Should the republican party move towards a Rockeffeller Republican type party?

[JakeStarkey]

Only once in the last six elections have Republicans lost moderates and won the Presidency. Continuously losing a large swath of the electorate who may otherwise vote for you is not a recipe for success.

A political party is a brokerage of interests, not a means test for ideological purity. The GOP doesn't have to be a political party of Northeastern patricians, but driving out "RINOs" is a losing strategy.

We have been told we need "moderates" to win in every election. And for the last several we have gone for moderates like Dole, McCain and Romney. How has that worked out?
We do not need pander and water down our message to win elections. We need to strengthen the message. People vote for those who have principle and offer a clear program, and are generally likeable guys.
Reagan was a likeable guy.
Clinton was a likeable guy, esp after he appeared on Arsenio Hall.
Obama was a likeable guy, at least until he was discovered lying to the American people.
Republicans will never win by being Dem-lite.

And they won't win by abandoning Republican Lite

By moving so far to the right they concede the center to Democrats. moderates have no where else to go

We don't need no stinking conservative extreme

We need Republican mainstream.

(flashes RINO gang signs)

 

[Contumacious]

We have been told we need "moderates" to win in every election. And for the last several we have gone for moderates like Dole, McCain and Romney. How has that worked out?
We do not need pander and water down our message to win elections. We need to strengthen the message. People vote for those who have principle and offer a clear program, and are generally likeable guys.
Reagan was a likeable guy.
Clinton was a likeable guy, esp after he appeared on Arsenio Hall.
Obama was a likeable guy, at least until he was discovered lying to the American people.
Republicans will never win by being Dem-lite.

And they won't win by abandoning Republican Lite

By moving so far to the right they concede the center to Democrats. moderates have no where else to go

We don't need no stinking conservative extreme

We need Republican mainstream.

(flashes RINO gang signs)

"Communist middle of the road" .......interesting concept.......do that means that you and your ilk like to use KY Jelly before screwing taxpayers and producers?


.

 

[Londoner]

Reagan governed as a Rockafeller moderate. He was a deal maker. He raised taxes several times (after his initial tax cuts) and also saved Social Security.

During his recession he kept funding open to the states. He also grew the federal workforce, which put more consumers in the economy and actually helped economic growth (according to his budget director).

He also ran massive deficits because he knew that places like Orange County and San Diego benefited from military Keynesianism (whose economies depended on the huge number of defense sector jobs, administrate and industrial).

Imagine if Reagan had the current Republican congress trying to destroy his '81 recovery for political reasons? The world would have been a much different place if they forced austerity on Reagan, but they let him spend huge.

Point is: if you look at Reagan's actual policies and spending record, he would NEVER survive today's Republican primary system. Heck he'd have trouble winning in the more right leaning blue states.

Don't try telling any of this to a "talk radio republican". They've never studied Reagan's actual policies. They get 100% of their information from FOX, Limbaugh, Savage, Beck , etc. Most them have never taken an advanced university level poly-sci course. They are to be pitied. They are useful idiots who cut and paste stuff from "hit job" websites.

The actual Reagan was more moderate than anyone in the current Republican House or Senate . Nixon and Eisenhower were Big Government New Deal Liberals with Conservative social views.

 

[Mojo2]

Daily Kos: Poll: Whose fault is a shutdown? Silly question.






http://www.usmessageboard.com/polit.../-Poll-Who-s-fault-is-a-shutdown-Silly-nb...*




by Joan McCarter - in 728 Google+ circlesSep 30, 2013 - On the eve of a government shutdown, Americans disapprove of all players in ..... Ask not for whom the bell tolls, GOP, Tea Party, (3+ / 0-).



CNN Poll: Republicans would bear the brunt of shutdown blame ...



CNN Poll: Republicans would bear the brunt of shutdown blame - CNN.com

Sep 30, 2013 - CNN Poll: In case of a shutdown, more say congressional ... "Fifty-six percent of tea party supporters say it's a good thing to shut down the ...


Poll: Americans not happy about shutdown; more blame GOP - CBS ...



http://www.usmessageboard.com/polit...-americans-not-happy-about-shutdown-more-...*



Republicans are divided: 48 percent approve, while 49 percent disapprove. Most tea party supporters approve of the government shutdown - 57 percent of them ...


The Tea Party Shut Down the Government and All They Got Were ...



news.yahoo.com/tea-party-shut-down-government-got-were-lousy-1802...*



Oct 17, 2013 - The Tea Party Shut Down the Government and All They Got Were These ... Nowhere in the Pew poll is this more evident than in the numbers for ...


With polls heading south, GOP desperate to blame Dems for shutdown



americablog.com/.../polls-heading-south-gop-desperate-blame-dems-tea-...*




Oct 4, 2013 - The bigger problem for the GOP is that the rest of America isn't the GOP ... Tags: budget, government shutdown, Obamacare, polls, Tea Party.


Polls: Republican, Tea Party Brand Badly Damaged During Shutdown



townhall.com/.../wapoabc-poll-republicans-tea-party-badly-damaged-by-...*



Oct 22, 2013 - There's no good way to spin these numbers so I'm not even going to try. For example, the public's opinions of both the R.12/06/2013 ...


Poll: Which party is at fault in the government shutdown? - Charlotte ...



http://www.usmessageboard.com/polit...013/.../poll-which-party-is-at-fault-in.html*



Oct 1, 2013 - The U.S. government started shutting down early Tuesday after a bitter fight ... The government shut down is a result of The Tea Party taking an ...


Poll: Major damage to GOP after shutdown, and broad ...



http://www.usmessageboard.com/polit..../poll...shutdown.../dae5c062-3a84-11e3-b7ba-...

Oct 22, 2013 - Poll: Major damage to GOP after shutdown, and broad dissatisfaction with ... And even a majority of those who support the tea party movement disapprove. ... 29 percent blame Obama and 15 percent fault both sides equally.

I think most sophisticated readers will understand now that the news is soooo left slanted that when perusing the news archives online one is most likely to encounter leftist propaganda and twisted points of view rather than an objective analysis.

We all know the Left sought (and seeks) to dictate a false historical narrative.


Why bother being right or thinking ahead when you can merely create the fantasy you wish by just making it up out of whole cloth?

The Shutdown was controlled by the Dems and the Resident.

Let Us Be Clear: Obama Deserves Chief Responsibility for Gov't Shutdown.

Nick Gillespie|Oct. 1, 2013 8:56 am

Whether it turns truly apocalyptic or ends up just being a short break in standard operating procedure, there's plenty of blame to go around when it comes assigning responsibility for the government shutdown.

The one thing that shouldn't be slighted, though, is that it is ultimately Barack Obama's fault. He's the deciderer, right, the top dog? The eight years of his time in office will be known to future generations as the Obama Years and not the Boehner Perplex or the Reid Interregnum.

With great power - and Obama insists he has the unilateral right to kill anyone, even a U.S. citizen, that represents a national security threat - comes great responsiblity.

Instead, President Obama is indulging in incredible displays of peevishness such as this one yesterday during an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep. Asked what he might offer to House Republicans, who have called for, most recently, a delay in Obamacare's individual mandate and a bunch of other late-breaking proposals generally unrelated to how much the government will be spending over the next 12 months:

"Steve when you say what can I offer? I shouldn't have to offer anything," Obama said. "They're not doing me a favor by paying for things that they have already approved for the government to do. That's part of their basic function of government; that's not doing me a favor. That's doing what the American people sent them here to do, carrying out their responsibilities.

Read more here. And don't miss his message to the troops, where he blames Congress for "dysfunction."

Yeah, you shouldn't have to offer anything, Mr. President. What is it that you like to say in such situations? I won. Get over it.

But you do have to offer something now because you didn't make sure to get a spending plan in place when there was more time to screw around.

Indeed, the shutdown is happening because the federal government doesn't have a budget for fiscal 2014, which starts today. The reason it doesn't have a budget is because the Republican-led House passed a budget calling for $3.5 trillion in spending, the Democratically controlled Senate passed a budget calling for $3.7 trillion in spending, and President Obama issued a proposal calling for $3.77 trillion in spending. This happened back in the spring. The House and the Senate passed their budget plans in late March. The president's proposal, the last to be issued, came out on April 10.

After that, the House and the Senate are supposed to hash out differences (always with plenty of presidential input and noodging) and then come up with a document for the president to sign. That didn't happen for all sorts of reason. Frustrated by the pathetic showing of Mitt Romney in the 2012 elections and the Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare, House Republicans were in no mood to do their most basic function.

The Senate hadn't passed a budget in four years, so maybe they were so impressed with themselves that they had no interest in finishing the job, which meant seeing it through to completion. Both the House and the Senate budgets passed basically on straight party line votes, with a couple of interesting twists (for instance, libertarian-leaning GOP members of Congress such as Reps. Amash and Massie voted against their party's budget because it spent too much for their tastes; in the Senate, four Democrats and all Republicans voted against that chamber's plan). President Obama was two months late with his document and it was widely dissed by liberals and conservatives alike for a wide-ranging variety of reasons.

And then...nothing happened. There is no question that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are sad sacks who command little respect and less loyalty. Like the Jim Wrights and Tom Daschles of congressional history, they will be even more forgotten in the future than they are today.

But Barack Obama...he's a different beast, isn't he? He's fond of insisting that because Obamacare passed along strict party lines back in 2010, when the Democrats had majorities in the House and the Senate, that it's a done deal. Will of the people, that sort of thing. Even the Supreme Court upheld it. Suck it, Republicans. I won - get over it. His pique is understandable, even as I wish Obamacare had never been passed, much less upheld.

But Obamacare also helped spark a Republican resurgence in the 2010 midterms and the Democrats lost the House. They didn't lose in spite of your programs, Mr. President. They lost because of your first two years in office, when you signed on to Bush's TARP plan, expanded unpopular military actions, pushed a stimulus that failed by your own predicted measures of success, and forced through a health-care plan that people still don't like.

Then you compounded legislative issues by failing to kick the asses of sorry little functionaries like John Boehner and Harry Reid to pass budgets on a regular basis. At this point, you're one for five, batting .200 on budgets. If you had forced the budget process, most Americans would never have learned of the debt limit, whose increase you used to rail against so eloquently. It's hard, after all, for Congress not to pass increases to pay for spending it budgeted through the normal budget process.

Like a head-in-the-clouds grad-school layabout, you yourself were late on just about everything too, such as Obamacare deadlines and this year's budget plan. Think about it: You became unpopular enough that Americans were willing to vote back into partial power the same team that gave us the goddamn Bush years.

You lost total control of the federal government and thus the ability to not have to offer anything. Get over it. Figure out how to fix the impasse and spend way more money than the American people think the government should be spending.

After all, it's your name on the era.

Let Us Be Clear: Obama Deserves Chief Responsibility for Gov't Shutdown. - Reason.com

About Reason

Reason is the monthly print magazine of "free minds and free markets." It covers politics, culture, and ideas through a provocative mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews. Reason provides a refreshing alternative to right-wing and left-wing opinion magazines by making a principled case for liberty and individual choice in all areas of human activity.

Reason.com is updated daily with articles and columns on current developments in politics and culture. It also contains the full text of past issues of the print edition of Reason.

Reason and Reason.com are editorially independent publications of the Reason Foundation, a national, non-profit research and educational organization.

 

[Mojo2]

What 'facts' haven't been reported?

That the Dem's refused to negotiate with the one year delay of the ACA and that is why the government shut down.
Had the Dems done a back and forth negotiation, they could have made a deal for a 3 month delay and then would not have had this embarrassing web site problem.
Dem's said no deal and insisted on rolling it out and that is why the government was shut down.

That's retarded. They have no obligation to negotiate! There is no expectation for a majority party to negotiate a law that's already been passed. And there is no precedent for it.

Stop sounding like a complete political ninny, peach.

But Barack Obama...he's a different beast, isn't he? He's fond of insisting that because Obamacare passed along strict party lines back in 2010, when the Democrats had majorities in the House and the Senate, that it's a done deal. Will of the people, that sort of thing. Even the Supreme Court upheld it. Suck it, Republicans. I won - get over it. His pique is understandable, even as I wish Obamacare had never been passed, much less upheld.

But Obamacare also helped spark a Republican resurgence in the 2010 midterms and the Democrats lost the House. They didn't lose in spite of your programs, Mr. President. They lost because of your first two years in office, when you signed on to Bush's TARP plan, expanded unpopular military actions, pushed a stimulus that failed by your own predicted measures of success, and forced through a health-care plan that people still don't like.

Then you compounded legislative issues by failing to kick the asses of sorry little functionaries like John Boehner and Harry Reid to pass budgets on a regular basis. At this point, you're one for five, batting .200 on budgets. If you had forced the budget process, most Americans would never have learned of the debt limit, whose increase you used to rail against so eloquently. It's hard, after all, for Congress not to pass increases to pay for spending it budgeted through the normal budget process.

Like a head-in-the-clouds grad-school layabout, you yourself were late on just about everything too, such as Obamacare deadlines and this year's budget plan. Think about it: You became unpopular enough that Americans were willing to vote back into partial power the same team that gave us the goddamn Bush years.

Let Us Be Clear: Obama Deserves Chief Responsibility for Gov't Shutdown. - Reason.com

 

[Kosh]

I don't know about this Rockefeller shit, but we do need the Republican Party to weed out the morons. Birthers, DHS/Army/FEMA conspiracy nuts, hayseeds who unquestioningly parrot whatever line of manufactured bullshit is fed to them by hack partisan sites, etc.

I've said it many times; a conservative used to be the smartest person in the room. Nowadays, though, you can't help but wince when a self-identified right winger on the street level opens their mouth.

Another problem: We have the biggest cowards on the face of the Earth in the party leadership. They are too chickenshit to put ideas on the table. I am convinced they haven't a superior thought in a single one of their heads. They take the alarmist's way out and attack and doomsoothe the daylights out of their opponents, and this pathetic feint filters down to the Rube Chorus. They don't have the guts to propound any actual solutions and defend them.

Until the GOP finds its spine and its intellect again, we are going to be trapped in the same old stupid shit year after year after year. And the Republican primaries will be a parade of evils from which to choose. A real bag of dildos.

Spot on.

The Republican Party can be conservative and win, but there is so much batshit crazy, ie birfers, it scares off the moderates.

William Buckley would be horrified if he saw the party today.

Bullshit.
The GOP always had a fringe element. At one time it was the John Birchers. The media play up the fringes to create a certain impression. In the past how many people ever heard what the GOP chairman of Shinola Co. Illinois thought?
The Dems are equally burdened with fringes. But in their case the fringe nutcases run the party.

Spot on!

 

[Synthaholic]

That the Dem's refused to negotiate with the one year delay of the ACA and that is why the government shut down.
Had the Dems done a back and forth negotiation, they could have made a deal for a 3 month delay and then would not have had this embarrassing web site problem.
Dem's said no deal and insisted on rolling it out and that is why the government was shut down.

That's retarded. They have no obligation to negotiate! There is no expectation for a majority party to negotiate a law that's already been passed. And there is no precedent for it.

Stop sounding like a complete political ninny, peach.

But Barack Obama...he's a different beast, isn't he? He's fond of insisting that because Obamacare passed along strict party lines back in 2010, when the Democrats had majorities in the House and the Senate, that it's a done deal. Will of the people, that sort of thing. Even the Supreme Court upheld it. Suck it, Republicans. I won - get over it. His pique is understandable, even as I wish Obamacare had never been passed, much less upheld.

But Obamacare also helped spark a Republican resurgence in the 2010 midterms and the Democrats lost the House. They didn't lose in spite of your programs, Mr. President. They lost because of your first two years in office, when you signed on to Bush's TARP plan, expanded unpopular military actions, pushed a stimulus that failed by your own predicted measures of success, and forced through a health-care plan that people still don't like.

Then you compounded legislative issues by failing to kick the asses of sorry little functionaries like John Boehner and Harry Reid to pass budgets on a regular basis. At this point, you're one for five, batting .200 on budgets. If you had forced the budget process, most Americans would never have learned of the debt limit, whose increase you used to rail against so eloquently. It's hard, after all, for Congress not to pass increases to pay for spending it budgeted through the normal budget process.

Like a head-in-the-clouds grad-school layabout, you yourself were late on just about everything too, such as Obamacare deadlines and this year's budget plan. Think about it: You became unpopular enough that Americans were willing to vote back into partial power the same team that gave us the goddamn Bush years.

Let Us Be Clear: Obama Deserves Chief Responsibility for Gov't Shutdown. - Reason.com

Got any words of your own, dope?

 

[g5000]

I don't know about this Rockefeller shit, but we do need the Republican Party to weed out the morons. Birthers, DHS/Army/FEMA conspiracy nuts, hayseeds who unquestioningly parrot whatever line of manufactured bullshit is fed to them by hack partisan sites, etc.

I've said it many times; a conservative used to be the smartest person in the room. Nowadays, though, you can't help but wince when a self-identified right winger on the street level opens their mouth.

Another problem: We have the biggest cowards on the face of the Earth in the party leadership. They are too chickenshit to put ideas on the table. I am convinced they haven't a superior thought in a single one of their heads. They take the alarmist's way out and attack and doomsoothe the daylights out of their opponents, and this pathetic feint filters down to the Rube Chorus. They don't have the guts to propound any actual solutions and defend them.

Until the GOP finds its spine and its intellect again, we are going to be trapped in the same old stupid shit year after year after year. And the Republican primaries will be a parade of evils from which to choose. A real bag of dildos.

Spot on.

The Republican Party can be conservative and win, but there is so much batshit crazy, ie birfers, it scares off the moderates.

William Buckley would be horrified if he saw the party today.

He was horrified by the party before he died. He was too much of a gentleman to say it outright, but if you observed and knew him for as long as I did, it was clear he felt we were going off the rails with the Iraq War.

 

[g5000]

I don't know about this Rockefeller shit, but we do need the Republican Party to weed out the morons. Birthers, DHS/Army/FEMA conspiracy nuts, hayseeds who unquestioningly parrot whatever line of manufactured bullshit is fed to them by hack partisan sites, etc.

I've said it many times; a conservative used to be the smartest person in the room. Nowadays, though, you can't help but wince when a self-identified right winger on the street level opens their mouth.

Another problem: We have the biggest cowards on the face of the Earth in the party leadership. They are too chickenshit to put ideas on the table. I am convinced they haven't a superior thought in a single one of their heads. They take the alarmist's way out and attack and doomsoothe the daylights out of their opponents, and this pathetic feint filters down to the Rube Chorus. They don't have the guts to propound any actual solutions and defend them.

Until the GOP finds its spine and its intellect again, we are going to be trapped in the same old stupid shit year after year after year. And the Republican primaries will be a parade of evils from which to choose. A real bag of dildos.

Spot on.

The Republican Party can be conservative and win, but there is so much batshit crazy, ie birfers, it scares off the moderates.

William Buckley would be horrified if he saw the party today.

Bullshit.
The GOP always had a fringe element. At one time it was the John Birchers. The media play up the fringes to create a certain impression. In the past how many people ever heard what the GOP chairman of Shinola Co. Illinois thought?
The Dems are equally burdened with fringes. But in their case the fringe nutcases run the party.

Buckley excoriated the Birchers, just as he would the right wing nuts and cowards we are saddled with today.

 

[g5000]

Speaking of Buckley and Rockefeller and Birchers: Where Have You Gone, Bill Buckley?

The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

Buckley often took issue with liberal-minded members of his party, like Nelson A. Rockefeller, and he gave some quarter to opponents of civil rights legislation. But he placed great faith in the Republican establishment and its brand of mainstream conservatism, which he called the “politics of reality.”

The absence of a Buckley-esque gatekeeper today has allowed extreme, untested candidates to take center stage and then commit predictable gaffes and issue moon-bat pronouncements. Democrats have used those statements to tarnish the Republican Party as anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-gay, anti-immigrant extremists. Buckley’s conservative pragmatism has been lost, along with the presidency and seats in Congress.

Republicans must now identify those who can bring adult supervision back to the party.

Now THAT is spot on!


Now let's watch Koshbot claim Welch votes for liberal Democrats. BWA-HA-HA-HA!

 

[Synthaholic]

Spot on.

The Republican Party can be conservative and win, but there is so much batshit crazy, ie birfers, it scares off the moderates.

William Buckley would be horrified if he saw the party today.

Bullshit.
The GOP always had a fringe element. At one time it was the John Birchers. The media play up the fringes to create a certain impression. In the past how many people ever heard what the GOP chairman of Shinola Co. Illinois thought?
The Dems are equally burdened with fringes. But in their case the fringe nutcases run the party.

Buckley excoriated the Birchers, just as he would the right wing nuts and cowards we are saddled with today.

And he would be denounced by the teabaggers as not being a 'True Conservative™", which would be pretty damn funny.

 

[Kosh]

I see once agian the far left talking points are in play here and certainly not based on any facts.

 

[Synthaholic]

Speaking of Buckley and Rockefeller and Birchers: Where Have You Gone, Bill Buckley?

The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

Buckley often took issue with liberal-minded members of his party, like Nelson A. Rockefeller, and he gave some quarter to opponents of civil rights legislation. But he placed great faith in the Republican establishment and its brand of mainstream conservatism, which he called the “politics of reality.”

The absence of a Buckley-esque gatekeeper today has allowed extreme, untested candidates to take center stage and then commit predictable gaffes and issue moon-bat pronouncements. Democrats have used those statements to tarnish the Republican Party as anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-gay, anti-immigrant extremists. Buckley’s conservative pragmatism has been lost, along with the presidency and seats in Congress.

Republicans must now identify those who can bring adult supervision back to the party.

Now THAT is spot on!


Now let's watch Koshbot claim Welch votes for liberal Democrats. BWA-HA-HA-HA!

I think it's wishful thinking. These teabaggers wouldn't listen to Buckley. Hell, if the Neo-Cons weren't going to listen to Goldwater, Buckley would certainly be marginalized.

The Right-Wing extreme fringe has their own 'intellect' to rally around - Charles Krauthammer.

 

[g5000]

I see once agian the far left talking points are in play here and certainly not based on any facts.

Welch worked for the RNC, moron!

You just keep stepping in your own shit.

 

[The Rabbi]

I see once agian the far left talking points are in play here and certainly not based on any facts.

Welch worked for the RNC, moron!

You just keep stepping in your own shit.

Gee, so did Lincoln Chafee. And who gives a shit?

 

[HelenaHandbag]

Speaking of Buckley and Rockefeller and Birchers: Where Have You Gone, Bill Buckley?

The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

Buckley often took issue with liberal-minded members of his party, like Nelson A. Rockefeller, and he gave some quarter to opponents of civil rights legislation. But he placed great faith in the Republican establishment and its brand of mainstream conservatism, which he called the “politics of reality.”

The absence of a Buckley-esque gatekeeper today has allowed extreme, untested candidates to take center stage and then commit predictable gaffes and issue moon-bat pronouncements. Democrats have used those statements to tarnish the Republican Party as anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-gay, anti-immigrant extremists. Buckley’s conservative pragmatism has been lost, along with the presidency and seats in Congress.

Republicans must now identify those who can bring adult supervision back to the party.

Now THAT is spot on!


Now let's watch Koshbot claim Welch votes for liberal Democrats. BWA-HA-HA-HA!

All that shows me is Welch knows that his bread is buttered by the establishment.

BTW, Democrat demagogues have trashed the the Republican Party, and anyone else who opposes them, as anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-gay, anti-immigrant extremists when Buckley was alive. What else is new?