some personal experience.

 

[JoeB131]

Most moderates describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially moderate to liberal.

Perhaps, but what does that mean?

The GOP has worked on a model of getting working people voting against their own economic interests by pushing hot button social issues like gays, feminism, abortion, guns. Except those issues aren't selling as well as they did back in the 1980's.

Most working people would not vote for working harder for less money so a few rich assholes can be richer... but that's really the "fiscal conservatism" of the GOP today. Can they get working folks to keep swallowing the poison pill of plutocracy without the sugar coating of these social issues?

Probably not.

 

[007]

.

I've been trying for the last several days on various threads to get a right-winger to explain precisely how the party is going to be successful in elections if they are able to rid themselves of "RINOs" and moderates. Seems like a pretty reasonable question.

No luck so far. Maybe this thread will do it.

.

I tried. Thought I was pretty clear.

Guess you forgot already... or just didn't like what I said and prefer to pretend you didn't read it.

 

[ba1614]

Did I say that?

Just sharing some personal experience.

Then why do you think anyone would give a fuck what your brother thinks?

 

[Mac1958]

.

I've been trying for the last several days on various threads to get a right-winger to explain precisely how the party is going to be successful in elections if they are able to rid themselves of "RINOs" and moderates. Seems like a pretty reasonable question.

No luck so far. Maybe this thread will do it.

.

I tried. Thought I was pretty clear.

Guess you forgot already... or just didn't like what I said and prefer to pretend you didn't read it.

By all means, let's hear it again. I'm sure there are many Republicans who'd like to see it too.

Thanks.

.

 

[midcan5]

...For a party that reveres business, I find it odd that so many of the base believe that the best path to winning is to make the party more appealing to themselves and less appealing to everyone else. A successful businessperson wants to expand her market and sell her product to more people, not shrink the market and sell less. But that appears to be the course many in the party want to take....

They do? And how exactly is that? I think they, like the wealthy who support them, have no genuine interest in a healthy business climate for a healthy business climate includes all not just the entitled republicans. Republicans are interested in power, congress shows that everyday. They want their way. We agree from opposing ends.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/elect...ublicans-the-blame-goes-on-3.html#post6549415

 

[JoeB131]

@ Toro-

I might make the observation here that a lot of your recent threads are that the GOP's extermism had cost it the election, and not the fact that you and others picked the worst possible candidate you could find. Such as this statement...

First, scoreboard. The Republicans have lost 4 of the last 6 Presidential elections, the Presidential popular vote in 5 of the last 6 Presidential elections, and moderates in 5 of the last 6 Presidential elections, and will probably extend that losing streak if Hillary runs in 2016.

This seems to be trying to deflect the blame away from the Plutocratic wing of the party for pushing Romney by pointing out other Republicans lost elections, too.

Okay. Let's look at that.

First, 1992 and 1996 have to be considered in the context of Ross Perot splitting the GOP majority that had won 5 of the six elections previous to that. The alliance between Social, Security and Economic conservatives won the day in those elections by 40+ state sweeps, mostly. Perot was able to peel off a lot of conservative votes, and when they started drifting back, the GOP got back in the upper 40% range, but Democrats also picked up a slice of them.

Partially because Clinton was a fiscal moderate. Partially because slowly but surely, the social messages aren't selling as well.

For 2000, by any electoral math, Gore should have won. (In fact, he probably did.) But his campaign was so weak, he performance so devoid of passion, Bush made it close enough for Shennanigans. Again, the problem wasn't that Bush "lost" moderates, it was that most people looked around and say, "Why rock the boat?"

Probably the 2000 election was the election least about issues, ever. It was purely an election of personalities.

2004 was skewed by the War on Terror. We've never voted out an incumbant president in the middle of a war and never will. But it was really too close.

2008 wasn't about moderates vs. Conservatives, either. It was about Bush totally fucked up, well, everything... and McCain didn't have a plan to fix it. One could argue, neither did Obama, but he wasn't defending the status quo. McCain was.

Which brings us to 2012. I told you all that Romney was a horrible idea, and I predicted when he lost, there would be a lot of finger pointing. Let's just make sure the fingers are pointed in teh right directions.

(This would be a good point for you to whine about "bigotry"... feel free.)

Now, I have no great love for the religious whacks, personally. But frankly, they did their part. They got their people to the polls. Romney held all the states McCain won and picked up two of the more socially conservative ones Obama barely won last time.

The people who didn't show up were the "moderates" who you and Jake Starkey and others insisted up and down that we shouldn't nominate a true social conservative like Santorum because they would be alienated.
Well, you guys nominated Romney. And they didn't show up anyway.

I don't think the social conservatives are the problem. I wouldn't want to live in a country where they got their way, personally. But the real problem is that "economic conservatism"- which is, "You are going to work harder for less money and less benefits and you are going to like it!" just doesn't have much of an appeal to a "moderate" with an underwater mortgage and wages that haven't grown to keep up with inflation.

 

[initforme]

If the GOP could show they actually want middle class workers to have good benefits and pay then they might have a chance. You simply cant win when you #1 priority is the ultra wealthy. People are starting to figure this out. But is it too late?

 

[JoeB131]

If the GOP could show they actually want middle class workers to have good benefits and pay then they might have a chance. You simply cant win when you #1 priority is the ultra wealthy. People are starting to figure this out. But is it too late?

This is what I've been saying for a long time.

When Mitt Romney and his ilk get rid of that good paying union job at AmPad and replace it with a shitty McJob at Staples, those damned working people just refuse to obdiently starve to death.

They go to the government for food stamps, section 8 and MedicAid.

And then they are Democratic voters, not Republican ones.

 

[initforme]

Whats even better is then they use religion to explain their stance. Or at least try to. Many of their leaders want no unions, no entitlements, no nothing for anyone except themselves. To them middle class workers are nothing but overhead. And then they call themselves Christians. Talk about hypocrites. Everything the bible preaches against.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Nutters seem to believe that liberals are overly concerned with the poorest among us.....that we want to give them shit so they will vote for.......higher taxes? Free condoms? Whatever.

But....the fact is that our primary concern is the middle class.....the working poor.....the potential CONSUMERS.

Every one of my customers is a small business owner. A handful of them could be considered wealthy...but my core customer base is solidly middle class businesses. In turn, THEIR core customer base is solidly middle class individuals.

More people with expendable income.....more business for them.....more business for me. OH NO!!! I'm a Randian Liberal!!!

 

[PratchettFan]

I left the Rep party because I don't give a shit about gays or abortion.

I believe in letting people live as they please within the law.

I also don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes and religion doesn't mean jack shit to me.

I am however a fiscal conservative. I don't like the monster our Govt has turned into and I sure as shit don't like the way it spends our money.

Those Clowns in DC have done a fantastic job of taking care of themselves for life with our tax dollars.

Govt is way to big and I'm sure the FF would be turning in their graves if they got a good look at it.

That pretty well sums it up for me. Who someone wants to marry is their business, what happens in a woman's body is between her and her doctor. It is none of my business and sure as hell none of the the government's business. We have spent far too many tax dollars on pointless social agendas.

The republican party started losing me with the much touted Contract with America. So many promises made and followed immediately after the election with "Contract? What contract?" From there, it has gone downhill as the party has sold itself to anyone who will provide either monetary support or willing to vote. The movement once led by the likes of Buckley is now led by the likes of Reed. Logic has been replaced with emotionalism. Intelligence has become a dirty word.

The last election was just the logical conclusion of the road the party has been taking the last couple of decades. They end up with a group of potentials consisting of a man who resigned from his last governmental postion for curruption, a man who only cared about his social agenda and couldn't even get re-elected in his own state and a man whose primary campaign strategy was to say whatever he thought the current audience wanted to hear and then have his staff explain to the press why he really didn't mean what he said. A group so out of touch with America, they still don't know they are out of touch.

I'm not a RINO. The tea partiers are RINOs. Reed is a RINO. Santorum is a RINO. The people who have turned the party into a prostitute for anyone with a bank balance are RINOs. But the only thing I can do to support my party, a party which is crucial to the health of our nation, is to help it rid itself of the corruption and outright stupidity which has held it in thrall. For now, that means to vote democrat. I realize that many will see that as treason, both to the party and to the nation. But I really don't care what the RINOs think. It is time we stopped listening so avidly to the stupid.

 

[Oldguy]

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I've been trying for the last several days on various threads to get a right-winger to explain precisely how the party is going to be successful in elections if they are able to rid themselves of "RINOs" and moderates. Seems like a pretty reasonable question.

No luck so far. Maybe this thread will do it.

.

I tried. Thought I was pretty clear.

Guess you forgot already... or just didn't like what I said and prefer to pretend you didn't read it.

Well, please try again as I must have missed that thread. How DOEs a party intend to win elections by alienating more and more voters?