Why we get called Nazis

This is an excellent article by actor Michael Knowles about why Democrats call us Nazis:

The answer lies in the intellectual heterogeneity, or lack thereof, within the two major parties. Since the Reagan Revolution, the Republican Party has counted in its ranks at least four distinct political groups: traditionalists, neoconservatives, libertarians, and the religious right. In his excellent piece “Four Heads and One Heart,” political scientist James Ceaser observes that these four major factions of the Republican Party often approach politics from fundamentally different points of view. In order for libertarians to share a “big tent” with the religious right, they must force themselves to consider an opposing point of view, understand the merits of its arguments, make ideological concessions, and compromise.

The Democratic Party has no such philosophical disagreements and therefore no such reason to compromise, at least in the years since Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama brought the party back from the brink of practicality. Conservative “Blue Dog Democrats” and Clintonian “New Democrats” have almost entirely abandoned ship: all that remain are ideologically pure progressives. Devoid of any internal challenges to their ideas, the so-called progressives are left in a Democratic echo chamber, finally free to, well, progress.

 Read the whole thing.

The Perfect Tone

Everybody knows that politics can be nasty business and managing a Presidential campaign is basically a giant PR endeavor. You have to make your opponent look bad while making yourself look great. And this goes way beyond policy issues, in fact policy positions are basically just things used to create slogans and catchphrases during the campaign.

That holds true for this year, but this year it is especially important because there are so few actual undecided/independent voters out there. I mean Romney has the Republicans and, with the selection of Paul Ryan as running mate, the conservative Tea Party votes sewn up. Obama has the Liberal Democrats and the special interest group voters(ethnic, gender, age etc). The biggest actual swing voter group are the moderates(Repubs and Dems) who swung heavily for Obama in 2008. The reasons for the swing are as numerous as they are various. Some wanted to be part of a movement, some had white guilt(it's true), some didn't like McCain, some fell for the DC outsider talk, some fell for the fiscally conservative rhetoric("I'll go line by line through the budget"), some just thought Sarah Palin was dumb.

Whatever the reason, a lot of these independents have soured on Obama. Mostly because they have felt or realize that they will feel the direct results of his policies. The task then is to make them feel comfortable voting for a Republican. Remember these are moderates who are not going to be motivated by positions on polarizing social issues, unless it is to be turned off by the passion and negativity(I'll get back to that in a sec).

Romney already has the first part down, the making himself look good, he knows what image he's going to project: business man who can fix the economy. But how to define Obama is the issue. Going hard negative on personal issues is NOT going to do it, things like calling him a socialist, Muslim, foreigner, an abortionist etc will just turn off moderates and drive them back to Obama - or else they will stay home. So what to do? Here is what HotAir is reporting will be Romney's stance:

"After dumping the “nice guy but failed President” argument in the overwhelming volume of nasty attacks from Barack Obama and his campaign, including insinuations of being a felon, a murderer, and a modern-day slaver, Romney tells Politico that the theme will return at the Republican National Convention this week in Tampa:"

Perfect! Portraying Obama as a guy with good intentions but who doesn't really know things work or how to get them done is exactly the right tone. First off, and most importantly, it puts the focus back on his record, which is terrible and the last thing Obama wants(Obamacare, environmental policy, tax the rich, debt). Second EVERYONE knows someone similar, a family member, a friend from high school or wherever who has good intentions but is just naive and/or a slacker who constantly puts up a facade to make themselves seem cool. Third, they can shine a light on his past, something that was not done in 2008 because everyone was obsessed with which newspaper Palin reads first.

Romney can portray him as not a good President, ignoring his jobs counsel, investing tax money in things he thinks will "save the planet", playing a lot of golf, giving the Queen an iPod(seriously?). Basically someone that it would be fun to have a drink with(or smoke some weed with...ahem!) but not someone you would let anywhere near your credit card.

Obama on the other hand has already shown how he will try to make Romney look bad. His main argument is going to be that Romney is a radical crazy person who is not fit to hold a job let alone be President. There's been the "war on women" (I will write a post on this very soon), his campaign manager implied he was a felon and hiding his tax returns, the advertisement that basically said he caused someone to die from cancer because his company laid off workers, and have used the terms "too extreme" and "too radical" over and over and over. And they aren't wasting any time, they have spent more money on tv ads than they have raised, despite a record number of fundraisers.

If Romney feels the need to go negative, he has plenty of Obama subordinates to hammer. Geithner will be one, so will Holder, and probably Valerie Garret and Stephanie Cutter. Those people represent the bureaucratic and political side of Obama that turns people off and feeds in to the anti-incumbent sentiment that is always present when things aren't going well.

So Romney is in a great position, he has a cash advantage, he will use the convention to hammer the "nice guy but failed President" message, and the contrast in tone will make it extremely tough for Obama to paint him as an extremist.

We WIN!!!

 We win!! The American people win! That term refers to legal citizens, in case any politicians are reading my blog.

The Shamnesty bill went down to defeat today. After being revived on Tuesday it is now most likely off the table until 2009.

FOXNews.com - Immigration Bill Fails Crucial Test Vote in Senate

I'm sorry I have not done much blogging about this subject recently. I have been really busy lately with work and every time I have a moment to blog....I've just been literally too angry about this bill to even think coherently enough about it to blog.

But no more, I'd like to thank all the senators who voted this bill down. Those include both senators from this state: Warner and Webb.

Where do we go from here?

It's over. The Republican majority in both houses of congress is gone. Republicans took it on the chin last Tuesday, it was ugly. And one of my favorite politicians is staying home, George Allen was defeated by Jim Webb. I will use a separate post to talk about why I think he lost, for now let's just say that Washington is worse off for his defeat.

It's been over a week since the elections and I meant to write about them sooner. However I got slammed at work and had to leave town a few times so I didn't have much time to blog. Normally I don't like it when people say things like that in their blogs but I just wanted to point out that I wasn't ducking the blog simply because the Republicans lost.

Sure it has hurt to think about. It hurts to think about the lost opportunities. It hurts to think about the Looney Tunes episodes we are about to go through with the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in charge of things. And it hurts to think about the message this sends to our troops abroad, the fact that Al Quaeda has come out and praised the shift makes me sick. But the honest truth is that I didn't have time to get all these thoughts and feelings in to this blog.

Why do I think we lost? I think that a variety of things compounded to create the perfect political storm. The Democrats and the Drive-By-Media (DBM from here on) did a good job in making this election a referendum on Republicans. In other words voters didn't so much as vote FOR democrats as vote AGAINST republicans. The traditional democratic voters were already drunk on 6 years of anti-Bush anti-Republican rhetoric, there was no way they were voting for a Republican. But then the DBM was able to target the more moderate/fiscal conservative voter by among other things making the Republicans seem not conservative enough. Pork barrel spending, no border security, Mark Early scandal, a huge medicare bill and no good news from Iraq(unless you actually look for it) all were used to bash republicans. Those are things that don't really stir up the liberal crazies but resonate deeply within the base and turn off the more moderate/libertarian voter.

I do think it's interesting that the democrats for six years screamed and bemoaned that Republicans weren't liberal enough. But they only got their resounding election victory when they started accusing Republicans of not being conservative enough. I mean how many people did you hear about voting for higher taxes, hearings on the war, "redeployment" of our troops, civil rights for terrorists, and more government involvement in health care? Nope you heard about how Republicans want to torture people, hate blacks and let them die in Katrina, and only want to tax the poor.

But to a point the things that the DBM and democrats harped on were true. Many Republicans were more obsessed with keeping their jobs than standing up for conservative principles that got them elected. The sad thing is that the DBM was able to use the "Culture of corruption", "Failed Iraq policies" and "Big government" memes as blanket smears of all Republicans. So good principled conservatives like George Allen, and Rick Santorum were unfortunate casualties.

Last week Jonah Goldberg said that the GOP had betrayed it's base:

Let's take the Democrats at their word. They wanted this election to be a referendum on President Bush and the GOP. And despite valiant efforts by the Republicans to make the election a choice between two parties, the Dems succeeded in making it thumbs-up or thumbs-down on just one: the GOP.

And so the Republicans were doomed. The cliches are no less true for being cliches. The GOP came to power in 1994 promising lean government, and it has become the party that needs to unbuckle its pants and loosen its belt two notches after every lobbyist-paid meal. The GOP once had the reputation of being able to run the government like a business and wars like a finely tuned machine. But under compassionate conservatism, government became a faith-based charity.

As for the war(s), the finely-tuned machine is clogged with Iraqi sand. The Democrats think the only solution is to "redeploy" the whole kit and caboodle out of there for repairs. To Bush's credit, he understands that wars, particularly this one, need to be won. But, alas, the Democrats won the argument at the polls.

In other words not conservative enough.

Bob Tyrell agrees:

The Democrats' victories do not signal a liberal recrudescence in the republic. Many of the incoming Democrats ran as conservatives. That is because the conservative drift of the country continues. As many as two dozen of the newly elected Democrats ran affirming traditional social values, low taxes or other conservative desiderata. In the long term things continue to look bleak for the Old Order. Bob Casey, the candidate who beat Sen. Rick Santorum, is a social conservative whose father was barred from the 1992 Democratic convention because of his opposition to abortion. Jim Webb, who ran against Sen. George Allen, was a Reagan Republican and President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy. In the House newly elected Democrats ran as advocates of gun owners' rights and traditional values. One even signed the Americans for Tax Reform's pledge against higher taxes (three Democratic incumbents in the House and one in the Senate have done the same).


The old order and the angry left do remain at the top of the incoming Capitol Hill majority, and they are going to play the role that we have come to expect from them. They are going to attempt to raise taxes, spending and the spectacle of congressional investigations. The Democrats, once they won the second midterm election of the Reagan years, entertained us with their Iran-contra hearings even as the Old Cowboy proceeded to end the Cold War with the Soviets. Expect nothing less from Madame Nancy Pelosi and the dirty-mouthed Harry Reid.


There will also be drama from the Republicans and this drama will be salubrious. Starting perhaps even before this column is off to the printer, the Republican leadership of the House will be gone. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert the leaders revealed themselves to be dull-witted and inept. Their spending spree has offended the conservative rank and file for years. Hastert's flat-footed response to the Mark Foley scandal might well have cost the Republicans the election, virtually reversing the momentum that was then going their way. It is time for him to go.


Most likely he will be replaced by one of the young conservatives from the solidly conservative Republican Study Committee. Indiana's Rep. Mike Pence will probably run for minority leader and Arizona's John Shadegg will run for whip. Both are splendid representatives of the New Order, the order whose political reforms began with Ronald Reagan, continued through the Contract With America, and have been responsible for the economic growth of the past two decades that forced even Bill Clinton to intone, "The era of big government is over." Bring on the future, a future that will not include Pelosi and Reid beyond 2008.

So where do we go from here? Well we do not "play nice" with the Democrats, they were all about claiming that Bush had no mandate when he got %51 of the vote in the last Presidential election, they certainly do not have a liberal mandate now that they have run as more conservative than Republicans. We also hold our elected representatives to a higher conservative standard. Their job is not to keep their job, their job is to advance the ideals of the electorate who sent them there(and this does not include lobbyist lunches).

And finally we keep our conservative ideas, and ideals in the spotlight while at the same time highlighting the folly and backwardness of socialist/liberal thinking. In other words we keep blogging, expect the best from our side and the worst from theirs.

And pray for our troops!!

Linked to Basil's Blog, Jo's Cafe, bRight & Early.