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The Path to Victory: Grassroots Republicanism

Let’s start, with a premise:

Every Republican president candidate since 1964 has had their level of success or failure, respectively, tied directly to the degree of voter perception that they have or have not turned their back on conservatism.

Consider the history of the thing… and it all flows one way:

  • Nixon billed himself a conservative, and successfully, even though in most respects he was a California Moderate, and came down more or less where  John McCain was in the most recent election; to the left of George W Bush.  Yet, Nixon had an electoral landslide in both elections. (Admittedly, the Democrats he ran against were a laughable lot, which didn’t hurt him.)
  • Bush 41 figured if he bent over forward enough, the left would like him.   Remember he was doing what the Democrats asked him to do, re; the ‘no new taxes’ pledge? How did they respond? By beating him over the head with the fact that he did what they asked. The voters did the same, seeing clearly that he had broken faith with the American people.
  • Bush 43 did the same thing on different matters. Both the father and the son are at best, centrists and far too willing to ‘reach across the aisle’. The result, of course, was quite predictable.
  • Jiohn McCain was in fact more of Bush policy, but not as Billed by the Democrats… far from a real conservative, McCain got too deep into go along to get along. His Gang of seven, or gang of 14 or whetever the number was, had less than conservative overtones to it.  His conservatism was properly brought into question thereby.  His hobnobbing with Laraza didn’t help that perception, either. Nor did McCain’s reaction to the Bailout,, which he should have bitterly… and loudly… opposed.

You’ll be hearding a lot about Nixon tehse next few weeks from mental midet Ron Howard.  Despite the picture Howard paints, Nixon wasn’t paranoid, people. It was that they were out to get him. Seriously. The conduct of the Democrats in every Republican presidency since Nixon, shows the same pattern as what he feared would happen to him.  History since that time shows Nixon’s fears were more than justified.

Nixon’s reaction to the threat was of course unacceptable.  Yet, so too was the reaction of these more recent examples.  Watergate, and the surrounding scandals,  was a goldmine for the left, because it pushed Republicns into a decades long situation of trying to ‘get along’ with Democrats. To ‘compromise’ with them. Each time Republicans have been so convinced, it’s been a bloody trainwreck for Republicans and for the nation as a whole.

As a result of that ‘compromise’, all of the rest.. in every case, had their @$$3$ handed them in a basket by Democrats who clearly saw the attempt at compromise, not as an opportunity for bipartisanship (Which apparenly they’re only interested in when they’re losing) but as a weakness. The history of the thing shows us quite clearly, that Republicans leaning left does not mean Democrats will be  hating them less.   Just as clearly, the lesson still hasn’t been learned. I see Kondrake inrecent columns, still making noises that the Republicans have not leaned far enough left yet to be elected.

I submit that post-Nixon ‘moderates’ are the ones who put together this most recent electoral trainwreck.  Their typical ploy; move to the left as  far as they can,  attempt to get the Republicans to look like Democrats as much as possible, then blame the conservative voter when the trainwreck does what trainwrecks do.

It should surprise absolutely nobody liberal Democrats were quite eager to assist in pushing the Republican party to the left.  Perhaps you don’t recall, but McCain’s candidacy was helped by large numbers of Democrats who crossed over during the Republican primary season to push John McCain’s candidacy over the top.  These same voters, of course, crossed over yet again to vote for Barack Obama in the general election, always having intneded to vote for whomever the Democrats offered.   And of course, these liberal Democrats are now joining the RINO contingent in blaming conservative Republicans for McCain’s loss.

It doesn’t require a great deal of thought, though, to look at this most recent nonelection and draw up many parallels between it and the candidacy of Senator Bob Dole.  I think it no secret, that what really happened in that election was that the Republicans, particularly the leadership, were dragged into believing that denying their party strengths while wallowing in its liabilities was a path to victory.

Of course, once the Democrats got themselves into power, the priorities that they were supposedly elected on changed rather rapidly.  All of the campaign promises forgotten, the hundred day programs disregarded, the wishes of the American people ignored.

The left, you see, has a habit of bending the electorate to its will.  All through the 1992 election, we were told by Bill Clinton and his spokespeople, that it was ‘all about the economy, stupid’.  Yes it is Bill Clinton get into office, those tax cuts that he had promised, disappeared like a fishing shack in the middle of Katrina to the Democrats upon achieving power, told us that the election was all about abortion.  Apparently he economy didn’t matter quite so much anymore, once they saw a chance to move toward the core values of the far left. Clinton, for all of his faults, had an advantage on the Republicans in that he never forgot what his party’s core values were about. I suspect we’re going to see that in an Obama administration, as well. For all of the imagry trying to project Obama as a ‘moderate’, I think we’re going to find that Obama is just another corrupt far-leftie with delousions of Godhood. The Chicago connections that the press is only now starting to pay attention to lend themselves to that conclusion well, I fear.

I’m going to tell you something, here.  I’ve been watching political events for 35 years now.  And, longer.  Over that period of time the success or failure of Republican presidential candidates, and it must be said, congressional candidates, are directly linked to how conservative they are perceived by the electorate to be.  In the first example, of course is Ronald Reagan who without a doubt in my mind was the most successful.  It is also why John McCain trying to link himself to Reagan’s legacy, is so laughable.  Sorry, Nancy, you blew that one.  On the far side of that coin, is Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, and yes, John McCain.

Which brings us to the father and son team of Messrs. Bush.  Bush 41 managed to make it into the White House as Reagan’s VP candidate, essentially writing his coattails, but not as a conservative.  As I keep saying in these spaces, Bush 41 was no conservative; he was at best a centrist.  Indeed, he was brought onto the Reagan ticket to balance the perception that Reagan was an extreme conservative. most conservative voters, figured he wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t bad, until such time as the Democrats talked them into compromising his taxes pledge, and then ended his presidency and gave us the Clintons.

Similarly, Bush 43 came in waving not the flag of conservatism, but the flag of compromise.  Given the choice of the radicalism of Al Gore, and the 50-50 chance that Bush might actually have a conservative viewpoint, the voters to the 50-50 chance.

So along comes John McCain, who has a long history of coming down the left of either Bush or for that matter of Reagan, and the voters reaction is quite predictable.  Bye-bye McCain presidency.

And let’s, before we forget,  note the role of Sarah Palin in all of this. Palin was brought on as a conservative.  The intent was to balance McCains …. well, McCain’s liberalism.  Sorry, there’s no other word for it. now the liberals will tell you that the American voter found her brand of conservatism troublesome.  They will tell you that that’s why John McCain wasn’t elected. Of course it’s not true.  Look at the reactions that she got on the campaign trail.  She was drawing larger crowds than John McCain was.

You see, when real conservatives connect with the voters, they bring out what the liberals most fear; grassroots conservatism.  And they bring it out in numbers that give us electoral majorities such as what brought us to terms of Ronald Reagan and congressional power in 1994.

The history of the last 40 years shows us the path to victory.  We ignored it in this election, and we paid the price.   I submit to you that it is time for the Republican Party to reconnect with its grassroots conservative leanings, and to eliminate the leadership that has been trying for decades to disconnect us from that grassroots effort.  Those grassroots values.

I warn you; if the Republican Party tries to offer the electorate another warmed over liberal, falsely flying Republican Party colors, we stand no chance whatsoever at limiting Obama’s time in office to four years, no matter how corrupt he proves to be… (and with Blago, he’s already got a head start.).  Nor do we stand a chance at retaking Congress, no matter how crooked they end up exposing themselves to be.  (Rangel, Jefferson, etc)  It’s time for GOP leadership that understands this.

Now’s the time to get such leadership into place and working for us…  Someone, or better a group of someones, willing to lead Republicans to go back to the values of Conservatism… strong and uncompromising conservatism.. a leader willing to fight tooth and nail for those values… because if we can take the most recent cycle as any kind of indication, we don’t have much time.