As we move on into the future one thing about the GOP is quite certain. The Republican middle is going further and further Left. The Federal Government is usurping more and more rights and spending more and more of my money.

As the Houses and Presidents seek new terms we seem to have allowed our representatives to fall into a bad mentality....That we won't hold them accountable if they start playing to the left to get some votes. Because of this we have seen the Federal Budget get more and more bloated every year filled with things I'd rather pay for myself or not pay for at all.

What as Republicans can we do to see to it that these Elected GOP members get back on track with not only curbing government growth, but with downsizing all together?

I have a couple of ideas:

1. Start making easier for other GOP members to run against an incumbant that has failed to live up to his party title.

2. As much as I hate to say it this is the way I've been leaning since I was seventeen: Switch up to the Libertarian Party and see if we can't get some real players in the game to truly downsize government.

What do you think we need to do?

Are we getting lost as a Party?

Are Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson rolling in their graves as we type?

Good questions. I think we need to learn something from the liberal Democrats who basically controlled our government for decades and really put our nation where we are today with all of the so-called "entitlement programs". Those programs by far and away account for the majority of the federal budget, and much of many state budgets as well. They have been in place so long now that people think of them as their "right". But, keep in mind, those programs didn't happen overnight, they were done incrementally over decades as the Democrats sought to increase the average American's dependance on government.

Likewise, they won't be eliminated overnight either. A movement towards things like privatization of Social Security and Medicare are steps in that direction, and the reason why they are so opposed by the liberals in Congress. Same is true of school vouchers and tax cuts. It seems to me that the Republican Party needs to offer alternatives to these programs, maybe in small steps, but alternatives that will work better and appeal to the people. If they get impatient and try to do things too quickly, they'll get creamed at the polls and we'll be in for another round of more entitlements from a Democratic majority.



Good luck with that. The Libertarian Party has some good ideas, but in my experience, they are way too rigid to a doctrine to really ever be a player in national politics. I've watched their national conventions and it always appeared to me that they were more interested in what was the "Libertarian thing" to do than what was the right thing to do in the current political climate. Strong on principle, short on votes and if you can't get elected to office, you aren't a player in the game. The American political landscape is a very dynamic thing, constantly shifting as things change and a party that is unable to approach those changes and deal with them is doomed to failure.

no way, i dont want my future to be ruled by some company. If some structure in a society has to regulate things for its peoples i would rather see the goverment be that body(the power to vote). Not a company, a company is open to failure and the need to make cuts, if we give all of this power to them it burdens them directly, this i think we apply to your pay check more then the tax you pay would. Not only that but that would enable or force such a thing as mircosoft to really get into a monopoly, and this would be the accepted norm being its not only your job but the source or your entire life. Think about it, public school by some grocery store chain, healthcare by a cosmetics company. I dont want that as my future. Dont let government get replaced by company, something that is already going on, human is becomeing resource, this is a no-go for us all!!!

But back to the topic. I try to stay in the middle, thats where i think i am, i would not know as much as some person that views my posts.

As for the middle in the republican party, i think the middle ground anymore these days is just a place to snag votes, you know, try to be like your rival in a sense.

Nile, this forum is for declared Republicans only. You are free to read it, of course, and if there is something that bothers you, you may start a thread about it in the open area of the site.

Thanks,
Quarkhead

I am not so sure that the Republican middle IS shifting left, perhaps it just appears so because so many of us have gone too far to the right.
Sort of like the moon's orbit, many of us think it revolves around the earth from east to west. Actually, it is going the same direction as the earth's rotation, just slower, so it only appears to be going the other way.
Some say that the Democrat Party has been hi-jacked by extreme liberals. Seems we Republicans may have been hi-jacked as well.
Might I suggest that some of the Republican extremists slow down and get back in line with the rest of us?

Bill,

Who are these extremists?

Although the Congress and President are Republican, the budget continues to grow astronomically. There are talks of cuts, but no cuts.

The President, although anti-abortion, hasn't done much to challenge the national policy on abortion.

Tax cuts, while admirable, need to be accompanied by appropriate spending cuts.

The problem is that the Democrats will not allow that to happen. Republican Congressmen are too afraid of being labelled "unfeeling" or "uncaring" to implement actual spending cuts.

The President needs to put forth a bold solution to the Medicare and Social Security problems. He needs to emphasize the personal responsibility cornerstone which makes us all Republicans.

The "middle" isn't shifting left, in my opinion. The "middle" is bowing to the spend hungry attitudes of the Democrats and then going further in a wild game of "one-upmanship" and spending money to show they care.

Perhaps the items I bring up here don't merit the word extremist as much as the word selfish.
I have been personally responsible all my life and have made sacrifices in my life style to provide for my future and for my children's education and thus their future as well. My parents didn't do those things, and I learned how not to succeed by their poor example.
I have done well, even with recent shenanigans on Wall Street that cut into my portfolio substantially, even painfully. But I also have 2 siblings who are slow (most charitable word I can think of here) and never completed High School and didn't learn much in the years that they attended. It isn't their fault that they were less able to learn compared to the rest of the family. They are not on routine government assistance due to pride, and they struggle.
Some Republicans would say about this, "They should have worked harder in school, it is their own fault, and I shouldn't have to pay taxes to help them have a minimum existence".
And I personally know Republicans who would like to have their religious leaders leading the country as well. There goes abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.
They would also, and this is very odd to me, completely do away with welfare. The so-called Christian concept of helping those in need goes out the window as soon as the Christian gets in a higher tax bracket and sees a larger amount of his money going out in the form of taxes to help support the less able. I agree that the less willing should be allowed to suffer, but not those who made no contribution to their inabilities to compete and thus are less able.
Likewise the rich who own a lot of property and find that their school tax is correspondingly high, and say they don't care if the peasant's kids get an education. I had that discussion in the political section of another forum with a newly rich extremist capitalist. He has climbed the ladder of success, and now wants to pull up the ladder behind him.
I have no problems with the concept of government providing for the social welfare of those in need, as envisioned by FDR. Certainly we need to get the abusers of the system out of the welfare line, and out of the administration where some of the money is siphoned off by government employees.
And neither party has much to brag about when it comes to our public education system.
I do not want socialism, but there are parts of it that we already have and we should be doing a better job for the public (and for the taxpayer supporting it) in those areas.
I believe the Republican party CAN address these issues effectively, and the Democrats would be hard pressed to find a reason to fight them. But first, we need to get the selfish and greedy among the rich to realize that these things are a good investment for the country that helped them become so financially successful in the first place.
If these views get me kicked out of the Republican Party, so be it.

Bill,
You are exactly who I am talking about, if you really are Republican. In my opinion your socialistic beliefs don't merit the label Republican. Since when has any real Republican believed in the merits of FDR's assumption of private industry and nationalization of a private workforce??? And your class envy and labeling of Rich vs. Peasants? Are you not merely a communist trying to bring havoc to this thread? I do not believe the Republican Party CAN effectively combat the Democrats through your position without effectively becoming Liberals themslves. Your ideas about selfishness and greed mirror that of a society which should give according to every need of every man, not according to his ability. Sound familiar? I think I saw in Marx's manifesto. Perhaps instead of being kicked out of the republican party, you have already walked far away from it. People that make it or don't have but one person to blame. Themselves for attempting to make it. But instead of standing in line for welfare checks they might want to get back in the game and give it another go round. Some people work hard and try their whole lives to build anything and barely make it before they are too old to retain that which they built. Others hit a homerun the first time they step up. Others never make it. But blaming me won't get them anywhere. Nor will taking my money! And yours as well! Free enterprise isn't great because a few can make it. It's great because anyone can make it. And complaining about pitfalls and glass ceilings is for people that don't want to get up after a fall or shatter a barrier. Anyone can make it in a free country. That's what is so powerful about a group of individuals deciding for themselves and not letting a bunch of cowards steal their profits for a nationalized machine. Thomas Jefferson please forgive this man!!!

That's a very heavy allegation and rather personal. I'd avoid making it if you can't back it up.

Jaime,
The proof is in his posting. I have sited from his own posting his own declared beliefs.

johnlocke,

Let's not get too personal. Bill's position is what is called "moderate" by guys like Rush Limbaugh. Rush may slam "moderates" but that doesn't mean it's ok. Just because someone doesn't subscribe to your brand of "Republican-ism" doesn't mean they don't have worthy ideas.

I don't believe that any political party is single-issue. However, individual members may indeed be "single-issue". Perhaps Bill is a Republican because the Democrats don't make sense to him, or he doesn't like their leadership.

Bill said he was for FDR's vision, not necessarily its implementation. Big difference.

Amlord,
My point in the topic was specifically this kind of Republican we are talking about now. How
can I slam this sort of "Republican-ism" in the thread topic and not point it out here in
front of me? I'm not tryingto be mean to Bill, but I am trying to help him see that in a
free world help doesn't come from governement, but from charity. And as for Rush and the likes I think they're great, but I am so far to the right I'm coming back around to the left again. I think FoxNews is too far to the left. I think Ronald Reagan was a great Moderate. So I know I am extreme in tryin to keep the government out of my life, but that's point to this topic.

JL, I don't understand how you can read so much into so little. No part of my post advocates socialism or communism. And to assume that there are no good aspects of socialism is patently ignorant. Also, name one country that has ever has a true communistic government as defined by Marx. There are none. Time has proven that it won't work and we should stop being so afraid of it. Call it a ghost from the past, and ignore it.
I have been a Republican since coming of voting age, and I am now 57. And I can see partly where you are coming from. You think the purpose of Republicans is to fight the Democrats? Shouldn't we be working together in a mutual effort to make life better for all who will do their part to achieve that better life?
I have no class envy, if you call being among the rich a class. I do suffer from intellect envy, especially those in this forum who actually have more of it than I do. You don't need to worry, I don't envy you.
Our (wife and me) income is, or was until I retired, easily among the top 10% for our age group in this country.
Our incomes combined have exceeded the 6 figure mark for several years now. Our net worth is not up to the millionaire mark yet, but were it not for the recent debacle on Wall Street, we would be close enough to see it coming.
The difference between us and many other couples is that we have always had different priorities in life.
I grew up poor and benefited from military technical training that has always been the reason I got the good jobs. My wife grew up poor but had good parents who sacrificed to pay for her first 2 years of college. Neither of us were so stigmatized from our poor upbringing that we feel the need to be rich, especially if it is at the expense of the less able. Comfortable is a nice goal for us, and we are pretty much there. We did what had to be done, and it wasn't always fun, but it was worth it.
If Uncle Sam wants more taxes from me to help the working poor have a chance at the same American Dream that we have pursued, then so be it. I can afford to pay a little more and I am not so selfish as to whine about it.
And I suspect you need to read a bit more of Thomas Jefferson's works. He was a liberal, you know.
They all were.

I think this may be the problem that John Locke has with your statements, Bill.....

If you couple the above quote with another one from your post....



You joined the military, your wife's parents made sacrifices. Those are NOT government handout programs. You didn't depend on the government making your life better, the two of you did it yourselves with your own values and the help of your families. Military service is not a government welfare program. Rather, it is a necessary thing for the nation's defense.

So, what makes you think that if you can make it on your own, others need the government's social programs to make it on their own?

I agree with providing a temporary safety net for people, but not a permanent dependancy program.

Again, I agree that welfare should be temporary, except for those who cannot make it on their own. We do have some of that type, and we can't let them starve to death. If we do, can we continue to call ourselves a "Christian" nation?
I made it on my own due to above average smarts, barely enough good judgement, and stubborn perseverance. Certainly the only thing my parents did was to provide an example of how NOT to succeed.
And as I said, I have 2 siblings who are lacking in smarts and no matter what they did, they were not ever going to make it on their own. Neither accept permanent or routine help, but the rest of us taxpayers pay their medical bills. They live like Appalachian hillbillies, and seem to have grown accustomed to it.
But I can be as hard hearted as anyone, in certain areas. I would not allow kids to quit school until they have either graduated with basic skills, or learned a trade that will allow them to get a job. If they quit anyway, drag the brats off to military bootcamp style school in a remote area until they see the light. IOW, remove some of the "outs" that people like to take when they are young and ignorant and are fighting the best efforts of the rest of us to make them self sufficient. But those are typically not the unable, they are the unwilling. They CAN be self supporting, but don't want to grow up and do what is required. Actually, that partially describes one of the 2 siblings I mentioned. He is learning disabled, but is a skilled welder. He won't leave his shack in the woods, his dogs, his hunting/fishing habits, etc. to move to where a job was offered to him. It is hard to feel sorry for him, as he has always been a bit lazy.
But back to liberals and big business. I can't see why the liberal who wants to tax the rich to help the poor would be against the big businesses that make so many rich. The money has to come from somewhere. Is asking them to return some of their gain to the public good such a bad thing?
But even if we somehow succeed at getting all of our youth/un-employed/under employed trained, where are the jobs in the numbers required to employ all of them at a living wage? One answer is overseas, or across the border, where big business has moved a lot of them to take advantage of lower wages and little or no environmental rules to deal with. Whose idea was that? Was it the liberals?

Bill,
Here's the deal. We may very well continue to call ourselves a christian nation if we got rid of social programs. The same exact way we always have. Charitable donations. This country was built with charity before people came along and stole tax dollars to finance it. That's the Republican way. The belief that what's mine is mine and I distribute my money to the causes I see fit. Not the Federal Government. This is essential to being a Republican last I checked.


You may not envy me but you might wish you had. At that extent you might be inclined to check through history and find out one of the most basic facts in all of American History.....Thomas Jefferson was a staunch Republican hell bent on not letting Adams or Hamilton assert more and more power to the federal governement. Not wanting the Central governement to infringe on States' Rights. He was so far from a Liberal, that's like calling Reagan a communist.

Not to beat this to death, but you should surrender here, as I am smarter than you.
True, the churches and SOME of the rich helped the poor, but not nearly enough. There came a time that there just wasn't enough churches or WILLING rich with the funds to cover the need. FDR changed all that, with support from BOTH sides of the political fence, and we are not going back to the system we had before FDR, like it or not. The genie is out of the bottle, and it isn't going back in.
If you think your taxes are being stolen, file charges with the authorities. Last I heard, both parties are in favor of us being taxed, it is just the how much and from whom that establishes the differences.
You have an extremely rightest view of what being a Republican is, and you are in the minority. You remind me of a certain member of my church. I asked him to stop telling people he was a member of our congregation and of course he asked why. It was a setup. I told him that he was an embarrassment to the rest of us. I try not to be rude, but I felt it was needed in his case.
The Republican party did not exist in Jefferson's time. And the state's rights issue you speak of is hardly enough to label him. Perhaps you are confusing your labels. I said he was a Liberal, you say he was a Republican. It is possible to be a liberal Republican, or a conservative democrat. In fact, the southern democrats, or the Dixiecrats, were famous for acting like Republicans come voting time, on certain issues. Jefferson may have been conservative in some issues, but surely a liberal in most others. Overall, I vote Liberal.

Bill,
Boy oh boy. Where to start? I notice you didn't post any support for your comments on FDR. That's because there is nothing to support the idea that FDR usurped money for charitable reasons. The real reason FDR began stealing tax dollars was to boost the economy. Not because the "rich" weren't giving enough. Social programs were created to help the poor on one hand and to increase the dependence of the people onto a federal government on the other.

And furthermore, you just simply cannot be more wrong about Jefferson. He was so far to the right he today characterizes exactly what a Republican should be. It was his CAREER that is defined by his attempts to keep Hamilton from starting a national treasury, from starting a nationalized army and even today the Whitehouse is in Virginia because he wanted it close to his farm because he felt that the closer the government be to his property, the closer he could watch them. He concieded the national treasury for the ability to have Virginia be home to the Captial. He had zero trust in government and fought his whole life to keep it small. Where you get your ideas about the forefathers, I don't know but please for your own sake don't go telling people this. Sooner or later you'll run into someone like me that knows the truth. He was not a liberal in any way shape or form and if this is how you consider yourself, please feel free to join the democratic party.
However if this is the growing norm, that Republicans would rather be over run by a tyranny and be left to pay for everyone but themselves, perhaps the GOP just ain't the way I should go anymore.

Yes I believe Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson ARE rolling in their very respectable graves.

Edited To Add: Just to make you look a little more foolish (not that I really did any of it) here is a web page from the Whitehouse.gov that expands on what I have said already. It clearly calls him the leader of the Republican Party and details his hatred for a large centralized government


http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tj3.html

Wonderful, a link to the George Bush Whitehouse. And if there was a democrat in the white house right now, would they be claiming TJ is a democrat?
Leaving to go home from vacation tomorrow, will pick this back up when I get a little time with my library.

How is this different from the two major political parties right now? It seems that the the only real voices heard these days are the screechings from the extremists on both sides of the isle, resulting in a lot of deadlock and waste.

Democrats scream about this, Republicans scream about that, and you can't get a reasoned argument in between because both radical sides deride the other as un-American patsies.

The fact is, they are both (or all three, if you count the libertarians) the same, regardless of which side of the argument they are on. Their mind's are made up, so don't even bother to confuse them with facts, or even reasoned debate.

The fact is, somewhere in the last 20 years we lost any true statesmen that were still around, and they were all replaced with hard line ideologues.

Welcome to the forum, Niteguy. This particular section of the forum is for Republicans only. You are certainly welcome to read the posts, but if you want to respond, you need to start a new thread in the main part of the forum with a clear question to debate.

You're kidding me right? First of all the Whitehouse.gov can't just be usurped by the current admin to lie. Secondly, George Bush can't rewrite history. Thirdly, you are wrong and won't admit it. It's actually funny because of all that you were saying earlier and how you were smarter than me.

Edited to add: I think that I may have been right earlier when I was smart enough to see through you disguise. You're no Republican.

Funny, I nearly always vote Republican. Could it be that I really am so ignorant and gullible as to be fooled by their rhetoric, or am I voting with a grain or 2 of common sense?
Whitehouse.gov CAN be usurped, all it takes is a person in the whitehouse with no scruples (lead in there for our friends in the opposition) , a keyboard, an internet connection, etc.

I started a new post, Thomas Jefferson, liberal or conservative?
Call me names there , if you please.

Let's not call each other names at all. It is possible to disagree without being mean. ...more flies with honey

The problem is in order to be acceptable to your party, you have to bow to the extremists. The only really vocal people on either side are the Religious Rightists or the Looney Leftists with very few moderate voices in the middle. It's unfortunate that so many people vote straight party ticket, regardless of the actual views of the candidates. We'd have better leadership if the voters weren't such couch potatoes, voting on who looks better on television, or worse yet, on outmoded ideas that the parties haven't really supported in decades.

Lost as a party? No, I don't think so. I think we do need to get rid of this fear that we have of truly having a free market, truly capitalist economy, that is where I think we are shifting left. But as for social issues, I think we're nice and conservative on that. The Libertarian Party, say it ain't so J. Locke! No way, while I would enjoy economic libertarianism, but I think the social aspect of that party is far too liberal.

CP

Here is a fact that will help you understand the movement of conservatism toward the center of the political spectrum. I am an international trader/importer who imports directly out of Russia to name one. Russia as we all know was the former communist state of the Soviet Union or to be more exact, a socialistic dictatorship.

My collegues in Russia all tell me that the communists of the communist party, which still exists, the hardliners are not referred anymore by the term communists. They are now referred to as the FAR LEFT. Russia, in determining their future are mimicking our society almost in everyway, and they watch our political system very closely and their analysis portrays a very tight similarity between the hardline communist members (far left) to the liberal democrats here in the United States.

This is a very interesting fact as the liberals are taking us toward what the US wanted to stay away from, the former communist enemies of ours are turning more capitalistic each and every day. Because of this shift in philosophy and idealism, I predict based on my knowledge of business in Russia that this country in 10, 20, or 30 years will surpass the might United States in GNP. Just looking at their vast country and the natural resources Russia has would lead anyone to this conclusion.

And all of those who have died to prevent the spread of communism in this world and the biggest player of them all, the United States, is headed in that direction. Thanks to the liberal left party and their practice of Socialism.

Very true. Even moderate Repubs are advocating socialist policies. We need capitalism, that will bring our country back to the prosperous days of Reagan and the like. And we need to do it now.

CP

CP ,

I couldn't agree with you more! We need to pull out all the stops on trade and let business run it's course. But how can we advocate this pont as Republicans when our own people are standing around talking about big business as shifty left-handed thieves, just the way the Libs do??? In my opinion, we've got to dispell the myth proving once and for all to people that it's government, not business that seeks to steal away what we've got, from money, to fundamental rights! Where did Americans go wrong, that we're now at an impasse in America, where communism and socialism aren't seen as threats, that big government is seen as a good way to control people and Social Programs are seen are tools instead of crutches.....sometimes it's enough to make me want to cry.

This is something of a departure from the present direction of the discussion, but I'd like to cite another example of the Republican party's move to the left.

Specifically, I'd like to call attention to the California recall election. We now know that Arnold is electable (obviously). The fact that he did get elected I believe is attributable to the fact that he was heavily pushed as "THE" Republican candidate - both by the media AND by the party itself.

McClintock was a very electable candidate. He only lost the State Controller's race by less than half of one percent as I recall. So here's a guy who is deomnstratably electable, who has political experience, and who is actually conservative! But no, we need Arnold. The liberal, utterly inexperienced, movie star who wanted to ride in on the coat tails of the Republican party. So why did we let that happen?

We must question why a proven conservative like McClintock was practically sabotaged by our own party in favor of a liberal! My faith in the Republican party as a means to change America back to the Founding Principles has completely waned away. Perhaps some of my fellow GOP fellows in this forum can give me reason to restore this hope?

McClintock was not electable, not in this election. The recall was more about "throwing the rascals out" than it was about politics and policy. Like it or not, McClintock is one of the "rascals" at least in most voters' minds. Just like Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamonte, he's a career politician and once he started talking programs and politics and policy, people's eyes would glaze over and they'd think more of the same old thing. If McClintock had been the Republican standard-bearer, Gray Davis would not have been recalled, plain and simple. That would have been a disaster for California.

I don't know if you're from California or not, although your post indicates you might be, but you do need to understand California politics if you want to win elections here. If you run a far right-wing, or perceived far right wing conservative, you're going to get creamed in this state. Reagan understood that and he shaped his message to appeal to the moderates and independants here and nationally. Reagan wasn't elected by conservatives, he was elected by independants and "Reagan democrats", the same demographic group that elected Arnold. McClintock wouldn't get those votes, not with his record. Heck, he sometimes can't even get along with other Republicans. A man of principle? Sure. A man with some good ideas? Sure. A career politician? You bet he is and that puts him in the same mold as all the other career politicians and the people of California weren't about to replace one career politician with another. Death by fire or death by water to them.

Now, having said that, I will say that McClintock served an important purpose, and I am glad he stayed in the race. What he did was to give the far right a reason to vote YES on the recall, and that was the first vote we had to win. Without him on the ballot, I'm afraid many would have sat this one out and Davis might have beat the recall. I hope that he does contribute ideas to Arnold and his new administration, and I hope they listen to him.

I have to disagree. Last I looked, he got about a million votes. And Arnie got about 3.3 mil. How many Arnie voters do you think voted the way they did simply because they thought Arnie stood a better chance at keeping Bustamente out and would otherwise have voted for McClintock? And why did they think this? Because the Repubs and the media sabotaged his campaign and instead totally focused on Arnie.

Besides, the way I see it, this should be about principle, not politics. As long as we play this game of compromise with the "left", they will take more and more ground. The"center" has already moved far to the left. There must eventually come a point where we stop.

Besides, what did conservatives gain in electing Arnie? Not much. Arnie's own wife said he's not really a conservative. And he's not. Just because he bears the GOP label doesn't do anyone any good.

Last I looked which was a few seconds ago, Arnold stood at 3.85 MILLION and McClintock at 1.05 MILLION with Bustamonte in between at a little over 2.5 MILLION. I'm not sure quite how you think the media sabotaged McClintock's campaign. How did they do this? Seems to me that if there were any "October surprises", they were launched against Arnold. McClintock even attempted to take advantage of them.



This was about winning an election to remove a governor that was destroying California, period. Winning an election involves poltics, it's a political process. Principles are fine, we need more of them in government, but for that to happen, one has to first be elected to government first.



The Republican Party has not elected ANY candidate to a statewide office since Pete Wilson (a moderate by the way) was re-elected 9 years ago. What did that buy us? Losing elections on "principle"? What the heck kind of strategy is that? The Green Party and the Libertarians lose elections all the time "on principle". You want to be like them? What Arnold buys us is a better California and yeah, he's going to have to compromise with the Democrats in this state, they control the legislature, but he's one heck of a lot better than Gray Davis or Cruz Bustamonte would have been.

Like it or not, California is not a conservative state. If you want to win an election here, you have to be appeal to moderates and independants. McClintock doesn't - never has, never will.

So, it seems the Republican Party in California has a choice to make. We can either continue to nominate and support candidates for statewide office on pure idealogy and get creamed in the election, or we can take a more pragmatic approach and actually support someone who is closer to our principles than the liberal the Democrats run and maybe actually win an election.

I would say by focusing almost entirely on Arnold and creating a perception that he was the only real contended other than Bustamente.



Point taken.



I understand your sentiments. But I'm afraid that given the fact that Arnold is likely to be very much to the left, that we haven't really saved California... Personally, I would rather let people get their fill of the bad guys until they wake up and see that things aren't going to change until they actually start voting conservative. As it is now, we just ride the fence for ever, and if and when Arnold's left leanings perpetuate the problems in California, it will look like the Republican party was no more of an answer than the Democratic one. Thus, we will have ruined our own names. And rightly so.



I realize and appreciate the paradox. But I honestly think that we've moved the party to the left long enough. By doing this over and over again, one day we will wake up and find that conservatism no longer has a home anywhere. And then we WILL be relegated to the likes of the Green Party et al. At least the GOP commands SOME respect and legitimacy. Let's not dillute that which we still have.

arnold, for me, represents "Republican Light". Not so rigidly conservative socially (abortion/gays), yet strong defender of Defense (no free rides for illegals) and business (curtail some of the restrictions unfavorable to business and what REALLY runs the economy of the state.

I don't see Arnold as straying far left at all. he's a centrist. As a Republican who would never consider the alternative I feel the party could do with some broadening in the base a bit.

I'm not so sure that Arnold is going to turn into a liberal, or even very much move to the left at all. So far, his economic policy has been one of a fiscal conservative, he shares McClintock's desire to roll back the car tax and he's talking about making cuts in the budget as opposed to raising taxes. He's also talking about eliminating a number of anti-business regulations and creating a more business-friendly enviornment in California. None of that sounds to me like it's "far left" or even very much left at all.

Now, certainly on some issues like abortion and gun control, Arnold is more liberal than conservative, but those aren't really issues right now in California, not from a state government level at least.

I think we need to keep in mind something that Jerry Brown (I know, I know) once said about being the head of a government. He said that the governor, or President is like the captain of a large ship crusing along on the ocean. Because of the ship's inertia, the captain can't turn it around entirely, he can only change the course of the ship a few degrees at a time to the right or left.

Well, the SS California has been turning to the left far too long and it was time we put a captain on board to start turning back to the right. I think Arnold will do that. McClintock would have as well, but this time around, he'd have never made it on to the bridge.

I really think our base is "broad" enough. Too broad if you ask me. See the following link to see the "Conservative index" for mid-term 2003:
Conservative Index

In this index, they take each issue that came up for vote and have assigned a plus or minus to either "yea" or "nay" depending on which position they consider to be conservative. Considering the vast majority of issues voted upon in this term were clearly Unconstitutional I don't think there's a tremendous amount of controversy for respectors of the Constitution to make over their assignments of plusses and minuses.

After counting all the Republican representatives who had a score over 50%, I found only 24!!! According to my calculations (which could be slightly off due to human error in counting and adding), that makes the Republican House average a stunningly low 43.59%! And in some cases, the Democrats in some states had a higher "conservative" average than the Republicans in the same state!

Now if you're not really a conservative (ie. respect the Constitution), you probably don't see any problem with this. But that's the issue: the Republican Party is no longer really conservative. In fact, given these abyssmal numbers, I'd be tempted to say that to call the GOP conservative is an outright joke. We'd get better results tossing dice!

Then you better toss the dice because if your link defines a "true conservative", you're darn lucky to have even 24 members of Congress as "conservatives". Besides, I don't buy that these issues and the determination of them as "respecting the Constitution" is in any way non-controversial. I find many of them to be quite arbitrary and more questions of philosophy than Constitutional questions. Certainly their objection to the ratification of the Moscow treaty has NO Constitutional basis at all. That's simply a position they don't like, but there is absolutely nothing unconstitutional about the Senate ratifying a treaty that has been signed.

If we further look at your list, we find some interesting things in it. Just a quick peruse of that list indicates that California has very few "real conservatives" (50% or better), but there are a ton of very liberal democrats such as Zoe Lofgren and Tom Lantos who are scored the same or close to the same as Bill Thomas, Issa and Gallegly(who was on the impeachment team). I don't know who these people are, but they have a very warped idea of a rating system and agenda.

If this is your idea of "really conservative", then you're absolutely right. The Republican Party is no longer "really conservative" and hasn't been for quite some time. I wouldn't hold my breath that it will ever be according to this definition.

Come on, read the Constitution, my friend. Specifically, the 10th Amendment which, like the Founding Father's own words, makes it explicit that Congress has only those powers explicitly enumerated to it in the Constitution. Where is it enumerated that Congress has the authority to control and/or fund education? Where is it enumerated that Congress can fund medical research? Unemployment benefits? Job training? Agricultural subsidies? The list goes on... No, the Constitution is quite clear on this and I don't know how this country managed to get so off track that we actually think that the "interstate commerce" and "general welfare" clauses are essentially blank checks.



Nobody said it was Unconstitutional. But given how we're already WAY ahead of the Russians in disarmament and how the Russians are intentionally dragging their feet on existing treaties, I don't see the wisdom in entering into even more treaties that they'll simply ignore and that will leave us in a continually weakening state.



This is exactly what I'm talking about. There is very little difference when things are summed up. While there still are party divisions, and while parties are still divided along certain lines, the unfortunate thing is that both parties have issues that lay almost equally astride the line drawn by the Constitution. While the GOP may lay on the Constitutional side in some issues, they lay on the Unconstitutional side in others. And the Democrats do vice versa.



What do you mean? The rating system is clearly defined in the paper. Plusses and minuses are assigned as described, and then the score is calculated as the percentage of plusses that member received. In the case of California, while they all got similar scores, Republicans tended to get plusses on issues 2, 3, 9, and 10. Democracts tended to get plusses on issues 4, 5, and 7. This is not, however, because either side is terribly principled with respect to the Constitution, which is made clear by all the minuses. Rather, it is more likely that the distribution of their scores is more due to them voting with the "party line".



That's truly sad. I had hoped that the Constitution would:

1. actually be UNDERSTOOD and STUDIED (which it obviously is not).
2. be more respected and revered as the supreme law of the land that it is.

If even the Republican party cannot be bothered to study and comprehend the Constitution, then there is little hope at all that they will improve our national situation.