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Rubio’s RNC speech and my thoughts on Romney’s speech!

by Phantom Ace ( 127 Comments › )
Filed under Elections 2012, Mitt Romney, Republican Party at August 31st, 2012 - 8:00 am

Marco Rubio gave one of greatest convention speech I have seen in years. He gave the story of America being exception and that we are moire than a nation. America is an idea unique in the history of the world. It was a deep and powerful speech that reminded me of being a young kids in the 1980’s and seeing Reagan speak.

TAMPA — Marco Rubio introduced the leader of his party to the nation Thursday night, but judging by the roar of the crowd, some initially wished it was the other way around at the Republican National Convention.

The freshman Florida senator had just 15 minutes as the warm-up act for Mitt Romney, and Rubio made the most of them.

Speaking occasionally in Spanish, Rubio’s address served three purposes: It branded him as a national Hispanic leader in the Republican Party. It played up the best parts of Romney’s biography. And it kept the focus on President Barack Obama.

[….]

Rubio said his father, a bartender, worked 16-hour days and that his mother, a maid and K-Mart stock clerk, often worked overnight shifts.

“My Dad used to tell us: ‘ En este pais, ustedes van a poder lograr todas las cosas que nosotros no pudimos,’ ‘In this country, you will be able to accomplish all the things we never could,’ ” Rubio said.

Rubio compared his family’s struggles with those of Romney’s family, which had briefly fled to Mexico.

“His family came to America to escape revolution. They struggled through poverty and the Great Depression. And yet he rose to be an admired businessman, and public servant,” Rubio said.

“And in November, his son, Mitt Romney, will be elected President of the United States,” Rubio said.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Obama is thanking his lucky stars that Marco Rubio is not his opponent this year. This election would be over, because Rubio can speak better than Obama any day. He doesn’t even need a teleprompter!

As for Romney’s speech, I like most of it. I disagreed with his Wilsonian spread Democracy/nation building nonsense, but it was a good speech. My favorite part was when Romney talked about the relationship his parents had. I also loved it hen he mocked the god-king theme by referencing Obama’s promises to lower ocean levels and heal the plant. This is the key to defeating Obama, destroy the false godhood that has been created.

Tags: Marco Rubio, Republican National Convention
Posted in Elections 2012, Mitt Romney, Republican Party | 127 Comments »

So long Paulbots and the Palin obsessed, take your toys and go home

by Flyovercountry ( 252 Comments › )
Filed under Elections 2012, Republican Party at August 29th, 2012 - 7:00 pm

What is the definition of much ado about nothing? Every four years, during the nominating conventions of both major parties, the rules are changed last minute to avoid turbulence once the nominee has become apparent. In plain speak, When it became obvious that Mitt Romney would be the GOP standard bearer this time around, the Republican Party did its usual job of eliminating floor fights so that a small group made up largely of non party members would not be able to sabotage the effort of using the convention as a spring board towards getting Mitt Romney elected President.

It wasn’t just the Paulbots this year, there were other groups as well. After a long process in which Republicans in every state cast ballots that overwhelmingly stated that they wanted Mitt Romney to represent their party in the fight to remove Barack Obama from the office of the Presidency, a small group of narcissists took it upon themselves to attempt to replace those results with something that they wanted instead. Make no mistake about it, this was never about including conservative values into the meaningless party platform, (meaningless in that Mitt Romney will be running on his message regardless of the party platform.) This was about removing Mitt Romney from the ballot completely and replacing him with a candidate that a very small minority wished to see run instead. Just like every other nominating convention in American History, once the will of the party establishment became clear, the rules were changed last minute to shut down the agitation of the fringe.

There has been, for as long as I have been active in politics anyhow, a separation between the Republican Party Establishment and a large portion of its voting base. At the same time though, it is called the party establishment for a reason. That reason is that more often than not, they are going to get their people nominated, and more often than not, opposition groups will not be successful at this. Before anyone accuses me of being a Romney shill, bear in mind that I voted for Newt Gingrich during the primaries, and indeed wrote an impassioned plea for others to do the same, as the previous link indicates. After the dust settled, Mitt was left standing, and other candidates had fallen short. That does not mean anything beyond this, Mitt Romney garnered more votes amongst the party faithful than others in the field, or not in the field. He won this opportunity to represent the Republican Party, and any attempt to replace him with candidates who failed in spectacular fashion to garner similar support is beyond selfish, it is down right narcissistic.

The claim that a convention where delegates are replaced despite the express will of those who voted is somehow more open than a convention which manages to follow the overwhelmingly expressed will of those who took the time and energy to actually make their wishes known is beyond asinine. After getting into spats over the past few weeks with Sarah Palin Stalkers who wanted to have the convention nominate her rather than Romney, despite the fact that she never bothered to campaign, debate, deliver her message, develop specific policies or theories, I pointed out that the effort to do this was at best moronic. I was pointed to a website that told of the sure to succeed grass roots effort that included bill boards in four whole cities and a form letter asking the elected delegates to voluntarily forfeit their positions in favor of Palin Delegates. Ignoring completely that Sarah Palin had not even once asked for this support, the draft Sarah movement sulked like spoiled children when their efforts failed to even register as a blip on the radar screen of possible outcomes.

Side Note to Sarah Palin: You may wish to seek several hundred personal protection orders as this group of dolts is showing real signs of unhealthy obsession.

I’ve mentioned Paul and Palin so far, because their supporters seem to be making up this year’s contingency of annoying side show distractions. Usually, I wouldn’t be worried about it, but the stakes are bigger now than they have been for a long while. Only the very survival of our nation as a free society with any semblance of limitations upon a federal behemoth lies in the balance. To the Paulbats, you were never Republicans in the first place. The vast majority of your contingency was always populated with left leaning social Democrats, albeit those with at least some semblance of economic literacy. To the Palin supporters, your gal did not run, debate, declare herself a candidate, and as such had no chance of winning. I did not consider Sarah, because she never asked me for my consideration, and that’s important to me. Throwing a tantrum and demanding that we place your candidates at the top of the ticket despite the fact that they did not win anything does not endear your cause to me, and I suspect to very many people at all. If you wish to take you toys and go home, I don’t want you in my party anyhow. We are better off with those who are willing to work for America first for the good of our country, and willing to set aside their selfish desires once those desires were defeated at the ballot box.

I was all in favor of the candidates, all of them, continuing to fight on, right up until the convention but that time is now past. Your candidate lost, and trying to inflict them upon a party that has clearly and overwhelmingly expressed a desire for another will only help Barack Obama. Get a grip, deal with it, or go and form a third party. In either case, leave me out of it, I mostly find your protestations of self righteous indignation to be simply crap.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.

Tags: Republican National Convention, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin
Posted in Elections 2012, Republican Party | 252 Comments »

The Coming Doctrinal Fights in the GOP

by coldwarrior ( 102 Comments › )
Filed under Politics, Republican Party, Tea Parties at April 21st, 2011 - 11:30 am

The purpose of this essay is to frame the upcoming debates by large topic. I do not intend to back one position or the other or one candidate over the other here. The GOP is facing huge fights over these ideas and doctrines that may result in a contested convention where there are two (or three) candidates left in the running for nomination. This may not be a bad thing because a good internal fight can have a cleansing, clarifying, and renewing effect on the party.

The Coming Doctrinal Fights in the GOP

Doctrine– (noun)- a rule or principle that forms the basis of a belief, theory, or policy.

Over the past twenty years, and especially in the last two years there has been several growing rifts within the Republican Party along the lines of Insurgents versus Establishment, the importance of Social Conservative policy, the importance of Fiscal Conservative policy, and on what principals should govern foreign policy. Battles over these doctrines will reveal where the splits are in GOP and should reveal where the party stands by the end of the Convention that occurs during hot August in Tampa Bay in 2012.

These internal fights are necessary from time to time as the political landscape and the people who make up the party changes. For instance, today’s Democratic Party looks nothing like it did under Kennedy. In the GOP this cycle, there are several main factions and driving principals that will be at odds more so than in previous years. What wins in the GOP this cycle will be tested nationally in the 2012 Election. These facets of 2012 have to win the almost all of the GOP first and then win just some non-GOPers to win in 2012. The factions and ideas that will be debated and then tested are:

Insurgents/Tea Party versus The Establishment: The rise of the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party, and the popularity of Sarah Palin among the Right, and the latest Congressional Freshmen are the Insurgents. The GOP has had three true insurgencies in the past 50 years: Goldwater in 1964, Reagan in 1980, and the 104th Congress seated in 1995. That is once every 15 years, the GOP is due again for an Insurgency. We know from history that Insurgents are not always successful and are immediately dismissed on sight by the Establishment the instant they begin to rise. The Establishment does not want to change the status quo, the Insurgents do and were sent in to do just that by their constituents; this has been rather evident in the recent budget debate. The Establishment prefer not to fight and verbally go after the other side. The Insurgents don’t mind a street fight if necessary. In this case, in this cycle, it is the Insurgents who are the fiscal conservatives and street fighters while the Establishment push the problems down the road, maybe change things slowly while protecting their power, and prefer to get along with the other side while maintaining the status quo. The Establishment in the GOP uses the ‘next in line’ principal to determine who should run for the nomination with their backing, this is a very powerful method of staying in control; and control is a good thing if you are in the establishment or agree with them. The status quo has the Establishment with all the perks and power and a generally comfortable existence in DC. Eventually, if the Insurgents are successful, they can easily become the Establishment and the cycle continues. The Insurgents versus the Establishment factors into the Doctrinal Arguments described below.

Fiscal (Conservative) Policy- One can place themselves on a continuum on this doctrine: 1-10 where 1 does not really care about spending and the size/intrusiveness of government as long as the that person agrees with the policies and spending to 10 where the person wants the government cut right now to levels that balance the budget now and everything else be damned. All Republicans are on this continuum somewhere. There has yet to be a fiscally conservative Congress or President since FDR expanded the government. No matter what or who is in charge, the government (spending/regulation/deficit/govt size/ or a combination of these) expands. There have been no real cuts, so no hard-core Fiscal Conservatives have had power yet. But, what about tax cuts? That’s Fiscal Conservatism isn’t it? No it isn’t, because the size reach and expense of government keeps going up even when there are tax cuts. But, but, but…Reagan cut taxes and said that government was the problem! He may have been a Fiscal Conservative at heart, but the size and expense of government still went up under his watch. That brings us to this cycle, we are at the end of continual government expansion from both sides for decades upon decades. The choice this cycle is to slow the growth of government or cut it back; 1-10 is the scale.

Social (Conservative) Policy- Just like Fiscal Policy, the voter’s Social Policy is on a 1-10 scale, where 1 is a total ‘I don’t care one whit about Social Conservatism nor does any of that that ever effect my choice of candidate in any way, to a 10 where Social Conservatism is the overriding be all and end all of that person’s vote at the expense of all other doctrines and the candidate must pass a stringent purity test to get my vote. This doctrinal difference is very large in the GOP because it is very rare to find a true Fiscal Conservative/Social Conservative because often, Social Policy costs money which places those programs in the sights of the Fiscal Conservatives. This is a factor that is now unique to the Republicans. Social Conservatism ceased being a discussion in the Democratic Party many years ago. Is this disagreement a negative? That is a question open for debate if one side or the other stays home in the general election.

Foreign Policy- This might be the first time since the Cold War that Foreign Policy is this large in the primary season. This pits two old adversaries against each other, the Idealists(1) versus the Realists (Wilsonian versus Jacksonians perhaps (2) ?); it is almost impossible to be a true isolationist at this point, so it is not included here . Both sides believe what they espouse is best for America in the long term and short term. A 1 would be a full blown Idealist that would meddle and or invade at the drop of a hat to spread democracy regardless of outcomes later. A 10 would be very concerned with future outcomes and current outcomes as they effect security and national interests if the status quo was changed by meddling or invasion. These can be described thusly: Idealist believe that spreading Democracy/intervening against ‘bad guys’ even by force is always in America’s best interest regardless of the possible outcomes; ideology over national interest and security. In short: ‘Everyone should have Democracy”. The Realist will place security and national interest over ideology; The decision to invade is based on “What will be the outcome of Democracy if we invade? Will this outcome be in our best interests?”

The upcoming Doctrinal Debate within the GOP should be fascinating to watch and discuss. Some pitfalls are that the party splits, or one side sits at home in the general election, or that we allow the media to form these debates and determine the outcomes for us. This is an internal fight. If we allow the outside to control the fight and shape its outcomes then all sides in the GOP will have lost. We are due for this fight ans should welcome it, it happens once every generation or so.

/——-Footnotes/Background/Out of Bounds for the above article—–/

(1) I would have used the term Neo-Conservative here, but that term has picked up some baggage because of incorrect identification and definition of policy beliefs.

(2) Jacksonianism Rediscovered

Tags: GOP, Politics, Republican National Convention, Republican Party
Posted in Politics, Republican Party, Tea Parties | 102 Comments »