I must admit, I was a little distressed to hear Boehner’s address today, especially how much he kept repeating that they would be willing to work with Democrats on certain issues. Yesterday’s turnout was nothing short of a referendum; a mandate as FoxNews is calling it, for Conservatives to take back control of this great nation.
The peasants are widely unhappy with the direction that this nation’s government is headed and they proved that without a doubt. Republicans have been handed back control of the US House, many state governments, and governorships. This drastic change in opinion from 2 years ago shows that We The People will not stand for giant government, record deficit spending, and increased taxes.
Republicans and Conservatives must stand tall and realize that we sent them to Washington in order to enact REAL change…to bring the US back from the brink of socialism and to repeal the wanton spending of the liberals which have plunged this country further into recession and depression than ever before.
Republicans must now continue to stand on the ideals for which they stood prior to the election. We cannot afford to let our elected representatives to rest on their laurels. They must be continually reminded to fight the Left tooth and nail and bring this nation back to the values and ideals under which the Founding Fathers constructed it’s first government. I urge all of M4C to contact their representatives OFTEN and remind them that their jobs are not over once elected. They must continue to fight for the Conservative ideas which we agree with. Otherwise, they too will be replaced.
I personally don’t give too much weight to Post-election speeches by the victors… It is all platitudes.
I suspect there will be less “bipartisanship” the next two years unless it is on no-brainer issues. With a R House, a D Senate and a D President, I do not expect much going through and huge budget fights…
Well to get anything done they have to work with a D Senate and a D President. It takes both houses plus the President to make something law.
However, I agree that they better not screw this up and they need to force a lot of things through. Put the Ds on the defensive continually. Make the Ds compromise.
I posted this yesterday in my “top articles” thread but it seems reasonable.
Don’t pick fights with the Dems and gloat and goad. Just get to work governing and solving problems. Be like ducks – let the water roll off your back – don’t spend time trying to find all the dirt on the Dems with hearings etc – just solve the problems and govern
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opinion piece
Armstrong Williams
Memo to GOP: Govern, Don’t Goad
A good first step would be to get that worthless pile of shit Steele out of the RNC chair position. Right now the R’s need an attack dog that can use the same shit the dems have used against us for the last 10 years. Be smart about it but Steele is a spineless weasel.
Also need to start throwing some presidential names out there. No fucking old ass RINO’s who go out there talking about how we have nothing to fear from Obama. Someone with a spine who is articulate, wants to try to undo some of Obama’s damage, and use free market practices to get the economy going. I think there will be some improvement but business is not going to pick back up until taxes get lowered and all the looney bin garbage legislation is peeled back. Between the financial bill, ObamaCare, and Obama threatening to circumvent Congress for cap and tax via the EPA no large business is going to be doing much hiring unless they just happen to be a good industry right now. There are few of those. These people need to get the idea via the R’s that they intend to improve the business climate again, and reduce the burden both large and small businesses are under. Remove the threats to their bottom line like Obamacare, cap and tax, ect. Throw some incentives out there for hiring people.
Once the economy is better I think we need to really go after the big entitlement programs like SS and Medicare. We have to reduce those costs.
As far as the states they need to go after the huge pensions public employees are racking up.
Let the conservative states show their low unemployment rates and low debt compared to liberal cesspools like CA who elect dems left and right. This is, overall, an excellent oportunity to show what conservatives can do compared to liberal policy. Liberals will destroy the 8th largest economy in the world (CA) while states like TX are doing pretty well in comparison. If the R’s can get unemployment down to 4-5% they will have more political capital than the last 30 years combined.
I suppose Boehner could pull an Obama and tell him that they won and that he will have to bend to their will, but ultimately that is short sighted and extremely counter productive. Taking over the House and having the ability to filibuster in the Senate pretty much ensures that the president’s agenda died a miserable death last night. Now that is out of the way both parties had better find a way to work together to clean up the god awful mess this country is in and over the past decade both parties had no issue spending our money like drunken whores. We can’t afford is to sit around doing nothing while the leadership of both parties have a dick measuring contest.
FWIW I think you are misreading the mandate from last night. The mandate wasn’t that the country wanted conservatives as much as they wanted fiscal sanity restored to this country. Granted conservatives like to talk about being fiscally responsible but they sure as hell haven’t walked that walk for years. Whoever, responds to that demand will be well positioned come 2012. Those who don’t respond to that call will learn the hard way and if I were a betting man I’d bet the outcome would make yesterdays results look like a walk in the park. Don’t rule out the Democrats heeding that message either. It might take him a while but the President, while an ideologue, is no idiot. If he has any chance of getting the change he wants he is going to have to get to a second term and right now he has no chance unless he moves to the middle.
This election saw a lot of anti-interventionists, isolationists, and libertarians swept into office. Many of them are highly critical of the cost of this war and our seemingly imperial presence overseas. Look for a major intra-party fight over this issue.
Im as pro mil as anyone, and think there are tens of billions of waste in the DOD every year. This first clicked for me when I was an E3, and saw the cost sheets of just my teams equipment. The mil was paying ~$130 just for a simple canvas sheet for our antenna heads. They were paying several hundred thousand for a comms modem that was dwarfed by the power of a modern cell phone. We used to setup radio “shots” on cell phones first. Just my teams equipement alone was costing millions of dollars for a setup that could be accomplished with civilian equipment for maybe 100k.
Because so many Congressman have their districts to take care of the DOD is never going to become efficient.
The libertarian side of me says to put the DOD budget on a diet, bring some sensibility to it, and quite wasting tens of billions a year on stupid shit. Just what I saw while in they spend 2-3X as much on anything down to spray paint, and it only works half as good as you can get for half the cost as the civie market.
I think that first and foremost, the R’s need to develop a positive , resilient message. They have proven time and time again that being “against” only works temporarily, and allows the D’s to come back again and again.
Fox News was wrong. Tuesday was not a Mandate for the republican party. Tuesday was about anger. Anger at politicians who refused to listen to the people. Anger at out of control spending and governmental interference into our daily lives.
We did not receive a mandate, we received a chance. If Republicans go back to business as usual like they did under bush then we are going to lose in 2012 worse than the democrats did this year.
People are tired, people are angry, and anyone who thinks that anger is focused solely on the democrats is just fooling themselves. If we Republicans step out of line for even a moment then we are going to have that anger directed at us. We are seeing a shift in how America views politics, it may last a long time, it may only last a few years. But it is a change that must be paid attention to, those who don’t will lose.
Here is what I expect the “Conservatives” to do: Work with the president, play the quid pro quo to get some sound policies in place.
It doesn’t matter if you hate Obama, he is still the president and he needs to be worked with to advance policies that are good for the USA.
Sound fiscal and economic policies are what we need to get the debt down and reduce unemployment.
More likely, the GOP will not try to advance good policies. They would rather try and shit on Obama every chance they get, and see if they can win the white house in 2012, after which the GOP can continue being morons drunk on spending and chasing stupid ass policies.
That will cost us every seat we gained this year. We need to balance what we resist with what we can work with them on. Some things are big no brainers to push back on. Others we need to compromise…
I agree the election was not mainly a “pro-Republican” shift. If newly elected Republicans don’t quickly address the concerns of the people, they will experience the same fate, and likely worse since the media generally do not cut Republicans any slack.
The election was largely about these 3 things:
(1) Voters are sick of big, intrusive, expensive, and ineffective government,
(2) Voters are upset about the economy, which they see as partly a result of item (1), and
(3) Voters are largely rejecting the Obama platform of European-style socialism, bailouts, and takeovers of major sectors including health care.
What should “conservatives” do? IMHO, Sarah Plain had it about right: stick with key principles that align with the reasons that the people elected you, and don’t compromise on those. But DO compromise in areas where you can do so without undermining your key principles.
Take the example of the Obama health care plan. We need to improve health care by REFORMING it, but the Obama plan per se is wrong for the country and should be repealed or stopped in any way possible. So, the principle is that government takeover of health care is wrong and must be opposed. At the same time, compromise on various aspects of health care REFORM would be a great idea and they should move ahead with it. There are a lot of areas where reasonable compromise could be worked out, including tort reform, improved access to preventive health care for children below the poverty line, etc.
This general approach of sticking to key principles, but compromise where you can to solve problems, is the way for conservatives to move forward and get things done.
I’m with you on that. I don’t even want to hear ‘compromise’. I’m still at a loss of how in the h3ll did boxer, frank, reid and the likes got back in. I mean seriously… Frank? What’s it going to take for their constituents to wake up. Did clown boy Smalley get back in or is it time for another recount?
After being kicked around like mangy dogs since Jan 2007, I’d say similar treatment should be in order for the Dems. No compromise. Dig their heels in. Stonewall Obama’s agenda at every single turn. Get to work unscrewing some of the damage done in the last 2 years… :big_boss:
What has me concerned is the possibility of revisiting a Weimar Republic inflation scenario. Soros, Satan’s banker, believes devaluing of the dollar is a good thing. His comrade, obama is doing his best to get us there as quick as possible.