Take our country back! How?

[san clemente]

I'm posing the question that has already been addressed which is... What does the GOP do to win back the people?

I was watching O'Reilly tonight and he hit on something that I was thinking about earlier today. He said that the GOP needs to stop being the party of "no" and instead start engaging into why they have their stance on certain issues.

Earlier today, I was reading a thread here about global warming and I think it was Peace who said that he was all for a litter free world to which TL replied that we all want that. The fact that Peace felt the need to say it is where I believe the GOP's problem lies. Instead of saying that we love clean mountain/beaches/deserts we instead make a mockery of the hole global warming issue. It's pretty easy for the left (who with the MSM on their side) to point to the right and say "see? Look at them over there. They think nothing of the environment." That to me is a problem.

I also think that some of these guys have got to go. Right or wrong, Carl Rove is stuck with the black hat and there is not much that can be done at this point to change that. Stop having him on O'Reilly and the other shows to give his opinion. Seriously, he may be nothing more than a victim in all of this, but public perception is everything. He only hurts the party when he talks. Nobody from the Bush administration should be out there talking about GOP image. Get the fresh thinkers in there and let them have their say.

When the new blood is out there make sure that they are ready for prime time. Bobby Jindal practically killed his own future presidential run with his recent butchered speeches. For the love of God people be prepared!

Those are a couple of thoughts that I have on an issue that I think is really important to our country. We can't be a one party system yet that's where we are today. Or at least almost there. We are on an express train headed left and the only way to slow it down is to make the people aware that the right also cares for this country and want what's best for it.

Again, right or wrong the GOP has a big image problem and it needs to be repaired. I hope that it happens soon.

I'm really exhausted lately, I hope that I made some sense with my rant.

[GodAndParty]

. He said that the GOP needs to stop being the party of "no"

The law says 'no'
rules say 'no'
a good teacher says 'no'

'no' is what keeps us away from anarchy, wild spending, and acting like a bunch of animals


Instead of saying that we love clean mountain/beaches/deserts we instead make a mockery of the hole global warming issue. It's pretty easy for the left (who with the MSM on their side) to point to the right and say "see? Look at them over there. They think nothing of the environment." That to me is a problem.
global warming is a hoax al gore uses to make money


the GOP doesn't have to do anything. the democrats will drive them back to nus if they keep up their shenanigans

[san clemente]

The law says 'no'
rules say 'no'
a good teacher says 'no'

'no' is what keeps us away from anarchy, wild spending, and acting like a bunch of animals


global warming is a hoax al gore uses to make money


the GOP doesn't have to do anything. the democrats will drive them back to nus if they keep up their shenanigansYou are right. We should just wait. Never mind the fact that the dems have gained in power.

I wasn't implying we should get on the global warming train, you didn't get my point.

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

GAP, the fact is that the dems have successfully painted conservatives as evil,elitist, anti-environment, bigotted, racist, homophobic,ignorant, stupid, oil puzzling assholes.

SC wants to know how to effectively combat that stereo type.

Obviously the left has blurred the line between lawful and reasoned positions, and knee jerk reactionism when comes to understanding what conservatism is.
As such more of the boob tube generation buy into this bullshit definition and it makes it more necessary to pro actively combat that stereotype.

So how does one go about that...that's all she's asking.

[Tragician]

G&P has a good point about our global climate change stance. But believing the GOP doesn't need to do anything is simply fantasy. The GOP had better get a solid platform established.

San Clemente, I agree with your points here. The GOP has lost the masses. The MSM directed by the dems has done a spectacular job of crushing the public image of the GOP, while pushing the Democrat brand (and the general public doesn't seem to understand this is a problem). In fact, the hardcore leftists in the party have been planning since 2000 on how to regain total control of the government in order to change it into an American society they can love. They've done a brilliant job of playing chess instead of traditional back & forth politics as usual. They literally have looked at each issue very carefully. They have then projected what the conservative response would be. Then, they have gone back to craft their positions and announcements to make the GOP look ridiculous to any uneducated voter (which we must admit is a near crisis). Then, when they say something, the GOP never disappoints to give the pat, (apparently fascist) response, and is then crucified and made to look stupid, shortsighted, bigoted, whatever. Having the MSM and virtually any Hollywood idiot to back them up has helped immensely. The GOP has allowed this to happen by not criticizing and responding to attacks appropriately. Take the moral high ground and you will be crushed... I guess. In general, the people do not realize they are being duped because they would rather be in with the COOL crowd than take any time to study economics or history.

In my opinion, the GOP needs to be razed and begin anew. Not completely of course, but we need to rethink our core issues if we are to survive. I understand many, if not most conservatives adamantly disagree. To you, I say; I hope you had fun, because the GOP will not survive without a significant overhaul.

We need to concentrate on getting the message out to the masses that the democrats are dishonest, hypocritical, and will stop at nothing to gain power. This is not to say republicans are fundamentally any different. The republicans however, should never resort to trickery, lies and hyperbole which have been integral traits with the liberal left since its inception. These messages must be short, to the point, and truthful. We need an advertising guru to pull this off, and an almost limitless supply of funding, of course.

The GOP could simply laugh off the ridiculous arguments of the left quite easily. Don't back down, just laugh. When confronted with key issues like say - gay marriage - take a different approach. Admit that as a conservative, you do not believe in gay marriage. But then come back and say, "This is an issue for states to decide. The GOP believes in the people making those types of decisions for themselves." The majority of people still believe gay marriage should not be legal, true. BUT, let them vote it out, state by state. You cannot argue the issue coherently with ANY liberal because they do not adhere to the same set of values that you do. So, take any argument out of it. In other words, we will not survive by mandating our values on the MTV generation. They will not have it, and we are going to have to give up something or we will perish. The left has successfully led many young people to believe that conservatives are stupid, want to take their liberty away, are stuffy and un-cool, etc., etc. I know you all know what I'm talking about. It's a huge problem that must be overcome.

This doesn't mean we have to abandon our beliefs or value systems, we just have to get over ourselves and find a way to get the citizenry to understand that our basic tenants are the same as they've always been: Freedom, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. All else is flotsam.

This is just a simple example and I don't know what the ultimate solution will be. But San Clemente has hit on the most important issue for the party. Right now, we need to concentrate on survival. Then, we need to understand what it will take for the party to flourish.

I'm just sayin'...

I would like to hear what others have to say on this topic.

[scarymary]

It is not just the left who has blurred the line between lawful and reasoned positions. It is the right as well. That was the very reason I couldn't bring myself to vote for McCain in the presidential election. We no longer have an effective two party system.

[san clemente]

Obama very successfully ran a campaign on the words hope and change. The GOP ought to run a campaign on word freedom. Freedom to let one make his/her own decisions for success or failure. Freedom from big government. They of course would have to follow through with that promise (Unless I've been duped, our government got quite a bit bigger during Bush). Let the voter know that they will be treated as adults, not like children sitting in a highchair waiting to be spoon fed. Show the voter that they trust them. Remind the voters that the dem side feels that they are not strong enough to take care of themselves. That the dems feel that they need to pull the strings of the people and what gets lost in doing so. Freedom.

And we need a fresh face to be able to convey that message. It can't be Romney, Guiliani, McCain or any of the others from the last campaign.

[scarymary]

You don't think Romney would be a good contender? He made a good showing against McCain in the primaries until Huckabee and McCain made that little back room deal in the South Carolina primaries.

[san clemente]

Personally Mary, I think that if ANY of the past candidates were to run, they would just look like the same old retreads. I know that if I'm on the dem side, that I would paint that picture as brightly as possible.

I sincerely hope that the powers that be within the GOP are able to check their own egos at the door and right the ship. And as I said before, right or wrong, the GOP is suffering from a major image problem that desperately needs to be repaired.

[Bumblebee]

I like Romney, I voted for him in the primary. I think he might look really good if he were to run again against Obama. It all depends on what's going on at that time.

[earthtoned]

i realize that david brooks is a persona non grata in the gop more recently, but he did write an interesting article yesterday that spoke to this issue in a way i haven't heard anyone do recently.

the problem with the "push freedom first" conclusion, SC, is that it does not sufficiently answer the questions that so many americans have right now. if people are wondering how our economy collapsed and how to keep it from happening again, how does expanding personal freedoms adress this?

is it not true that unbridled personal freedoms are in part to blame for our current situation? banks have been free to make unwise loans to people who had no realistic ability to pay them back. speculators have been free to vastly overextend themselves, hyperinflating housing values and priming them for financial failure that ultimately gets paid for by our tax dollars. for those saying "we should have let them fail, they took the risk, they should pay the price", thats fine and dandy from a moral hazard perspective until any rational economist explains to you the disastrous consequences that were averted by propping up the banks when they teetered on the edge of financial armageddon. anyone under the impression that doing nothing would have allowed the "free market" to self-correct would have been shocked by the inevitable collapse of the entire banking industry...which would have resulted in a great depression of the likes we haven't seen in our lifetime.

the point being, unlimited personal freedoms have consequences for the rest of society whether we like it or not. when some 25 year old kid without health insurance decides to drive a motorcycle without a helmet on, it is all of us who pay for their recovery in the form of increased insurance premiums when they can't foot the bill after they take a tumble and end up in a coma. most people agree that it is reasonable for the government to impose on the personal freedom of a motorcyclist to wear a helmet specifically to avoid saddling society with the costs of an individual's personal freedom to take risks.

but rather than ramble on, i will post the wisdom of mr. brooks, a man far more thoughtful and articulate than I:


May 5, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Long Voyage Home
By DAVID BROOKS

Republicans generally like Westerns. They generally admire John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave. They like leaders — from Goldwater to Reagan to Bush to Palin — who play up their Western heritage. Republicans like the way Westerns seem to celebrate their core themes — freedom, individualism, opportunity and moral clarity.

But the greatest of all Western directors, John Ford, actually used Westerns to tell a different story. Ford’s movies didn’t really celebrate the rugged individual. They celebrated civic order.

For example, in Ford’s 1946 movie, “My Darling Clementine,” Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp, the marshal who tamed Tombstone. But the movie isn’t really about the gunfight and the lone bravery of a heroic man. It’s about how decent people build a town. Much of the movie is about how the townsfolk put up a church, hire a teacher, enjoy Shakespeare, get a surgeon and work to improve their manners.

The movie, in other words, is really about religion, education, science, culture, etiquette and rule of law — the pillars of community. In Ford’s movie, as in real life, the story of Western settlement is the story of community-building. Instead of celebrating untrammeled freedom and the lone pioneer, Ford’s movies dwell affectionately on the social customs that Americans cherish — the gatherings at the local barbershop and the church social, the gossip with the cop and the bartender and the hotel clerk.

Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order.

They would begin every day by reminding themselves of the concrete ways people build orderly neighborhoods, and how those neighborhoods bind a nation. They would ask: What threatens Americans’ efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids? The answers would produce an agenda: the disruption caused by a boom and bust economy; the fragility of the American family; the explosion of public and private debt; the wild swings in energy costs; the fraying of the health care system; the segmentation of society and the way the ladders of social mobility seem to be dissolving.

But the Republican Party has mis-learned that history. The party sometimes seems cut off from the concrete relationships of neighborhood life. Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days that they are no longer the party of community and order. This puts them out of touch with the young, who are exceptionally community-oriented. It gives them nothing to say to the lower middle class, who fear that capitalism has gone haywire. It gives them little to say to the upper middle class, who are interested in the environment and other common concerns.

The Republicans talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life. They celebrate capitalism, which is a means, and are inarticulate about the good life, which is the end. They take things like tax cuts, which are tactics that are good in some circumstances, and elevate them to holy principle, to be pursued in all circumstances.

The emphasis on freedom and individual choice may work in the sparsely populated parts of the country. People there naturally want to do whatever they want on their own land. But it doesn’t work in the densely populated parts of the country: the cities and suburbs where Republicans are getting slaughtered. People in these areas understand that their lives are profoundly influenced by other people’s individual choices. People there are used to worrying about the health of the communal order.

In these places, Democrats have been able to establish themselves as the safe and orderly party. President Obama has made responsibility his core theme and has emerged as a calm, reassuring presence (even as he runs up the debt and intervenes rashly in sector after sector).

If the Republicans are going to rebound, they will have to re-establish themselves as the party of civic order. First, they will have to stylistically decontaminate their brand. That means they will have to find a leader who is calm, prudent, reassuring and reasonable.

Then they will have to explain that there are two theories of civic order. There is the liberal theory, in which teams of experts draw up plans to engineer order wherever problems arise. And there is the more conservative vision in which government sets certain rules, but mostly empowers the complex web of institutions in which the market is embedded.

Both of these visions are now contained within the Democratic Party. The Republicans know they need to change but seem almost imprisoned by old themes that no longer resonate. The answer is to be found in devotion to community and order, and in the bonds that built the nation.

this last bit i bolded described a conservative party i would be comfortable supporting over the far more interventionist liberal philosophy, but is not a policy being strongly proposed by any conservative leaders other than newt gingrich

[FireDog]

The very first thing the GOP needs to do is to stop letting the left define them. I'm not afraid of "The Party of NO."
No to bigger Government.
No to higher taxes.
No to less freedom.
No to union control.
No to Government run health care.
No to the welfare state.
No to the mommy state.
No to international law at the expense of our Constitution.
No to a collective state. ( It doesn't take a village, it takes individuals)

[FireDog]

is it not true that unbridled personal freedoms are in part to blame for our current situation? banks have been free to make unwise loans to people who had no realistic ability to pay them back. speculators have been free to vastly overextend themselves, hyperinflating housing values and priming them for financial failure that ultimately gets paid for by our tax dollars

That is so far from what happened!
During the Clinton Administration Congress passed and Clinton signed the "Community Reinvestment Act" that mandated banks give loans to people that could not afford them. (It is illogical that banks wanted to lend money to people that cant pay them back.) Then the goal was about 30% of loans to poor inner-city people. Then along came Andrew Cuomo who raised the goal to 45%, but don't worry Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy the bad loans and you'll be fine. Then ACORN pressured banks too by blocking drive-thrus and marching around banks to eliminate credit checks and income requirements. Barny Frank & Chris Dodd were also up-to-their-ears in this too. The Bush Administration saw the problem and tried to get the then Democrat controlled Congress to pass some regulation to fix the problem but Frank, of the Banking Committee said, "No Way!"
That's a down & dirty quick history of what happened.

[GodAndParty]

We no longer have an effective two party system.

That's not the problem. The only problem is that the wrong party won the anti-american party

[Aurelius]

It's perfectly fine to say no occasionally, but you have to explain your reasoning and then offer a well thought out counter idea. Sometimes you'll just have to accept the inevitable as public opinion moves forward. Liberals are always the ones who push society, but the temperance of conservatives is a needed force. The main problem is that Republicans have lost all of this. There are no reasonable ideas put forward and instead of compromise you have stonewall opposition even on popular legislation.

[san clemente]

The very first thing the GOP needs to do is to stop letting the left define them. I'm not afraid of "The Party of NO."
No to bigger Government.
No to higher taxes.
No to less freedom.
No to union control.
No to Government run health care.
No to the welfare state.
No to the mommy state.
No to international law at the expense of our Constitution.
No to a collective state. ( It doesn't take a village, it takes individuals)Do it that way and we can add another 4 years for Obama. I get your point, but it has to be a no with some sort of explanation as to why the answer is no. It obviously has not worked just saying no. And if there was any kind of follow up to the answer, it wasn't communicated well enough.

[GodAndParty]

It's perfectly fine to say no occasionally, but you have to explain your reasoning and then offer a well thought out counter idea.

No, we don't. The Dems can come up with a better plan or just keep things as they were- everything was going fine. That's why why want ti conserve it


instead of compromise you have stonewall opposition even on popular legislation.

because they're wrong

[san clemente]

No, we don't. The Dems can come up with a better plan or just keep things as they were- everything was going fine. That's why why want ti conserve it



because they're wrongReally? you think things were going fine? How so?

[GodAndParty]

Really? you think things were going fine? How so?

They were before the 'progressives' came along. It's just good the GOP abandoned progressivism and took up the banner of conservatism. Who knows where we'd be if there weren't Republicans to oppose change. Now the libs want to complain and cry about "civil rights", "workers' rights", 'women's rights"- everyone has "rights" except good, honest, hard-working, church-going, White Americans, nowadays

[scarymary]

That is so far from what happened!
During the Clinton Administration Congress passed and Clinton signed the "Community Reinvestment Act" that mandated banks give loans to people that could not afford them. (It is illogical that banks wanted to lend money to people that cant pay them back.) Then the goal was about 30% of loans to poor inner-city people. Then along came Andrew Cuomo who raised the goal to 45%, but don't worry Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy the bad loans and you'll be fine. Then ACORN pressured banks too by blocking drive-thrus and marching around banks to eliminate credit checks and income requirements. Barny Frank & Chris Dodd were also up-to-their-ears in this too. The Bush Administration saw the problem and tried to get the then Democrat controlled Congress to pass some regulation to fix the problem but Frank, of the Banking Committee said, "No Way!"
That's a down & dirty quick history of what happened.

Glad you stepped in with that FireDog. My blood was beginning to boil. I, like you, have never known a bank to loan money to someone who had no potential of paying it back. Maybe the big banks who got TARP funds from the bailouts resorted to doing that before the onset of the financial crisis, but small, local community banks would never do something like that. That is the most disingenuous papered over story I have ever heard.

[scarymary]

Then they will have to explain that there are two theories of civic order. There is the liberal theory, in which teams of experts draw up plans to engineer order wherever problems arise. And there is the more conservative vision in which government sets certain rules, but mostly empowers the complex web of institutions in which the market is embedded.

This statement is such horseshit, I can't even begin to explain. If there is a complex web of institutions in which the market is embedded, it is the government who helped to create those institutions with little to no oversight or regulations. Our government is most responsible for the financial crisis, and now they are taking over businesses by the droves, handing them over to the Obama supporters. Nice work, there Mr. Brooks.

[Topiary Lady]

That's not the problem. The only problem is that the wrong party won the anti-american party

What party exactly should have/could have, won? Do tell.

And please do let us know who exactly it was that you went to the polls and voted for (assuming that your were home from your trip to Morocco at the time).

Thanks.

[Dr. Madd]

I dunno. After today, I no longer have any faith in rule of law, no hope for anything resembling Justice in America and I wonder if any country capable of putting tyrants into places of authority is worth saving.

[GodAndParty]

Morocco? Why would I go to Morocco?

[Tragician]

This is great! I was hoping to see lots of varying ideas and opinions. I'm new to the site so I didn't know quite what to expect... I'm not disappointed.

If you couldn't already tell, I'm in the... "we need to get our sh#t together quick" camp.

The moment I became convinced this was going to be a monumentous challenge was when the GOP squandered its last possible claim to a higher purpose. They had the chance to pull every single earmark out of the budget bill and allow the dems to look like the fools they are. But, they chose pork over promise... Imagine the high ground we could have occupied if they had just said "no".

So from this point we must begin.