A nobody crawls out of the political sewers of Chicago and becomes president, and now every swinging tweeter and snapping social networker thinks he or she can be president, too.
The Donald, perhaps stung by the gales of conservative laughter that accompanied his announcement and then his bowing out, now threatens to reenter the race, as does The Huckster.
I'm sure Michelle Bachman was an excellent tax attorney, and Sarah Palin has some fine qualities, but prior to Obamamania, no one would even be having a serious discussion about such inexperienced candidates. I will concede up front that experienced DC Don Newt Gingrich is the flip side of the coin that damages my case against inexperience.
My fellow citizens, we've lost control. Christopher Hitchens once observed that "Politics is just show business for ugly people." Well, the beautiful people and the glitterati have moved in, turning politics into a Hollywood freakshow.
Remember back when you had to be a general, or a former vice president in order to run? Arguably, Harry Truman was the least qualified president before the utterly unqualified Barack Obama. But Truman, despite being vice president for only four months, had an impressive background: Senator for 10 years, business owner, and a WW I artillery captain in France.
... But even worse than this, is the talk on the right of a third party
A third party splits the opposition for the democrats, allowing them to go even harder left. A third party guarantees leftwing democratic domination of America. The conservative-liberal self-identification is around 40% conservative, 20% liberal. 40% identify themselves as moderates, and that's where elections are fought in this country. Not by pandering to the middle, but by winning them over to your side by making your ideas attractive to them and by not doing crazy things.
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
I agree we need to fight harder, but Boehner is already punching above his weight. The GOP does not control the white house or the senate. They’re doing what they can with what they’ve got. To reverse the progressive toxic tide, the GOP must win the senate and white house in 2012. That won’t happen if conservatives stupidly split into two competing parties.
Third-world dictators running sham democracies do this to their opposition to keep them weak. Shamed and rejected 1980's Sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega won back the Nicaraguan presidency in 2007 with 38% of the vote because the conservatives who controlled government ended up splitting and running two candidates.
Also, Palin is starting to resemble Gingrich in that she talks a great game, but talk is cheap. She denigrates the GOP efforts, but what has she done? It’s easy to talk when you’re not in the arena every day doing political battle with Harry Reid, Obama and House democrats. Instead of going on friendly talk shows and hitting softballs out of the park, she should have run for election to the house or senate to show us how it’s done.
I was going to title this blog post, "The Road to Hell," but that implies those talking up a third party have good intentions. They don't. Grownup politicians need to stop whining about the "GOP establishment" and go do something about it. Stage an insurrection, take over the RNC, whatever. Just stop crying on our shoulders. Starting a third party is running away with tears in your eyes because the bullies ran you out of the clubhouse.
Is Palin a Mama Grizzly? Is Jim DeMint the conservative alpha male? Then they should storm GOP headquarters, putting it to the torch and displaying the defeated country clubbers' heads on pike poles out in front of the ruins.
We're at the point where we have to ask, is this about winning or is it about self-aggrandizement? Politics is about using power to advance an agenda. Your agenda is dead without power. You gain power by winning elections, and you don't win elections by dividing your ideological base.
The Hill - Growing Support for Third Party
Gallup - Liberal, Conservative, Moderate
Political Potluck
27 comments:
Trump and Huckabee threatening to enter the race again? Ye, gods! Please -- not that!
During some of my voting years, I voted Third Party. And the result? The Democratic Party's candidate was elected to office.
So, I won't vote Third Party again, especially in 2012. I hope to God that conservatives can grasp the FACT that a Third Party vote will lead to no good end.
AOW: Amen.
Having said what I said, be it Romney, Palin, Bachmann or even Gingrich as the nominee, I'd vote for that person over Obama.
The mistake that 3rd Party people make is that they think that most Americans think like them. I can imagine them saying to themselves, "If only there were someone that truly represented the people!"
As you said Silver, a large portion of voters consider themselves to be moderates, or independents, and that's where elections are won. When people break off to form a third party, they're acting ideologically, not politically.
Please say it isn't so. Have we not learned anything?
Why is it the politicians can't figure it out but we can?
And by politicians I mean Republicans.
AOW...WHAT??? Trump and Huckabee?
SF; this is SO well written, great job. NO THIRD PARTY, we're doing badly enough without THAT!
And yes, WHERE ARE THE STRONG REPUBLICANS? The Left's walking all over the senate and the congress and good Republicans MUST take over the RNC...but it's all about MONEY.
I'm quite sure I have NEVER rec'd the amount of Republican stuff I've thrown in my trash as I have lately :-) And thank goodness for the phones that show who's calling "Pol Call" doesn't get answered anymore. I can't give money to the GOP until they start being "GRAND" again!
@Z: NO THIRD PARTY, we're doing badly enough without THAT!
Well stated!
I had heard Huckabee saying he was not going to run, what changed his mind? As for Trump, he is way to liberal for my taste, no thanks.
My money is on Cain and I suppose Bachman.
There is a third party out there, but that wonderful, viable, possible coalition is divided by some of the stupidest, most divisive, dishonest BS.
Here's a list of those stupid, divisive, dishonest BS-itudes:
The Pro-Life movement
The War on Terror
The War on Drugs
Jingoism in general
The church/state reunion movement
Racial Nationalism
and a few others.
There is a huge middle - or "independent" - mass of voters who don't want any of that. They don't care. The want efficient, necessary, smart government - nothing more, nothing less.
It's a same that we get caught up in all that other nonsense.
JMJ
Yes -- and no. I learned my lesson when I -- and most of my more thinking friends -- fell for Perot and voted for him, because we were sick to death of that mealy-mouthed weak sister George Herbert Walker Bush.
So what was our reward for being "thoughtful" and for believing "meaningful change" to be a real possibility?
We got WILD BILL KLINTOON, and thus made asses of ourselves -- or did we?
I'm seventy years old. For more than a decade I can't help but have noticed that no matter who gets elected -- Republican or Democrat -- nothing changes very much -- the slide towards Nanny State collectivist totalitarianism, loudly and forcefully misrepresented as egalitarianism and humanitarianism, just keeps on a happenin.'
Of course with Democrats in power things get worse a lot faster, but when people get sick of that and vote for change, the Republicans never make much effort to correct the grievous errors made -- other than giving lip service to their campaign promises -- do they? So what does that mean?
It says to me that both parties are makin' whoopee at our expense behind the national barn, and mentally thumbing their noses at Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Publick.
If neither party is legitimately representing the interests of American citizens, but merely playing us off against each other to further centralize, aggrandize and sustain their power -- an ugly scenario that certainly appears to be the case -- precisely whom, what DO the parties represent?
I don't like conspiracy theories any more than the next guy, but there is abundant evidence to indicate the problem of non-representation by both parties along with the complete politicization of the Supreme Court is not merely a figment of someone's fevered imagination.
Has this situation emerged solely by accident or could it be the result of intelligent design?
I don't know. You tell me. But "something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
~ FreeThinke
Jersey said, a likely majority of the people want "efficient, necessary, smart government."
That sounds good to me, but what precisely do you mean by that, Jersey?
Could you flesh it out a bit, please?
Do you think the Obama administration is supplying that need? Do you think that is what we were getting when Carter, Clinton, FDR and Wilson were in the driver's seat?
You seem to ascribe a great many aims, objectives and characteristics to Republicans, Conservatives and Libertarians that many of us do not desire. Also, as liberals -- and partisans of all stripes -- are wont to do, you appear to imply that certain policies, cherished beliefs, and longed for goals are either backward, stupid or inherently evil by referring to them in derisive or dismissive tones.
Perhaps I misread you? At any rate a more detailed explanation of what you -- and anyone else -- define as a "smart, efficient and necessary" government would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
~ FreeThinke
Freethinke,
You've got it all wrong. We most certainly did not become more of a "collectivist" state under Clinton. We kept veering Right. Free Trade; de-and-unregulated banking, investment, and insurance; military and police states run amok; little to no institutional and infrastructral investment increases...
Clinton did pretty much everything conservatives should like, liberals should hate, and independents say, "Eh... Well... I suppose Clinton at least floated the boat of state."
Unfortunately, Obama is headed the same way.
JMJ
FreeThinke,
"Jersey said, a likely majority of the people want "efficient, necessary, smart government."
That sounds good to me, but what precisely do you mean by that, Jersey?"
My personal wants are one thing, FT, but what I mean by that is how we democratically via the constitution decide what we want of our government. We just want it done well.
"Could you flesh it out a bit, please?"
Well, that would take a few hundred pages, but here's an example: Medicare. As opposed to the doomed "Public Option" what if we had a pure Buy-In? What if people could buy into Medicare? I would.
"Do you think the Obama administration is supplying that need?:"
No. But certainly no opponent of his is offering anything better.
"Do you think that is what we were getting when Carter, Clinton, FDR and Wilson were in the driver's seat?"
Wilson? That's a Beck-ian stupidity. Wilson has nothing to do with this.
No. I do not think Clinton was heading the right way, and I certainly don't think Carter was - though he sold himself similarly to Obama.
The point I was making about social policy is that too many Christian independents get stuck on issues that really aren't any of their business (what a woman does with her body, what Joe Shmoe may happen to toke, etc), and can't see the prize though that stupid haze in their eyes.
JMJ
Thanks, Jersey. It amy surprise you to know that we are probably not as far apart as both of may have thought at first.
Keep taklin,' and keep listenin'."
That's what we all need to do.
I'm trying to recover from yesterday's corneal transplant surgery, and right now my head feels like it's been smashed in with a sledge hammer, so I'll have to catch up with you in more detail later.
Thanks for the response.
~ FreeThinke
So, what you are saying is I can choose between a socially liberal, fiscally irresponsible party or a socially conservative, fiscally irresponsible party? The only difference between the two is what they want to spend my money on.
How about a socially liberal, fiscally conservative, meh...nevermind, those are the Libertarians...that won't work, but I jest.
I think you ignore the possibility of a somewhat centrist third party splitting both the Republican and Democratic base. I think the vast middle is becoming more and more unsatisfied at what is offered. Not that we are there yet, it is going to take some significant crisis to shake things up, possibly fiscal collapse, which seems to be the current road we are heading down.
From there it seems 50/50 that we'll either save the Republic or wind up with some kind of euro-socialist state.
If the Republicans nominate another progressive like Romney, or god forbid The Donald, I'll abstain and vote Libertarian... they most likely won't win... but at least I'll have a clean conscious.
P.S Should that happen, you can look me up in New Zealand, I'll be aligned with the Nats.
Cheers!
Finn: A split that you suggest would make the GOP the broad middle party, as the tea party would go hard right.
This would put to the test those mushy middlers (most closet libs) who love to blabber on how they would vote GOP if it weren't for the righwing nuts.
Interesting...
All words and no substance? I find that with virtually all politicians. Ron Paul at least stays pretty honest. Too bad he gets ignored by the media. No pundits or insiders mentioned him as the winner of the debate, but all of the popular opinion polls did. Quite a divide, to say the least. But it should be expected. Elites hate the small government position of Ron Paul.
"Not by pandering to the middle, but by winning them over to your side by making your ideas attractive to them and by not doing crazy things."
Yep, and that gets progressives neoliberal statists like Clinton and Obama and it gets conservatives neoliberal statists like GWB I and II...
I have to remember to save all your posts and comments so that I can throw them in your face if your guy wins in 2012!
I am voting third party because I am tired of the neoliberals statist twins like GWB and Obama....two peas in a pod.
TAO
TAO: You just made a pretty good case for libertarianism.
Actually, SF, if you ventured out of the right wing mental ghetto you would realize that there is more than just Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians....
... there [are] more than just Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians....
Please be more specific, Anonymous. What do you mean? -- not that I'm disagreeing with you.
~ FreeThinke
FreeThinke: Anon is just a cowardly pigeon, leaving a worthless deposit behind and flying away.
She didn't explain why this is a ghetto and offered no alternatives.
Could she be talking about a theocracy? Direct democracy? Communism?
The world will never know...
I understand, SilverFiddle. I always hope, however, that by asking questions, it might be possible to coax something of greater substance out of those who make cryptic remarks.
Theocracy, a reversion to primitive tribalism, anarchy, the institutionalization of "Woodstockian" practices, out-and-out barbarism, perpetual guerilla warfare, splitting up into communes, adopting a nomadic lifestyle -- the possibilities for alternative modes of establishing social order -- none of them desirable to my way of thinking -- seem endless.
At any rate, I am so glad you don't make a practice of deleting posts or scolding posters not particularly to your liking. If someone wants to make an ass out of himself, why not let him? Where's the harm? We can always learn something from just about anybody, except the most determined site pest -- a breed easily identified and best ignored in my opinion. In my days at FrontPageMagazine I used to call such types "Master Baiters." It drives 'em crazy if you refuse to take the bait, but "feeds the beast" if you do.
Cheers!
~ FreeThinke
FreeThinke:
If someone wants to make an ass out of himself, why not let him?
Exactly
The California Dems. have proposed openly that if they can't defeat the Conservatives completelt that they will "breed them out of existance". DEMOGRAPHICS you know---They also propose that the Dem. power elite nominate "their own candidates" to run in Republican primaries. Do Huntsman or Romney fit this bill? The third party candidate serves the same purpose of course. Your writing is concise and on the mark. Very enjoyable.
Thank you, Scott. I feel better knowing there are people like you in the battleground state of Ohio.
"....now every swinging tweeter and snapping social networker thinks he or she can be president, too."
In their defense, they can see a ol halfwit has won it. So long as the media tag along and there are enough idiot liberals to fantasize about their various dreams.
It is truly a "battle" here in the corrupt "Little Chicago" where I live (Real nickname). A mob / DIVERSE-gangsta / Union / Democrat run town on the rust belt is truly a challenge. This is the Demoncat utopia you hear so much of. Detroit got nuthin' on us! Keeps me up nights and on my toes however.
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