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Op-ed: Republicans Have Lost a Coherent Philosophy »
Posted by: ameliog 1 year, 10 months agoOne verdict from the 2006 election was obvious before a single vote had been counted: the Republican Party no longer has a coherent governing philosophy.
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Comments: 27
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Lurch
Nov. 7, 2006, 4:52 a.m.ouch, the article is much more blistering than the title suggests.
Brutal, but true.
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Donnaich
Nov. 7, 2006, 5:52 a.m.Extremely brutal! And the sad part (for the Republicans, that is)? Because of the title, few of them will look at it, truly read it, digest it and decide to do something about it.
As I said all along, there are some good Republicans out there, "old guard" types, as you will, who have been used and betrayed by the NeoCon/Religious Right coalition. They used to offer some hope; now all they give is hate, fear, and greed. They offered balance; now, its all or nothing. My way or the highway, Bush right or wrong! The moderate and old time Republicans have got to clean these radicals out.
Else, its time for a third party to take their place, and let the Republican Party die. And that may be for the best if they can't fix it.
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ameliog
Nov. 7, 2006, 1:01 p.m."Else, its time for a third party to take their place, and let the Republican Party die."
Funny you should mention that. I just got back from the voting place - we still use the old punch cards - and I've never seen more 3rd party candidates on the ballot. We don't have Greens or those types, but there were a lot of Libertarian and Independent candidates. This was quite surprising and interesting for a red state like mine (for example, all our county offices were unopposed GOP).
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Sandokan
Nov. 7, 2006, 7:01 a.m.@Donnaich & Lurch; I agree with everything except the "blistering" & "brutal" tags. The article was very kind, IMHO, about the GOPs. I fault the Democrats for not running their campaign with Rove in mind. They underestimated the Rovian Machinery,his methodology and paid the price. Half truths have always been part of the game, but the GOP played it with half truths & lies. A focus on this election period should have been to point out that the GOP was totally in charge and that the Democrats had no say in their policy. Pelosi said after the last loss, words to the effect... "well now that the Republicans are totally in control, they will have no one to blame when they make mistakes." They should have spent the time pointing this fact out to the average American. Donnaich's idea of a 3rd Party is not a bad idea, in fact I think it is a great one!!! Should the Demoicrats win and change the current scenarios, the GOP will still be around...
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dandt1612
Nov. 7, 2006, 9:41 a.m.I am so tired of hearing that the Democrats will raise taxes. Well if taxes do go up we know who to blame and not the Democrats because they did not create the mess we are in. You can blame Bush and Gang for that!!!!!!!!
VOTE for CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!
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bubba2
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:27 p.m.* Stock market - for the 10 to 20 percent (IF that much) of Americans that have ANY money to invest, that's lovely. It is NO help the other 80% of the American workforce.
* The unemployment figures are only ONE piece of a BIG puzzle. Almost 2 million unemployed are NOT counted because they have been out of work long enough to no longer receive any benefits. 14 million people are UNDEREMPLOYED (job is not at their skill level or is not full-time). 8 million people work TWO or more jobs to try to make ends meet.
* How much you wanna bet that the price so oil and gasoline will go UP after the election? In fact, it has ALREADY been reported on the news that it will indeed go up. Even if it does NOT, the price of gasoline in 2003 was $1.40 a gallon. The current price is a 50% increase.
* Taxes are low for the 1-2% of the wealthy that saw the biggest gain on less taxes paid. (http://www.cbpp.org)
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bubba2
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:27 p.m.* Tax revenues are at all time highs? Really! Some stats, please. The government BORROWED billions to PAY for the tax cuts! Tax revenues are DOWN thanks to the tax cuts and to allowing more corporations to set up their 'headquarters' offshore so that they don't have to pay corporate taxes!
* The deficit for ONE year was only $250 BILLION instead of over $400 Billion. The national DEBT is still going UP and is approaching NINE TRILLION dollars!
* Home values are up - may be but who can afford them? The median average increase in income since 2001 has been 3.9%. Meanwhile, home heating costs have increased 60-70%, healthcare insurance premiums have increased 80%, cost of college has increased WELL past the rate of inflation!
* Inflation may not be high, but see above - too many costs are rising WAY BEYOND the inflation rate.
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bubba2
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:28 p.m.* Terrorist attacks: you want to credit Republicans for no attacks since 9/11? Hardly - we are only LUCKY. Republicans have done NOTHING to secure our borders nor our cargo shipping ports. Terorists are HERE - if you think the propagandic spin of "fighting them over there means we won't have to fight them over here", then you are very naive.
* Osama Bin Laden is alive and well. Bush is quoted as saying that he isn't even thinging about Osama. Meanwhile, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have re-emerged in Afghanistan because we pulled troop out of there to to go Iraq, the WRONG place.
Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are responsible for 9/11 - NOT Iraq!
* The recent attempt to explode jets from England to the U.S. was thwarted by ENGLAND, not by US. And you know how they did that? With POLICE action and government agent investigations, NOT by fighting a war in the wrong country.
What attacks, specifically, have the Republicans thwarted lately?
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bubba2
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:28 p.m.Iraq may be "ground zero" for terrorism NOW, after the jihad recruiting is at an all time high BECAUSE of the mess we have made in Iraq (read the latest government NIE)!
Iraq had NO Al Qaeda connections. Saddam practiced 'terrorism' against Turkey and Israel, but he had NOTHING to do with Al Qaeda, he had NOTHING to do with 9/11, and he had NO WMDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Report_of_Pre-war_Intelligence_on_Iraq
We had NO business going into Iraq. We should have stayed in Afghanistan. That has been THE BIGGEST mistake of this administration (along with all of the lying).
"It's easy for the Democrats to attempt to discredit, disgrace and defame our commander in chief, George W. Bush ..."
IT SURE IS, because there are MOUNDS of DOCUMENTATION to PROOF that Bush and his cronies lied about Iraq, lied about warrantless wiretapping, lied about rendition, lied about the economy.
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bubba2
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:29 p.m.YOU are the "mindless sheep or a blind liberal lap dog" by BLINDLY following the Republicans spin and NOT facing the documented, recorded facts that prove how miserably they have run this country over the last 5 years.
The stakes are definitely high. The people that have been in power and running this country for the last 5 years need to be voted out of office.
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truthaddict
Nov. 7, 2006, 11:06 a.m.Thank God America rejects the failed Repub ideology today!
Today is a good day!
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HAETE
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:24 p.m.oh my heavens. ANOTHER comment with "failed ideology" in it. you are truly a sad person. or sheep maybe? i never imagined i'd see someone post the same thing so many times! hahahaha!
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ameliog
Nov. 7, 2006, 11:24 a.m.I thought the article did a great job in pointing out the fracture lines in the GOP, highlighting issues that I've seen bothering conservatives I know.
The GOP as a whole never articulated what they would do if elected, other than "stay the course", which gave them nothing to say after Bush flip-flopped and stopped using the term. That left them with playing fortune teller, telling the public they could predict the future if the Democrats took over. Quite a dubious claim considering they've gotten so much wrong predicting the outcome of the war and their other policies. Their campaign theme came off as "I may be bad but the other guy is worse" - hardly a ringing endorsement for their governance.
And then they tried to scare people with taxes, which isn't even true or provable - the GOP just played to old stereotypes again rather than real issues in hopes people aren't paying attention. The middle class sees through this nonsense.
Time for change.
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rrrtx
Nov. 7, 2006, 3:29 p.m.Change for what though? At least I knew what I getting with Bush. I have no idea what the Democrats plan to do differently.
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not2needy
Nov. 7, 2006, 12:53 p.m.Go Vote,
True, very true, UGLY!
What kills me is the cons on here say the same thing over and over, 'what's your plan' a total cop out from having no real plans of their own!
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time4change
Nov. 7, 2006, 1:25 p.m.I wager that "luvmyprez" will not take the time to read this article...however she should ! Besides threatening that Demos will raise taxes...they always attack the messenger instead of debating the substance of the message. So very predictable !
Hopefully the neocons will implode and form a third party...imagine their title "Politics for Jesus"...."Soldiers for Truth" or even "Hardcore Christians for Family Values" with leaders Foley, Haggard DeLay, Frist, and Sherwood among others !!
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rrrtx
Nov. 7, 2006, 1:54 p.m.At least they had one to lose at one point.
Can anyone tell me the "philosophy" of the Democratic party?
It's a cobbled together bunch of interest groups often with little in common. I think it's the "We're not Republicans" party. It's been looking for a coherent philosophy for some time now.
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stark23x
Nov. 7, 2006, 2:02 p.m.Exactly. Democrats have nothig besides "We're not Republicans" and "We hate Bush." In 2008 both of those motivations will be gone. Then what? At least the Republicans have a core that can be saved with enough effort. Democrats lost that decades ago.
What we truly need are a large number of fiscally conservative, socially liberal and legally libertarian people to band together as a voting bloc and either demand, or create, a true small-government, big-personal-freedom party based on strong national defense, protecting our borders and returning rights to the populace while reducing the size, scope and power of all three branches of the Federal Government.
I'm not holding my breath.
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ameliog
Hmmm. How did you find me? I specifically requested an unlisted profile. While my attorneys look into this egregious matter, I will go play golf ...
