Bad day for the GOP....

[exstatic]

Domenici is leaving the Senate, Craig isn't.

:lmao

[clambake]

donenici voted with his party about 85% of the time, i think.

at least he tried to help injured servicemen without much support from his party.

[exstatic]

donenici voted with his party about 85% of the time, i think.

at least he tried to help injured servicemen without much support from his party.
Pete was also a guaranteed win in a state where the Guv and the other Senator are Dems.

[Ocotillo]

Add Pajama Pete to the list of retiring GOPers......

John Warner VA (likely to be replaced by Mark Warner (D))

Wayne Allard CO (likely to be replaced by Mark Udall (D))

Chuck Hagel NE (probably will stay R but Bob Kerrey might have a shot)

Larry Craig ID (God knows but likely stays R)

If Bill Richardson realizes he can be the next senator from New Mexico rather than continuing his run for president, the Dems could easily take 3 or the 5. They even have a long shot at sweeping the 5 elections.

[Holt's Cat]

The GOP is facing a fractured base with disgruntled social conservatives pissed off that their asses aren't being kissed enough and disillusioned fiscal conservatives pissed off that Bush Jr and complicit GOP congressmen have spent us into oblivion, so what do the Democrats do? Take to the floor of the US Senate and attack Rush Limbaugh.

:jack

[exstatic]

The GOP is facing a fractured base with disgruntled social conservatives pissed off that their asses aren't being kissed enough and disillusioned fiscal conservatives pissed off that Bush Jr and complicit GOP congressmen have spent us into oblivion, so what do the Democrats do? Take to the floor of the US Senate and attack Rush Limbaugh.

:jack
The GOP's continued attacks on MoveOn aren't much different from the proverbial rearranged Titanic deck chairs, and they're the ones behind and continuing to lose ground.

[Holt's Cat]

So that makes it a great strategy because...?

[clambake]

So that makes it a great strategy because...?


no...that's the sad part. they're afraid of backlash, and not knowing where it's coming from. they don't have confidence in their base.

[clambake]

and we don't have confidence in them.

maybe they will find it with change.

that's our job. to push them

[exstatic]

So that makes it a great strategy because...?
Actually, it's a terrible strategy, but it's worse if you're trying to play catch up... :toast

[DarkReign]

The GOP is facing a fractured base with disgruntled social conservatives pissed off that their asses aren't being kissed enough and disillusioned fiscal conservatives pissed off that Bush Jr and complicit GOP congressmen have spent us into oblivion, so what do the Democrats do? Take to the floor of the US Senate and attack Rush Limbaugh.

:jack

Here fucking HERE!

:tu

[boutons_]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/spacer.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/printerfriendly.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/darjeeling/image40.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch2007-emailtools02d-nyt5-511278&ad=darjeeling_tdl_88x31.gif&goto=http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thedarjeelinglimited/)



October 5, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

The Republican Collapse

By DAVID BROOKS

Modern conservatism begins with Edmund Burke. What Burke articulated was not an ideology or a creed, but a disposition, a reverence for tradition, a suspicion of radical change.

When conservatism came to America, it became creedal. Free market conservatives built a creed around freedom and capitalism. Religious conservatives built a creed around their conception of a transcendent order. Neoconservatives and others built a creed around the words of Lincoln and the founders.

Over the years, the voice of Burke has been submerged beneath the clamoring creeds. In fact, over the past few decades the conservative ideologies have been magnified, while the temperamental conservatism of Burke has been abandoned.

Over the past six years, the Republican Party has championed the spread of democracy in the Middle East. But the temperamental conservative is suspicious of rapid reform, believing that efforts to quickly transform anything will have, as Burke wrote “pleasing commencements” but “lamentable conclusions.”

The world is too complex, the Burkean conservative believes, for rapid reform. Existing arrangements contain latent functions that can be neither seen nor replaced by the reformer. The temperamental conservative prizes epistemological modesty, the awareness of the limitations on what we do and can know, what we can and cannot plan.

Over the past six years, the Bush administration has operated on the assumption that if you change the political institutions in Iraq, the society will follow. But the Burkean conservative believes that society is an organism; that custom, tradition and habit are the prime movers of that organism; and that successful government institutions grow gradually from each nation’s unique network of moral and social restraints.

Over the past few years, the vice president and the former attorney general have sought to expand executive power as much as possible in the name of protecting Americans from terror.

( but, having allowed on horrendous attack on the US, dickhead knows if another occurs, the Repugs won't be able to lie and obfuscate their way out of repsonsiblity for the attack )

But the temperamental conservative believes that power must always be clothed in constitutionalism. The dispositional conservative is often more interested in means than ends (the reverse of President Bush) and asks how power is divided before asking for what purpose it is used.

Over the past decade, religious conservatives within the G.O.P. have argued that social policies should be guided by the eternal truths of natural law and that questions about stem cell research and euthanasia should reflect the immutable sacredness of human life.

But temperamental conservatives are suspicious of the idea of settling issues on the basis of abstract truth. These kinds of conservatives hold that moral laws emerge through deliberation and practice and that if legislation is going to be passed that slows medical progress, it shouldn’t be on the basis of abstract theological orthodoxy.

Over the past four decades, free market conservatives within the Republican Party have put freedom at the center of their political philosophy. But the dispositional conservative puts legitimate authority at the center. So while recent conservative ideology sees government as a threat to freedom, the temperamental conservative believes government is like fire — useful when used legitimately, but dangerous when not.

Over the past few decades, the Republican Party has championed a series of reforms designed to devolve power to the individual, through tax cuts, private pensions and medical accounts. The temperamental conservative does not see a nation composed of individuals who should be given maximum liberty to make choices. Instead, the individual is a part of a social organism and thrives only within the attachments to family, community and nation that precede choice.

Therefore, the temperamental conservative values social cohesion alongside individual freedom and worries that too much individualism, too much segmentation, too much tension between races and groups will tear the underlying unity on which all else depends. Without unity, the police are regarded as alien powers, the country will fracture under the strain of war and the economy will be undermined by lack of social trust.

To put it bluntly, over the past several years, the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots. This may seem like an airy-fairy thing that does nothing more than provoke a few dissenting columns from William F. Buckley, George F. Will and Andrew Sullivan. But suburban, Midwestern and many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives. They care about order, prudence and balanced budgets more than transformational leadership and perpetual tax cuts. It is among these groups that G.O.P. support is collapsing.

American conservatism will never be just dispositional conservatism. America is a creedal nation. But American conservatism is only successful when it’s in tension — when the ambition of its creeds is restrained by the caution of its Burkean roots.

Copyright 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[boutons_]

Survey: Conservatives Anger with GOP May Be Devastating
October 03, 2007 04:15 PM EST

by Jim Kouri - WASHINGTON, DC -- A poll of 1,015 conservative activists and donors shows that 77 percent are either seriously disappointed with Republican Congressional leaders or want them replaced.

The survey also found that 54 percent of conservatives feel so abandoned by current Congressional leaders and President Bush that they plan to reduce their contributions and/or grassroots work for GOP candidates in the next election. And 70 percent would support a principled conservative challenger running against an established incumbent Republican in a GOP primary.

( Ron Paul? )

"Conservatives feel betrayed by the Republican leaders, and they want them replaced," said Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, which sponsored the survey.

"Conservatives, which form the GOP's base, provided most of the volunteers and money to elect a Republican-controlled House and Senate -- and wound up with bigger government as a result. Now more than half of these committed activists say they'll reduce or end their involvement in the upcoming elections -- which could prove devastating for the GOP."

Asked how they feel about the Republican members of Congress, 48 percent of conservatives report being "disappointed" and an additional 32 percent think they "should be replaced."

Asked to grade the GOP-controlled Congress, 73 percent gave it a D or F on "controlling government spending;" 73 percent gave it a D or F on "reducing illegal immigration;" and 54 percent gave it an "overall grade" of D or F.

Sixty-three percent gave Bush a D or F on controlling government spending.

Perhaps most troublesome for the GOP, Viguerie pointed out, is how that anger may affect the upcoming elections: 51 percent of donors said they plan to reduce or end their financial support.

"This is a recipe for Republicans losing. Republican leaders need to comprehend that if they govern as liberals, they will lose the support of conservatives," Viguerie said.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/28387.html#

===================

So if the Repugs most of their conservative base, and Romney and Giuliani are too liberal/progressive on a couple key issues (at least on their records from which they are trying to run), what chance does a Repug candidate have 2008?