Posts Tagged → GOP
Schwarzenegger could defect to Dems
In the latest interview with the controversial “Republican” California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that if Barack Obama is elected to the White House, he would be open to serving in an Obama Administration as the “energy czar.” If Schwarzenegger is supposed to be a Republican, shouldn’t that be an offer he’s making to fellow RINO John McCain?
Despite all the digital signage declaring Ahh-nold a member of the GOP, it’s becoming more and more clear that his loyalties are liberal, not conservative.
While I’m not at the point of urging a recall on The Governator, I do think the California GOP needs to seriously consider backing a different candidate for the office next time around. There needs to be consequences for being a disloyal Republican.
Palin for Veep?
While Hillary may have dashed the hopes of liberal women for a female in the White House, the GOP still has a legitimate – if somewhat longshot – contender to be John McCain’s running mate, a heartbeat away from the presidency if he wins in November.
Sarah Palin, the current GOP governor of Alaska, is hardly of the shrill, Hillary-like, progesterone-ingesting style of female politicians. For one, she is ardently pro-life and recently gave birth to a fifth child she knew would be born with Downs Syndrome. She has maverick credentials, going up against incumbant GOP governor Frank Murkowski, who she accused of impropriety, a charge that ultimately proved true.
Furthermore, she is a fiscal conservative. The problem for conservatives with Palin is that she buys into the Al Gore line on global warming, an important battle line in US energy reform; her views on domestic drilling, especially in her state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, have been kept under wraps since emerging as a potential running mate for McCain.
Palin has potential, but comes from a state too small in electrol votes to be considered a lock; also, while she adds youth to the ticket, Palin has only been governor of Alaska for two years, lacks foreign policy experience and could be seen as underqualified for the second-in-command role.
We’ll see what McCain thinks soon, I’m sure.
Mitt drops out
It was the wrong decision, for all the right reasons.
Mitt Romney is a conservative who cares about the present and the future of his party. He doesn’t want to see the GOP resort to a nasty nomination brawl and, after the campaign dirty tricks that helped rob him of West Virginia and possibly other states, Romney took a move out of the Ronald Reagan playbook and decided to drop out early, recognizing Sen. John McCain’s bulldog-like lead in the delegate race, and all the computer memory in the world won’t make it make sense; at least, not this year.
Romney could have had a chance had California fallen his way, but such was not the case. Like Reagan, he recognized the inevitability and that this was not his time. Just as Reagan bowed out early in 1976, allowing Gerald Ford to face off with Jimmy Carter, so too did Romney bow out to Sen. John McCain, who will have to face a difficult opponent in the fall in the person of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
What this guarantees are a few certainties.
1. Whoever wins the White House will be a former U.S. Senator, not a former governor. This is troublesome, since executive experience at a state level usually makes for a far better presidency.
2. Whoever wins the White House, it will be a victory for liberalism … which may be the perfect antidote to America’s flirtation with the left. It worked well in 1994; after only two years of Democrats controlling everything, America rebelled, scared primarily by the shadow of HillaryCare, and put the GOP back in control of both houses of Congress, primarily thanks to Newt Gingrich’s vision and leadership. Whether it’s President Obama, President Rodham or President McCain, the libs will be in charge in 2009, unless voters overturn the Dem advantage in one or both houses of Congress.
3. Conservatives have no horse in this race, at the presidential level. However, instead of staying home, they should take this time to get involved at the grassroots level, unseat the liberal country-club Republicans who control the party, and lay the groundwork to take back the GOP for conservatives. (Real ones, not RINOs like McCain.)
Whether 2012 is about defeating President Rodham, President Obama, or even replacing President McCain in 2016, if conservatives don’t withdraw but lay grassroots groundwork for the future, the next GOP primary won’t have to be determined by crossover Democrats out to screw us over, let alone “Democrat in disguise” independents who regularly caucus with the GOP but ultimately vote Democratic.
By demonstrating party loyalty, Reagan withdrew from the 1976 race only to come back four years later and ride a conservative tidal wave, not only to his party’s nomination but into the White House and ultimately into history. Whether the conservative future is with him or another conservative, it’s clear Romney’s hope is that 2012 or 2016 will mark the beginning of a similar era; it may even ultimately be referred to as the Romney Revolution.
Romney takes Bloomington … and Minnesota!
Let it never be said that WonderfulPessimist.com is all blog and no action. I’m not just a bunch of fiber optic cables and high-speed Internet.
Yours truly is now the precinct chair of the GOP in my little neck of the woods in Minnesota. It’s a two-year chair term and I’ll do what I can to help conservatives be successful here. And I’ll be doing my part to help win the battle against the leftward drift of the party, typified by presidential candidate John McCain.
Already, there are encouraging signs that the precinct will see things the WonderfulPessimist.com way; Mitt Romney won our precinct straw poll over McCain, 37-20. No one else was close. I think Hucka-bust had 17. While Romney isn’t the ideal candidate, he’s the best chance the GOP has to avoid liberal drift within the party, and despite being a precinct chair, you can bet WonderfulPessimist.com will remain a Reagan conservative first and foremost, a Republican second, as far as politics goes.
That said, signs are not yet as encouraging as one might hope on the national front for Mitt; hopefully California will turn in his favor by the time all the votes are counted. In the meantime, remember the difference between this conservative blogger and the cloud of others; WonderfulPessimist.com actually gets involved and tries to make a difference!
McCain edges Romney in Florida … not good news
If the Florida primary catapults Arizona Senator John McCain past Mitt Romney to win the GOP presidential nomination, the truth will be plain and simple: conservatives have no “dog” in this dog fight. Even if a owned a plasma TV and a plasma tv mount, I would have found it hard to believe Tuesday’s primary results.
Since Florida is a “winner take all” state, all 57 delegates now go into McCain’s column. That puts McCain in front-runner status for the first time, with the following delegate count: McCain 93, Romney 59, Huckabee 40, Paul 4, and Giuliani 1. Ridiculously, McCain is now claiming he is the bearer of the “conservative mantle” in the GOP, despite a career of authoring anti-conservative legislation and being a pain in the ass to any remotely conservative president from Reagan forward to George W. Bush. When Hillary Rodham-Clinton is a closer friend than your own party’s president, guess what, John: YOU’RE NOT A CONSERVATIVE! NOT REMOTELY!
I mean, sure, Romney’s not an ideal conservative, but at least he’s leaning in the right direction. He speaks fondly of Ronald Reagan, at least. McCain speaks fondly of Hillary Clinton.
So, Florida – a state where voters claimed they couldn’t even understand how to mark a simple ballot back in 2000 – has decided to deliver the GOP nod to one of Washington’s top Democrats, RINO leader John McCain.
I am not exaggerating when I say I’d feel better voting for Barack Obama than John McCain; and that is NOT a vote that would make me feel that good on a political ideological level, believe me. But at least Obama is inspiring. McCain’s not.
And if it comes down to McCain or Hillary, for the first time in my life, I will vote third-party; basically, whoever runs on the libertarian ticket. I refuse to support John McCain, ever, and I know I’m hardly the only conservative who feels this way. I’m a conservative first, not a Republican, and if McCain is forced down our throats this time out, this is one conservative who won’t be swallowing this time.
If McCain wins the nomination, we will be witnessing the death of the Republican Party. Perhaps it’s time conservatives withdrew entirely and formed a real conservative party. I’ll make a prediction: McCain 2008 is Dole 1996 all over again. Same “it’s my turn” cronyism, same result: a Democratic victory. Let the Republican crack-up begin! (Notice I didn’t say conservative crack-up.)
I’ll even suggest a name for it: the Reagan Party.
Huckabee Iowa win won’t repeat in New Hampshire
Fake conservative Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, may have won in Iowa last night, but don’t expect a repeat performance in New Hampshire. In the Iowa caucus, self-described evangelical Christians voted their religion over issues to boost Huckabee to a dominating win, 34 percent over Mitt Romney’s 25 percent. Yet the surprise of the night – a pleasant one for conservatives – was Fred Thompson’s unexpectedly strong showing, edging out John McCain for third place by about 350 votes, though both had roughly 13 percent of the vote.
Yet now that the campaign moves beyond Iowa, Huckabee’s campaign is about to go on diet pills; unlike Iowa, New Hampshire voters will study policies and records more than prayer chains and church attendance. That ought to favor Gov. Romney, who neither pardoned nor commuted any prisoners while in office in Massachusetts, compared to Huckabee, who pardoned over 1,000 prisoners, including 12 murderers.
Fiscally? Huckabee raised sales taxes in Arkansas by 37 percent and oversaw a budget that ballooned by 65 percent. Compare that to Romney, who turned a $3 billion deficit into a surplus without raising taxes. There’s another issue-oriented advantage of substance.
And keep in mind that all of this is skewed in that Rudy Guiliani is not taking part in either Iowa or New Hampshire, so his numbers are artificially low, and thus McCain and Huckabee’s numbers are artificially high. As the campaign moves into Michigan and Florida, all this could change.
If the party of Ronald Reagan is to retain its conservative soul, Romney is the party’s best hope, and Romney-Thompson ticket could easily be this year’s dream team.
