Reply With Quote
From now on, I'm voting for moderate Democats, as they're currently doing a pretty good job at -blocking far left liberal Dems from cluster ing the country with their ungodly 1000-page bills.
Uncivil War: Conservatives to challenge a dozen GOP candidates
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/29057
In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.
Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.
But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.
Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP in bents — Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one — facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.
“I would say it’s the tip of the spear,” said Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. “We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today.”
“What you’re going to see,” said Armey, “is moderates and conservatives across the country in primaries.”
These high-stakes primaries, pitting the activist wing of the party against the establishment wing, stand to have a profound impact on the 2010 election landscape since they will create significant problems for moderate candidates recruited by the national party precisely because they appear well-suited to win in places that are not easily — or even plausibly — won by conservative candidates.
The tensions between the two visions threaten to limit the party’s gains in an election year that is shaping up in its favor.
Party strategists worry that well-funded, well-organized challenges from the right could force Republicans to exhaust precious resources on messy primary fights — or force moderate candidates to adopt more strident positions early on that could haunt them during the final months of the campaign.
“For me, what this says is, we need to take a deep breath and decide whether [moderates and conservatives] work together or not,” said Tom Davis, the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “And if we don’t, it can get very, very ugly.”
Activists contend that the only way back to majority status is to embrace the conservative principles that the party jettisoned during the past decades once it became too enamored of power. To them, the issue is less about ideological purity than about the compromises they see the party’s Washington establishment making and what they contend is a lack of support for conservative candidates who are deemed unelectable by GOP solons.
“New York 23, on some scale, is the first battle of a larger internal Republican debate over how to define the party,” said former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a conservative who is challenging Crist for the Senate nomination. “They want us to vote for their candidates, but they don’t want us to run for office.”
Rubio’s race is one that many on the right point to as the next New York 23, a contest where conservatives and tea party activists are in open revolt about Crist and the national party’s decision to endorse him despite his embrace — literally — of President Barack Obama and his stimulus package during a Florida visit in February.
Rubio has won nearly a dozen county GOP straw polls across the state and is rapidly becoming a darling of the tea party movement.
Everett Wilkinson, an organizer for the Florida Tea Party Patriots, said his group plans to take part in get-out-the-vote activities and other efforts to deny Crist the GOP nomination, despite the fact that Crist leads both Rubio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, the likely Democratic nominee, by a comfortable margin.
To Wilkinson, he’d rather burn the house down if it means saving it.
“We would lose if Charlie Crist got elected or if another person who doesn’t support our policies got elected,” he said. “Our members are actively going to get out there and create awareness of the governor’s actions.”
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a leading conservative who has endorsed Rubio, said he viewed the Florida Senate race as distinct from the New York special election. But he agreed with Rubio’s contention that the national party needed to broaden its outlook on candidates.
“I’m not saying our party made a mistake, because there’s a debate within the party over what we should be,” he said. “If we just start looking at who can win — sometimes we might miss a gem in the rough in effect. And I said from the beginning, that’s what I think Rubio is.”
Florida turns out to be one of many states where Senate candidates favored — in one way or another — by the National Republican Senatorial Committee are facing serious pushback from the grass roots.
In almost every situation, the lay of the land is the same. Whether it’s California, Illinois, Connecticut, New Hampshire or Kentucky, the NRSC has found a candidate who appears to be an exceptionally strong general election prospect — either well-known, well-financed or ideologically well-suited to the state’s politics — who is nevertheless meeting with tough resistance at the grass-roots level from activists who believe the conservative cause would be better served over the long term, even if it means the party nominee loses in the short term.
Even in Illinois, where polls shows Kirk would be highly compe ive as a general election candidate in a state in which Republicans have been crushed in recent elections, the prospect of picking up the president’s former Senate seat isn’t enough to win over many activists.
“We’re going to work hard as to make sure Mark Kirk doesn’t win,” said Evert Evertsen, an Illinois tea party organizer. “Mark Kirk is about as liberal as Arlen Specter was.”
GOP House and Senate in bents are fair game, too.
In Utah, where Bennett has won reelection by landslide margins since first winning the seat in 1992, disgruntled conservatives are looking to take him down in next year’s state party convention after his Wall Street bailout vote last fall and several other high-profile votes in which he broke with the right.
In the House, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) is among a handful of GOP veterans facing primary challenges of varying compe iveness for their departures from conservative orthodoxy.
“It’s kind of like investors in a company saying they’re not going to tolerate it anymore. And that’s what we’re seeing here,” said Eric Odom, executive director of the American Liberty Alliance, a libertarian-oriented group. “We’re already gearing up. This is just the beginning.”
Manu Raju and Josh Kraushaar contributed to this story.
Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help you dead enders purge your party...
From now on, I'm voting for moderate Democats, as they're currently doing a pretty good job at -blocking far left liberal Dems from cluster ing the country with their ungodly 1000-page bills.
"grassroots cadidate" >>> "party-selected candidate"
I could give two s about what party a candidate is; what team he's on; I'm looking for someone who is going to vote as I would vote in most cases on most issues.
What is happening is a good thing, IMO; even if (or especially if) it destroys the Grand OLD Party. I figure the Dems will be ready to eat their own as well, after very little gets passed that they wanted to get passed when they gave "their" party control of EVERYTHING.
I mean, where is single payor? That's what most liberals want, right? Not even on the table - and never was. Does that not upset you? I know Bush's deficits and Medicare part D pissed me off.
There's no such thing as a grassroots conservative. Just fools who've been duped into protesting and legislating on behalf, of corporate interests.
and lol at this purge being depicted as some great moral victory. All these Republicans you're so ready to destroy, you nitwits elected in the first place. You're responsible for their failings.
Go ahead and displace the guilt that you must feel for the GOP's record during the 2000's. Turn on your own misguided ideals like a pack of rabid wolves and hypocrites. Whatever makes you sleep better at night.
But don't plan on having much of a voice in America once your party is split in two. lol
It's "your" boys emboldening Wal-Street now, balli. Checked Goldman Sachs profit as of late, while unemployment keeps rising. And rising. And rising. How can that be?
Stupid weak-minded cheerleader.
I think it needs to be said. the far right and far left have no business setting the legislative agenda for this country. These eco terrorists and tea baggers need to remove themselves from the policy arena and let the majority run this country.
It's like they never lose. In the last two quarters, Goldman has lost money in its trading operations like, three days. They often realize over $100M a day at their trading desk. Amazing. What are the odds on that?
Damn. Never thought I'd say this, but I almost agree with you.
The "majority"?
Please define what that is, along with their over-riding political philosophy. A link would be appreciated.
As with many of your posts:
Well damn, there you go folks. Everyone just vote dem for the remainder of your lives and you are good to go. Everyone thinks politics is complicated, but Balli has pretty much broken through all the red-tape and summed up the only solution.
Now that politics are out of the way, who's up for some backgammon?
That's the thing. What truly is political conservatism these days? It seems limited to certain positions on "social" issues, unwavering support of military action, and unlimited embrace of tax rate cuts. What is truly amazing is the frequency with which I heard and read criticisms of Rep. Paul's last presidential campaign along the lines of 'I really like what he has to say about domestic policy, adherence to the Cons ution, etc...if only he wasn't so liberal on foreign policy.'
TF?
Meanwhile the last GOP occupant of the White House spearheaded spectacular growth in the scale and scope of the federal government, yet somehow he's a martyr and not a villain to conservatives. Not to mention that conservatism used to wear on its shirtsleeves Washington's admonition to avoid "foreign entanglements" and as recently as the Clinton administration we saw GOP congressmen resisting foreign military intervention.
I'll also help the pugre of RINO's
The 912 movement should just call for open RINO season. I think I'll make that suggestion to them.
Those Blue Dogs seem to be better than RINO's.
this is some kind of trick to get independent's to vote GOP.......
well, I am an independent and you can't fool me assholes.
Luckily the Democratic Party is staying sane and cohesive and not kicking them out for having more moderate views than the radically leftward wing.
God bless tolerance.
Why would it be? I have to hold my nose everytime I vote. I'm all for reorganization of the republican party, or voting for conservative 3rd party candidate. I've only voted for one democrat in the last 5 years or more. I vote republican only as the lesser of two evils.
You mean like they kept Lieberman?Luckily the Democratic Party is staying sane and cohesive and not kicking them out for having more moderate views than the radically leftward wing.
God bless tolerance.
Lieberman chose his own path. He wasn't exiled. He emigrated.
The DNC forced him out by backing Ned Lamont in the 2006 primary, leaving him to wither. He still recieved 48% of the primary vote, switch to independant, and won the general election.
I'm as giddy as a school girl.
The reason they are grassroots, is not that they are some average guy - they are still apart of the political class, I imagine. It is because they are not going through the local RNC and/or aren't waiting their turn.
912 isn't a movement, it's a marketing campaign.
Call it what you want. I get emails and seldom read them. There are many people who do support a conservative platform not offered by the republicans. Until the republicans acknowlege they have strayed to far left, they may as well plan for their funerals.
Remember the idea floating around more than a year ago, better to have the economy dump fast under democrats than a slow death under republicans? Maybe people will wake up. Both partys are destroying this nation. Democrats are just doing it fast enough to wake people up.
I think Conservatives should put up their candidates in primaries. but stay the same party.
Purhaps, but I kinda like this outright "we've had enough" at ude. I say the republicans. They promised conservative policies in 1994. Did we see hardly any?
Win or lose next year, I see this as a necessary "wake-up call" for republicans.
Last edited by Wild Cobra; 11-07-2009 at 08:28 AM.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
