A politically Independent friend from NH wrote me concerning her worries about the Democrats having "full control" of the U.S. government. I'm increasingly dissatisfied with people who call themselves "Independents." In a practical sense, they're little more than "enablers" for the far-left element -- the main one -- of the Democratic Party.
The sad thing, Kathy, is that the American people in general -- and New Hampshire in particular -- voted for full Democratic control of the White House, U.S. House, Senate, and judiciary. It won't be America.
NH's "Live free or die" slogan becomes "Hey, let's party!" If the Rev. Wright, Tony Reszko, and Bill Ayers didn't do in Obama, what will?
The age thing (I should talk!) is beginning to bother me greatly. McCain would be 74 in the 2010 election and 80 at the end of his term. Because of his POW experience and his health problems (cancer) John started to look increasingly weak and even confused as the campaign wore on.
I believe he should retire with some of his dignity still intact. Sarah seemed much stronger/tougher than her running mate. Apparently, he resented that fact.
In all sincerity, I found myself asking, "Why is John running for president?" I didn't like the answers that kept coming up.
His treatment of Sarah was/'is unmanly. He should be ashamed of himself, but I wonder if the man in his Washington life has ever felt shame?
Where is the courage and decency always associated with the name John McCain? I am seeing in his maltreatment of Sarah a lot of envy and animus. It isn't Sarah's fault her father and grandfather weren't admirals and she didn't get a free ride to the Naval Academy. It isn't her fault she didn't marry a fabulously wealthy person. To me, the John McCain of 2000 never reappeared in 2008.
Specter will be 80, going on 81 by the 2010 election and nearly 87 at the end of his term -- if the cancer doesn't recur. Robert Byrd goes around in adult diapers, drooling and crying, but hey, what a grand old man. Biden, a chronic liar and windbag, was elected to his sixth term. Teddy Kennedy, aged and riddled with brain cancer, still occasionally wanders around the Senate floor.
Citizen legislators? Yeah, sure, right.
The traditional New Hampshire Independents, and there's more than a boatload, may be a dying breed.
A lot of people who claim to be Independents are really waiting to cast their vote for the highest bidder which, surprise, always turns out to be the Democrat (barely outbidding the "moderate" Republican).
You may get a chance to see the last Republican ever elected to the Senate from NH -- Judd Gregg, a fine man, if he runs and if he wins.
Showing posts with label Arlen Specter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arlen Specter. Show all posts
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Palin-Obama and Toomey-Specter
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over-and-over . . . and expecting a different result."
I've been a conservative activist since the Goldwater days. But many of my fellow conservatives who are asking us to appeal to the "base" are wildly exaggerating the size of said base. (In the 2008 election, 23% of those voters identifying themselves as "conservative" cast their ballots for . . . Barack Obama.) There may be 10 million very confused "conservatives" out there. People in denial almost always do not win elections.
Right now in my home state of Pennsylvania, the big question is whether conservative Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey can beat "moderate" (i.e., liberal) Democrat Arlen Specter in the November 10, 2010 election.
Frankly, most careful observers wouldn't bet even their coffee money on Toomey. Consider: Incumbent Republican -- and uber-conservative -- Rick Santorum spent $26 million in 2006 - and got just over 40% of the vote. Pennsylvania is a Blue state, and it has been getting bluer.
Is there any way Toomey can win? One very thoughtful Republican analyst, Mike Avery, of the Lehigh Valley, thinks there is, and he has many suggestions (see below) for Toomey. Will Pat be wise enough to follow them?
I don't know. What I do know is that Pat is a "coat-tie-and-wing-tips" Republican in a "jeans-tee shirts-and-Reeboks" state. If he focuses laser-like on the base and peddles nothing more than the GOP's version of "old-time religion," he will get about as many votes as . . . Rick Santorum.
Mike Avery believes it doesn't have to be that way. His approach is part of the answer for Toomey, and it should work for other Republican candidates, including my particular favorite, Gov. Sarah Palin.
When the McCain Campaign decided to pull out of Michigan last October, Sarah Palin opposed the decision. She said she and Todd wanted to go into the auto plants and seek votes from the autoworkers. Frankly, she regarded them as "her people" -- something very unsual (but necessary) for a Republican candidate.
McCain thought he could win in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania with the GOP base. That proved to be a fantasy.
The rest is from Mike . . .
If the events of today, April 29, [with Specter becoming a Democrat], don't mobilize Republicans, we might as well as give the keys to the Republican party to the Democrats and get ready to become "subjects" for the rest of our lives.
James Carville has a new book entitled "40 More Years"; the premise is this: Republicans have been so stupid that the Democrats are going to be in power for the next 40 years. Do you "resemble" that remark by Carville, or do you resent it? Speak up!
Let's review today's events: Arlen Specter has become a Democrat. That's a good thing, because now we can beat him twice.
But not the way we are going. GM & Chrysler are now owned by the government and the UAW. This is the beginning of the end of our country unless we start now to fight back.
Attention Pat Toomey: Do you know that truck drivers are Republicans? When have Republican candidates ever made a trip to a truck stop in their "straight talk express" motor-homes? Never, is the answer. Another question: When have Republican candidates ever made a trip to Sturgis, SD, for biker week? Never is the answer. Did you know that bikers are Republicans? You have never thought about it, have you?
So I ask you, Pat Toomey, do you want to win the Senate seat now held by Arlen Specter? If you do, we can help that happen. Put on some jeans and sneakers, and wear a "Pat Toomey for Senate" T-shirt, get into your motor home and start going to truck stops, biker events, into the inner cities and to the outer cities, go to the Wal-Mart parking lots and to the shopping malls, to the church parking lots after services, and anywhere else "street-level" Americans live & congregate.
Right now, we are seeing a Republican Party being led by the same people doing the same thing over & over again expecting a different result each time. It's not going to happen, unless we begin to take in new people with new ideas and then implement them. Think of it this way, the Democrats are just jumping for joy seeing the same old people trying to lead the Republican party... they know it's a win-win for them. And a loss-loss for us.
So, we have nothing to lose by inviting a better class of losers [campaign advisers and activists] to give it a try for us... hey, they might even help us win.Pat, are you going to help change things? Or are you going to be satisfied with losing?
Self-serving [and self-deluding] we lose. Together we can win. -- Mike Avery
Steve adds: How much of Mike's piece do I agree with? Every word. Let's no recapitulate the failures of Rick Santorum. Instead, let's be brutally honest, figure out what's absolutely necessary to prevail . . . and then act like winners.
I've been a conservative activist since the Goldwater days. But many of my fellow conservatives who are asking us to appeal to the "base" are wildly exaggerating the size of said base. (In the 2008 election, 23% of those voters identifying themselves as "conservative" cast their ballots for . . . Barack Obama.) There may be 10 million very confused "conservatives" out there. People in denial almost always do not win elections.
Right now in my home state of Pennsylvania, the big question is whether conservative Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey can beat "moderate" (i.e., liberal) Democrat Arlen Specter in the November 10, 2010 election.
Frankly, most careful observers wouldn't bet even their coffee money on Toomey. Consider: Incumbent Republican -- and uber-conservative -- Rick Santorum spent $26 million in 2006 - and got just over 40% of the vote. Pennsylvania is a Blue state, and it has been getting bluer.
Is there any way Toomey can win? One very thoughtful Republican analyst, Mike Avery, of the Lehigh Valley, thinks there is, and he has many suggestions (see below) for Toomey. Will Pat be wise enough to follow them?
I don't know. What I do know is that Pat is a "coat-tie-and-wing-tips" Republican in a "jeans-tee shirts-and-Reeboks" state. If he focuses laser-like on the base and peddles nothing more than the GOP's version of "old-time religion," he will get about as many votes as . . . Rick Santorum.
Mike Avery believes it doesn't have to be that way. His approach is part of the answer for Toomey, and it should work for other Republican candidates, including my particular favorite, Gov. Sarah Palin.
When the McCain Campaign decided to pull out of Michigan last October, Sarah Palin opposed the decision. She said she and Todd wanted to go into the auto plants and seek votes from the autoworkers. Frankly, she regarded them as "her people" -- something very unsual (but necessary) for a Republican candidate.
McCain thought he could win in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania with the GOP base. That proved to be a fantasy.
The rest is from Mike . . .
If the events of today, April 29, [with Specter becoming a Democrat], don't mobilize Republicans, we might as well as give the keys to the Republican party to the Democrats and get ready to become "subjects" for the rest of our lives.
James Carville has a new book entitled "40 More Years"; the premise is this: Republicans have been so stupid that the Democrats are going to be in power for the next 40 years. Do you "resemble" that remark by Carville, or do you resent it? Speak up!
Let's review today's events: Arlen Specter has become a Democrat. That's a good thing, because now we can beat him twice.
But not the way we are going. GM & Chrysler are now owned by the government and the UAW. This is the beginning of the end of our country unless we start now to fight back.
Attention Pat Toomey: Do you know that truck drivers are Republicans? When have Republican candidates ever made a trip to a truck stop in their "straight talk express" motor-homes? Never, is the answer. Another question: When have Republican candidates ever made a trip to Sturgis, SD, for biker week? Never is the answer. Did you know that bikers are Republicans? You have never thought about it, have you?
So I ask you, Pat Toomey, do you want to win the Senate seat now held by Arlen Specter? If you do, we can help that happen. Put on some jeans and sneakers, and wear a "Pat Toomey for Senate" T-shirt, get into your motor home and start going to truck stops, biker events, into the inner cities and to the outer cities, go to the Wal-Mart parking lots and to the shopping malls, to the church parking lots after services, and anywhere else "street-level" Americans live & congregate.
Right now, we are seeing a Republican Party being led by the same people doing the same thing over & over again expecting a different result each time. It's not going to happen, unless we begin to take in new people with new ideas and then implement them. Think of it this way, the Democrats are just jumping for joy seeing the same old people trying to lead the Republican party... they know it's a win-win for them. And a loss-loss for us.
So, we have nothing to lose by inviting a better class of losers [campaign advisers and activists] to give it a try for us... hey, they might even help us win.Pat, are you going to help change things? Or are you going to be satisfied with losing?
Self-serving [and self-deluding] we lose. Together we can win. -- Mike Avery
Steve adds: How much of Mike's piece do I agree with? Every word. Let's no recapitulate the failures of Rick Santorum. Instead, let's be brutally honest, figure out what's absolutely necessary to prevail . . . and then act like winners.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Defeat Obama, Don't Blow Smoke
My fellow conservatives, I am going to ask (beg?) people to focus on issues that are winnable -- and to ignore issues, no matter how much emotion they generate, that are not. We need to reject the concept of "moral victories," which are a synonym for losses.
The Stimulus was (past tense is correct) potentially winnable if we could have gotten one or two more Republicans. We didn't. Why did we fail in persuading Senators Snow, Specter, and Collins to side with us? If we regard those three individuals as somehow beneath contempt, why did we bother to try to affect how they voted? If we don't ask ourselves hard questions, we'll eventually end up in the political version of the Land of Oz.
I want to plead with people to concentrate on communicating with their own Senators (2 of them) and their own Representative (1 of them). If I send a fax to a Senator in Wyoming or Rhode Island or to Barbara Boxer or Diane Feinstein, it will get ignored. Senators in CA could care less what people in PA or NJ or TX think about them. No one in Congress is going to spend 24 hours a day actually reading e-mails. My own guess is that the "delete" button works overtime.
Also, if I send a communication that expresses extreme hostility to a Senator (say, Specter) it will get discarded by a staffer. Do we want to blow off steam, or do we want to have some real influence on people who make public policy decisions? We don't want some junior staffer to look at our e-mail and say, "Here's another one from a right-wing nutcase."
We don't have a moment of time, a dollar of money, or an ounce of energy that we can afford to waste. Even more important than "fighting the Stimulus" is growing our numbers. If we don't do that, we will never win anything.
It bothers me greatly that some "conservatives" (and this does NOT include you any effective members of our group) are making a great deal of money out of the mailings and out of issues that we have zero practical chance of winning. People who are charging $50 for a relative handful of faxes are never going to go hungry.
I am deeply suspicious of "birth-certificate" people like Phil Berg and Alan Keyes, both of whom are full-time self-promoters. (I do realize that many people are supporting them in good faith, but it has become the world's worst cause.)
The most important issue coming up now is the attempt to restore the fairness doctrine and suppress conservative talk radio (and TV?). Which Senators and Representatives can we reasonably expect to influence? And which ones are lost causes? Of most importance, how can we get to join us in reaching out to fair-minded legislators?
After today, the Stimulus issue apparently is a loss for our side. What can we do better the next time?
The Stimulus was (past tense is correct) potentially winnable if we could have gotten one or two more Republicans. We didn't. Why did we fail in persuading Senators Snow, Specter, and Collins to side with us? If we regard those three individuals as somehow beneath contempt, why did we bother to try to affect how they voted? If we don't ask ourselves hard questions, we'll eventually end up in the political version of the Land of Oz.
I want to plead with people to concentrate on communicating with their own Senators (2 of them) and their own Representative (1 of them). If I send a fax to a Senator in Wyoming or Rhode Island or to Barbara Boxer or Diane Feinstein, it will get ignored. Senators in CA could care less what people in PA or NJ or TX think about them. No one in Congress is going to spend 24 hours a day actually reading e-mails. My own guess is that the "delete" button works overtime.
Also, if I send a communication that expresses extreme hostility to a Senator (say, Specter) it will get discarded by a staffer. Do we want to blow off steam, or do we want to have some real influence on people who make public policy decisions? We don't want some junior staffer to look at our e-mail and say, "Here's another one from a right-wing nutcase."
We don't have a moment of time, a dollar of money, or an ounce of energy that we can afford to waste. Even more important than "fighting the Stimulus" is growing our numbers. If we don't do that, we will never win anything.
It bothers me greatly that some "conservatives" (and this does NOT include you any effective members of our group) are making a great deal of money out of the mailings and out of issues that we have zero practical chance of winning. People who are charging $50 for a relative handful of faxes are never going to go hungry.
I am deeply suspicious of "birth-certificate" people like Phil Berg and Alan Keyes, both of whom are full-time self-promoters. (I do realize that many people are supporting them in good faith, but it has become the world's worst cause.)
The most important issue coming up now is the attempt to restore the fairness doctrine and suppress conservative talk radio (and TV?). Which Senators and Representatives can we reasonably expect to influence? And which ones are lost causes? Of most importance, how can we get to join us in reaching out to fair-minded legislators?
After today, the Stimulus issue apparently is a loss for our side. What can we do better the next time?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
