Residual Forces

The following confusing letter was run in the Strib. GOP HOUSE CLEANING

It went way too far

In “the blog house” of Nov. 25, Tim O’Brien mentions that Andy Aplikowski, in his Republican blog Residual Forces, is pointing out how the GOP leadership has lost touch with its roots.

That’s not the point I am making. The GOP leadership has lost touch with standing for something, other than the DFL sucks.

I would point out to Aplikowski that this was not a recent event. Ever since Ronald Reagan, the GOP leadership has deliberately been culling the moderates out of offices. I felt bad when U.S. Rep. Bill Frenzel decided to retire from politics. He was a good man, but a moderate; so he had to go.

So the GOP should be a moderate party? We should balance in the center, and dip our toes into both pools of liberalism and conservatism? Brilliant. Yeah yeah, that’s a bloody marvelous idea. Yeah, we’ll try to steal even more liberal ideas in the hopes that voters don’t figure out they can get even more, bigger, and more intrusive government from the DFL. Yeah yeah, that’s the ticket. We’ll out flank the DFL on that issue. Oh wait, most people don’t really want the government controlling every aspect of their life.

And regarding moderates being run out, I don’t support throwing people out of the party or office per say, but I do not support the party leadership deciding to back a moderate when a great conservative candidate challenges them. Or when the party cuts support for conservative candidates in order to protect a select few candidates who have plenty of resources of their own and have alienated a large portion of the conservative base.

But then again this letter writer is probably just one of them lefties who is just too darn embarrassed to call himself a Democrat or a Republican, you may know those people as moderates. Yep, those people who want to have it both ways. Yep they want low taxes, for them, but government handouts and programs to the gills. A program for everything, and a rich person to pay for it all.

The Republicans kept that up until it was finally obvious to everybody that they had gone way too far. Not only were they out of touch, they didn’t care. They thought they owned the game.

And here is where the letter writer failed to realize that Republicans lost because we didn’t stand for conservative values. Too much spending. Too much government. Too many lefty ideas supported. It is a handful of Republicans that have handcuffed the border security and immigration issues. It was a handful of Republicans that wanted to liberalize the detention and interrogations of our enemies. It was a handful of Republicans that parted ways with the party of judges. It was a handful of Republicans who got caught up in corruption and scandals.

In an attempt to cover for that, and appease the opinion polls, Republicans moved to the center. Yes, they moved to the center, or moderated what they stood for in hopes of seeming less…. of what this letter writer hates, conservative. Yep, conservative is the new 4 letter word according to this guy.

But a funny thing happened. Some Republicans decided not to vote or even voted for the other guy. So now that they are losing the game, the GOP is surprised that they got out of touch? No. They just reached such a disgusting level that even loyal Republicans can’t stand to vote for them any more.

Yep, this guy is trying to say the GOP is too conservative. That’s how I read it. Am I wrong?

Well sir. Did you notice that a good share of the Democrats who knocked off Republicans this last election were actually running as conservatives? Hell look at A-Klo. She tried to hide all her ‘progressive’ and liberal tendencies from voters. Why would a progressive liberal have to run from her fringe leftism? Because even in Minnesota, conservative ideas can win.

People don’t want politicians that they can’t count on to vote one way or another. They don’t want politicians who lick their finger, hold it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. People are attracted to real leaders, and real leaders stand for something.

The way for Republicans to get back seats, is not to moderate their message even more, but to get back to it. Locally Republican legislators pushed for ideas that were completely devoid of conservatism for the past few years, trying to become moderates, and they lost even more seats.  That’s 2 elections in a row now here in Minnesota where the ‘new’ moderate Republican party, lost.

Some good conservatives did lose, but they were targeted by DFLers and liberal special interests like Education Minnesota, there was little that could be done, except maybe some major backing by the MNGOP. But there just wasn’t the resources left for that.

So, according to the letter writer the problem with the Republicans is that they aren’t moderate enough, well I guess all I can really say back to him is what Sisyphus said, “After all, why vote for a RINO when there is a real Democrat just down the ballot.”

This party doesn’t need more moderation, what it needs is common goals and ideals that can draw people to it. If it keeps moving to where it thinks the people want it, it will lose the people already there. That was what the lesson to be learned from the 2006 elections is. Our problem was not our ideas and the voters rejection of them, it was that the voters no longer know what our goals and agenda are, because they have changed too much of late.

Update:
And another thing, it was actually conservatives who took a big blow this election. And that blow was done, in large part, by conservative acting Democrats nationally, and the uber liberal Education Minnesota locally. So save your spineless crocodile tears for the DFL. If you want moderation and BIG Government to reign supreme in Minnesota and control every aspect of your life, there is already a party for you. Heck there is even a splinter group off shoot party now too that calls itself the Independence party. All the ideas you want represented can be found right there. I think it is a very bad idea for the 3 ‘major’ parties in Minnesota to all be competing for the same ideas. That will not bode well, for taxpayers.

Bidding wars are not something that should enter into politics and legislative agendas, but then again…. some people think education endorsements are up for sale.