After minutes upon minutes of soul-searching, Republicans are now in recrimination mode. And the GOP’s various factions all agree: This wouldn’t have happened if the party had listened to us.
In the aftermath of the historic GOP losses Tuesday night, moderate Republicans quickly concluded that the party needs to be more moderate. Conservative Republicans declared that it should be more conservative. Main Street is angry at Wall Street, theo-cons are angry at neo-cons, and almost everyone is angry at President Bush and the GOP congressional leadership.
The party purges formally began yesterday, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert agreed to step down before they were pushed. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had already decided to leave Congress, but GOP insiders said Tuesday’s debacle should eliminate him from presidential contention in 2008.
“We ought to just mend our wounds, bury our dead, learn from our mistakes and move on,” said GOP lobbyist Ed Rogers. “But first we’re going to have go through this. Look, bad policy and bad politics makes for bad elections.”
The common theme of the Recriminatathon is that the party lost its way after seizing control of Congress in 1994, focusing on power and perks instead of principles. But behind all the maneuvering, posturing and backstabbing lingered a serious debate over the party’s future, and what those principles should be. It’s a familiar argument between confrontation and compromise: appealing to base voters on the right or independents in the middle.
With the benefit of hindsight, most Republicans seemed to agree that their congressional leaders should have been more aggressive about ousting members engulfed in scandals. The RNC has sent e-mails for months accusing Democrats of a “culture of corruption,” but yesterday its surprisingly self-critical talking points vowed to ensure “that the leaders in our party have public service as their highest calling and not personal enrichment or power.”
Do you know someone who actually joined the Republican Party over broad political ideology in the past couple of years? The question isn’t about single-issue alliances; but, the broad neocon brush that smeared traditional conservatives as RINO’s.
#19 – He’s not really clueless. He just acts that way.
#15 #11 – Key demographics? Cable news doesn’t care about key demos, they care about anyone with a pulse watching them (look at Larry King’s audience). Nice try at spin, however.
#13 – Agreed… there are some people that still watch CNN. That is what you mean, right?
#14 – Don’t mock the left’s base.
Thanks for playing.
Comment by James Hill — 11/9/2006 @ 11:55 am
The opposite of everything you said is actually true, but thank you for playing too.
lets get rid of the Rebublicans all together and bring back the Whigs!!!!
I apologize to Shirley, Kermit and the entire world.
Shame Game
Come on everybody!
I say now let’s play a game
I betcha I can make a shame out of anybody’s name
The 6th year of a duck that’s lame, I treat it like it’s rejection
How many House seats lost in such mid-term elections?
Franklin!
Franklin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bonana fanna’d 71 Loozersmelt
Dwight!
Dwight, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bonana fanna’d 47 Eyes-on-power
John!
John, John F. Kennedy, Bonana fanna’d 47 Good’n bed, he
Richard!
Richard, Richard M. Nixon, Bonana fanna’d 43 Crucifixion
Ronald!
Ronald, Ronald W. Reagan, Bonana fanna’d 5 There you go ag’in
RBG!
RBG, RBG, Bonana fanna’d his meter, deadbeater.
Most of the talking heads are saying that the Center now belongs to the Democrats. Hopefully, they wont make the same mistake as 92 and take this as a big liberal victory and go veering off to alienate the people who put them in control. I trust that Rahm Emmanuel, as a former Clintonista and recruiter of moderate candidates this year, is sufficiently aware of this. Hopefully, the others will listen.
And GOP? Time to try to recoup some theocons. You know, those guys who think that Pork Barrel should only apply to Democrats and who will concede lip service to keep the Evangelicals on the reservation, but not hand over the controls. The guys who want a realistic, not a Crusader, foreign policy, and some basic competence at the helm of government.
Wait. Let me do that last line again…
RBG
“However, there’s nothing to prevent administration officials, including the president, from being prosecuted when they leave office.”
Yes, there is, actually. See if you can find it with Google.
#35. Oops, that should be “recoup some paleocons”
RGB, the Ritalin.
I enjoy the continued worship by those who can’t prove me wrong. Only one point worth destroying, as the rest of you admitted defeat by your non-answers.
#19 – Thankfully my wife works in television, and I know enough to know you’re full of shit. Demographics are not as important for cable television, and certainly not for cable news, as they are for broadcast television. If they were, Larry King wouldn’t be on the air… and no one would give a shit about O’Riley. Neither pull the 18-39 demo worth a damn.
Raw eyeballs (nice name) are the only measuring stick that matters for cable television, because subscriber numbers and total viewers are what is used to determine how much the cable companies should pay for each channel, and how much they should charge for the Thighmaster commercials.
Nice try, you lose. Have a nice day.
Now, let the worship continue.
Being a “Fluffer” in television is not really something you want to brag about.
RBG
Oh crap. Somebody take off my comment in #41, please. Funny but maybe goes too far even for a stupid joke.
RBG
#42….RBG….try engaging your brain ***FIRST***…before you open your foot trap. Wives are off limits, unless they are the ones making the comments 🙂
43. Hey, everybody gets at least one drunken post, except James Hill, he’s used his up.
43. You’re right, sorry for the stupidity.
RBG
#32
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Hey, James brought his wife to the party….
What’s funny is watching him get stomped and his being oblivious to it.
I don’t get it. I keep ignoring James but he won’t go away.
#37, there isn’t? Why don’t you try googling it. While the President and Vise President might try executive privilege, it isn’t a certainty it would save them from felonious behavior. Other officials have no protection from felonious acts.
But I’m not that stupid.
See, you had me. But, just as I thought, you would leave that comment up because it amuses you to do so. Now I get to respond thusly:
Let me guess why you didn’t take down my #41 comment as requested. First, if challenged, your public response, would be:
“Upon reviewing the questionable comment, the editors at Dvorak Uncensored are in agreement that, while the post is in very bad taste and is certainly nothing we would ever condone or write ourselves, it has been determined that the content does not specifically violate any of the posting guidelines by the slimmest of margins. As always, it is the responsibility of the blah-blah blah blah…”
Meanwhile high upon The Dvorak Tower, tucked away in a spacious glass penthouse, the seven DU editors are to be found floating naked in a warm nutrient bath. Feeding tubes and oxygen-bearing nasal cannulas direct life-giving sustenance into their bloated bodies.
Eideard: Jeez, John, the kid’s good. Visitations are up 12%. Ad clicks are up 23% with that one post alone. But I should really pull that comment.
Dvorak: Uhh… no.
Eideard: No? Cripes, John, you can see the guy’s just twisting in the wind in a most uncomfortable way. And what about the wife? What ab…
Dvorak: (Hurls lit cigar at Eideard) I said NO GOD DAMMIT!! And if any one of you thinks he’s man enough to pull off my ostomy bag… Well, just try it.
Was I anywhere close?
RBG
We’ve disproved James many times, he just like punishment.
And to anyone celebrating about dems gaining power or republicans losing power, its all the same damn thing at the end of the day.
Republicans sell us out to big business, cheap labor, and religion
Dems sell us out to “Charity organizations” communist countries they’re “negotiating with” and stupid race right groups.
And honestly the only thing republicans will regret is not having power right now. I think 12 years of being able to do damn near anything you want and the millions in kiss ass money you get for “helping” other your friends will more than make up for their heartbreak.
Shouldn’t have let the neo cons jack your base so damn easily conservatives. The reason Bush is kissing dem ass right now isn’t because he wants to embrace change, he is hoping they don’t screw over all the stuff he did in the last six plus years and put him where he will be in the history books, a fear mongering moron who didn’t give a damn about what people like say the American people thought about his policies.
Oh yeah and since Dems are in office now, hello Amnesty.
They’re all sellouts.
50. well said.