Remember when Newt Gingrich was the darling of the right?
Seriously.
He was largely responsible for the GOP taking over the House of Representatives in 1994. So much so, he was Time’s Person of the Year in 1995. And, he was pretty successful as Speaker. There were a couple of hiccups along the way, but all things considered, he had a good run.
Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger was the darling of the right? Heck, some were even serious about changing the Constitution to allow him to run for president. “Conan the Republican,” he was called. And the “Governator.”
Now, he’s the butt of jokes — the “Sperminator” — after word of his fathering a child with a staffer.
And Sarah Palin? In 2008, to those on the right, it was almost as if the Beatles were showing up. Or Justin Bieber, to you young kids.
Some were saying they wished she was leading the ticket, not McCain. And the Sarah 2012 bumper stickers showed up before the 2008 election was done.
Now? Conservatives are crossing their fingers, hoping she won’t run.
Rather than go on with a bunch more examples — you can supply several, I’m sure — I’ll get to my point. I’m sure I had one, after all.
For each of these — and for those you come up with — we conservatives were like dogs when their master came home: we jumped up and down, all excited to see them. We’d bark and yelp and make noise showing how happy we were.
Then what happened?
The 1998 election and word of Gingrich’s latest affair, culminating with his resignation.
The evidence that a conservative in California would be a liberal in most of the rest of America. That, and Schwarzenegger’s illegitimate child.
The resignation of office, giving the left another notch on their belt, and letting people believe that all the things said were true.
The truth is, Gingrich, Schwarzenegger, and Palin haven’t changed. Not much, anyway.
So, have we?
A little. We’re acting more and more like the left.
If a dog was all happy to see you, then suddenly started baring its teeth, you’d put it down. Or you should.
But, we’re not dogs. The politicians need to understand that.
And, the politicians aren’t those rosy images we painted of them. We need to understand that.
We see something we like about someone. Something they did. Something they said. Something. And we seize on it and proclaim them the greatest thing since sliced bread. Or since the iPod.
Then, as time goes on, the person continues to act like they’ve always acted. And the other side seizes on that. And we pay attention.
Eventually, we seem to turn on the politician.
The attacks on Gingrich, the jokes about Schwarzenegger, the comments about Palin … they’re pretty rough.
Not saying they aren’t accurate or playing off truths. But they are pretty rough.
Politics is a rough sport. You gotta be tough to play it.
Now, I’m not saying we should back off. I’m saying we need to be the parents of the schoolgirls screaming because John, Paul, George, and Ringo are on the stage. We can enjoy the music, too.
And, when John says something we don’t like, we don’t need to burn Beatles records.
We are the voters. We are Americans. We are America.
We need to act like it.
Well said.
That is why Palin is still my girl. I will not let the Lamesreames pick my candidate!!
“But, we’re not dogs.”
I don’t know about you, Basil, but I’m an old dog,, and you can’t teach me new tricks!
bark bark bark grrrrrrrrr ahahahahaha wag wag wag 🙂
Jimmy:
Maybe you’re right. I have been called a son-of-a-bitch.
“Remember when Newt Gingrich was the darling of the right?”
Yes. I still thank him for ’94, even as I’m telling him to get thee behind me and stay OUT of this election. He fulfilled an important role, and we needed him.
“Remember when Schwarzenegger was the darling of the right? Heck, some were even serious about changing the Constitution to allow him to run for president.”
Yes. I always knew, even with Arnie and his masters in Austrian economics, that changing that would be a bad, bad idea. We need someone whose full loyalty has always been to the US; isn’t that why we have the “natural-born” rule?
“And Sarah Palin? In 2008, to those on the right, it was almost as if the Beatles were showing up.”
I still like her very much, and I would support her in a campaign. I still ask Fred why he doesn’t drop out of the old boys’ club and partner with her already; I think they’d be an excellent team. I have some reservations about him, but I think Sarah could help with some of them and we could help with the rest.
“So, have we?”
Yes. I’m libertarian now as opposed to conservative in 94. Arnie really has changed an awful lot; there’s nothing remotely conservative about him, or libertarian anymore. Which is why it’s a very good thing we didn’t go about changing the law to allow foreigners to run. (Not that it helps very much if someone wants to pull the wool over our eyes *cough* Obama) We still need someone whose first and only loyalty is to the US.
So when’s the bonfire? I’m in.
so what, exactly, are we supposed to be doing?
PMike:
First step, recognize the problem.
I’m currently supporting a candidate with whom I disagree on a key issue. But, to me, he’s the best overall package.
If, as president, he pushes that particular issue, I will oppose him.
My point is that I recognize that not everything about every candidate is wonderful. They are flawed humans. With some flawed ideas.
Next, we don’t need to be eating our own. I’d love to see some of the energy in the attacks on Palin, Gingrich, and, yes, even Ron Paul (RON PAUL!!!!1!!!!!), be directed towards Obama and the left.
The 11th Commandment should apply.
Basil,
Two of the examples you site lost their luster because they tacked too far to the Left. If you’re going to ditch someone, isn’t it better to be a matter of principle? I’m sure some withdrew support because of personal indiscretions, but when folks voiced objections to Newt, it was over NY-23, or his flip-flops. Newt was the darling when he acted like and pushed policies supported by conservatives. Arnold was a darling (though I’m never sure how much, really) because he projected a conservative image and then, in office, tacked too far to the Left. However, he lost conservative support well before any illegitimate child story.
Maybe I’m missing your point.
Rock Throwing Peasant:
Your points are valid. But, we shouldn’t be attacking them.
Withdrawing support isn’t attacking. When we direct our support for other candidates, good candidates, we’re doing something good.
If you want to throw rocks (!) then toss them at the left.
So, Basil, since Peasant has already asked some nice questions of you, I’ll ask another: Are we allowed to call you a son-of-a-bitch? How about sumbitch?
MarkoMancuso:
You can call me Ray, you can call me Jay …
Newt is not now, nor has he ever been a conservative. His big accomplishment, the thing he brags about, was a terrible federal power grab. Not only has the Welfare Reform Act of 1994 done nothing to slow down the gimi-gimi’s, it was the one law that made men subject to Federal arrest when a woman said “He abused me!” or “He didn’t pay me!”
So…. we should not “go messin'”with Basil?
Ivan Ivanovich:
You’re not wrong. But, if we could get as fired up about what Obama and the Democrats are doing, we’d stop them cold.
Conservatives are crossing their fingers, hoping she won’t run.
Which conservatives are those? Establishment, “self-proclaimed-elite” types who pushed McCain and Mitt?
If Gary Johnson keeps getting ignored and the rest of the crew out there now is the best the GOP has, she needs to run.
Besides Johnson, there isn’t a conservative in that field. (Wait, what time is it? If it’s morning, Mitt might be a conservative. Oh wait, it’s not Tuesday.)
Veeshir:
Rather than ask those commenting on this post about Palin — after all, I’ve indicated i’m not wanting trashing of Republicans — go look at some of the comments left here in the past.
These aren’t the elite GOP talking. She has lots of support, but lots of opposition.
I’d like to see that opposition turned into support for another good candidate.
I have a dag (see the movie Snatch), so I can see the analogy is appropriate, especially in terms of getting a treat. My Lucy thinks that dog biscuits, and pigs’ ears for that matter, are the best thing that could ever happen in the entire history of the universe. Conservatives are kinda like that in that we get so little from our conservative leaders that we get all excited to just to get a candidate we actually like. On the other hand, if we had a bunch of good candidates, we’d be like, “Oh just another dog biscuit.”
Oh, and if we’re Ron Paul!!1!1! supporters, we might piddle on the floor a bit, too.
Hey-oh, Basil, please dismoderate my post. I’m not sure if it was my mentioning of R*n P*ul or my use of the word p*ddle that sent me into the moderation bin.
Burmashave:
Probably “snatch” got it moderated.
Or analogy.
With all due respect to the Gipper, the 11th Commandment and the arguing surrounding its use is precisely why I checked “unaffiliated” on my voter registration form. I would love to be a Republican but I cannot do so until these people act like proper Republicans. Most of them have no business being within two hundred miles of the party made famous by a man with as much guts as Lincoln.
Basil, you have good points. I used to support newt, I thought he had intelligent and worthy arguments. Then he sat on a sofa with nasty pelousy. Any supposedly intelligent person who buys into the global warming hoax is a fraud and money grubber. He may as well get a blanket, sit in his rocker, and die alone.
Palin’s problem stems from her resignation. She did the right thing, maybe. I understand her loyalty to mccain, although I cannot understand her willingness to throw in with him in the first place. She seems to establishmenty for me, although I could support her over mitt or newt.
I tried to look up more about Pawlenty, but I kept banging my head on the keyboard.
Ahnold should have stuck to movies. There is no way he was ever a conservative. He may have said the things the idiots in commie land wanted to hear, but he never intended to govern properly.
Sasquatch’s husband is one the worst things our country has ever had to endure. The massive expansion of federal power did not start on his watch, and has not abated, but he has kicked it into high gear. The marxists must be stopped at all costs. Which means stopping them at the local, county,state and federal levels. I am looking into what it takes to run for city council, or county commision so that I can put conservative principals to work. I am also fortunate to live in a small state that has senators and a representative that respond personally to concerns ( Which really surprised me).
Regardless of the candidate chosen by the Republicans, the candidate will be better than any marxist. I just hope the voter pays attention this time. Fools and parasites should be admonished and ostrisizeed whenever they vote for a marxists. my favorite is eating in front of them when they have their hands out.
However, if the pubs want to put up another mccain or bush, they will continue to operate without my active support or my money.
plentyobailouts:
Getting involved and promoting the principles that made this country great is wonderful.
You have answered the question of “what are we supposed to be doing” better than I ever could.
Basil not only looks like George Will, he has the same wet nose and floppy ears. Three good traits to have when you are trying to impress the gal you want to marry. Good stuff Basil.
@Plenty-O: Good on ya. Run! Do that commercial with a 30.06 over your shoulder.
Bsil, I usually agree with you, but this time I have to disagree with your premise, and your inclusion of Palin.
Newt Gingrich and Arnold Schwartzenegger received our full support, then betrayed us repeatedly, not only supporting liberal agenda but lecturing to us how ignorant we were for not doing the same. They fall into the category of Scott Brown – even though we knew Brown wasn’t a full-blown conservative, we were led to believe he’d vote with Republicans at least some of the time. And so, conservatives gave them their chance, they took advantage of our support and then joyfully betrayed us, so there’s no reason to support them further.
However, it is only in the phony news media that we repeatedly hear the claim that conservatives have turned on Palin. Yet, that is simply not the case. Sarah Palin has almost singlehandedly driven the Tea Party movement, and was speaking out firmly on issues and changing the entire debate long before Trump or Michelle Bachmann (who is also awesome), or Herman Cain. Her resignation from congress unbridled her, and made it possible to spread the conservative message in ways she couldn’t if constrained by congressional rules. No one on the left seemed to mind when Barack Hussein was elected to the senate, then never served a day as senator, immediately embarking on his presidential campaign. Palin NEVER betrayed conservatives as Gingrich, Arnold and Brown have done, and it’s ridiculous how many on our side have parroted the ridiculous “She can’t win” line simply because they’ve heard it spouted every day on TV.
We never heard “John Edwards can’t win” when it was surfacing that he was having affairs (and babies) with other women while his wife was dying of cancer. We never heard “Obama can’t win” when an unknown, unlikeable jerk with no job history was running and was despised by most of the liberal darlings, including Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and the Clintons. And, it was barely a media issue that Hillary Clinton’s disapproval numbers topped 50-percent in every polling, and that her only accomplishment was being the wife of a failed, impeached, embarrassment of a president while being involved with numerous financial and suicide scandals and bimbo cover-ups herself.
This time around, instead of people buying into the “McCain’s will destroy him in the town hall debates” (NOT!!) and “McCain’s the guy that can win in a landslide” (umm) mantra, let’s pick our own candidate. The “Romney’s going to be your candidate” chorus is in full effect by the left-wingers that want to run against him. Cain, Bachman or Palin would actually do a much better job…and could win the election.
Son of Bob:
I included Palin because I’ve seen conservatives turn on her. Scan back through comments left here over the last nearly-3 years. Many conservatives — and the bulk of the commenters at IMAO are conservative — have attacked her.
My premise, which I readily admit isn’t well-stated, is that we love them, then when things aren’t as we imagined, turned on them.
We didn’t do that when Reagan cut and ran from Lebanon after 241 servicemen were killed. That actioned empowered the bad guys. We didn’t like it, but we didn’t attack Reagan.
None of the Republicans today are Reagan, to be sure. But, when they stray from the straight and narrow enough, we should not attack them as we do. We should take other positive action. We need to control our destiny, and not cut the GOP candidates down. The medianwill do that without our help. We shouldn’t make it easier for them.
Plentyo should get Frank to do some intratubes like stuff for him. Frank is good with things like that.
We, as conservatives, have got to stop letting the MSM chose our candidates for us. There have been some pretty good folks try to pop up only to be ignored (Duncan Hunter) or stomped on (Sarah Palin). The MSM micro examines our side for any pimple, but ignores the cancer on the left. If a GOP nominee had admitted to smoking crack, all we would hear about is crack’s long term effects on decision making, an inteview with the dealer, who would become the media’s darling, and so on. The media also talks up a moderate, and once lifted up as the front runner, tears them down.
Basil, perhaps I’m simply misreading all of this, but I would say that it is important to vett these people in the primary seasons as thoroughly and sometimes even rougly as is necessary. Our criticisms should, of course, be measured and reasoned, but let us remember that only the strong will thrive.
MarkoMancuso:
You are correct. We should weed them out. But we shouldn’t load the enemy’s rifles and aim them for them.
Yes, it’s a difficult balance. I’m saying we’re leaning toward the latter, and that’s a problem.
The problem as I see it, is we have principles. That in itself isn’t exactly the problem, mind you. I’ll try and explain…
We adhere to concepts like honour. The opponent’s policies, not his private life (assuming it’s all five by five) and certainly not his family are our targets.
We adhere to Liberty. Liberty itself is not formed by people, but it can be taken away by people, so we act in self defense.
We adhere to integrity. We are honest with ourselves and our opponents, they twist words, distort evidence, and plain make shit up, so in damage control, we act again, in defense.
When our candidates do something counter to our principles, it looks to me like we immediately call their entire moral foundation into question and look for someone else who’s, well, exactly like us to run for office. If that’s what you want or need, run for office yourself, otherwise that person doesn’t exist. Our focus should be not finding the perfect candidate, but communicating with our good candidates and helping them to understand exactly what it is we stand for.
Leaders are not born, they’re made by those that choose them.
When I say things like we, us, etc. It’s an intentional gross generalization to get to my point as simply as possible.
When I refer only to the masculine in pronoun, it’s not sexist, it’s grammatically correct when gender is unknown or unimportant.
Basil,
The big difference between Reagan and the Newt Gingrich, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Scott Brown types is that we knew Reagan was real. He was a true conservative, so when he did something we thought was a bad call, or even a stupid call, we still knew that he was sincere about his goals to further conservatism…that he was never a RINO performing “political posturing” to bring in the Republican vote when it was convenient, that he was really trying to further the same agenda as ours. So, it was easier to accept that perhaps he had a larger plan in motion or needed to accept a step back in order to secure a greater move forward politically, etc. We didn’t urge Reagan to be conservative, he urged everyone else to be conservative.
Arnold is an embarrassment to the political party, and should have simply run as a democrat.
Many of us believed firmly in Newt and would have supported him for president back in ’94, but since then he has “McCained.” He traveled the country with Hillary Clinton attempting to sell Hillarycare, he sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi making a television ad about how we need to do more to fight phony global warming, and has spent the past few years making it evident that he is not actually a conservative, but another typical political opportunist.
Scott Brown’s short, but ugly, record pretty much speaks for itself.
Actually, re-reading your original post and your response, the comments I read from posters regarding Sarah Palin are the ones that DO fall squarely into your premise. Palin has more than proved her belief system is legitimately conservative, and has more than gone to bat standing up to perhaps the most vicious media attacks we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and isn’t backing down. She’s never betrayed conservatives, yet many are quick to jump on the “she can’t win,” “she’s a joke” bandwagon, which is pretty week considering she hasn’t done anything except what we’d hope a true conservative would do…be outspoken and fight for our issues.
Son of Bob:
I still don’t think Gingrich, Brown, Schwartzenegger, or any of them have changed. They we’re always like they seem today, we just didn’t recognize it back then. Or, they beat the he’ll out if the alternative.
If we see them differently today, it’s because we’re seeing them more accurately. We shouldn’t turn on them. We should direct our energies to doing something or supporting some cause that’s worthwhile.
Palin, as you said, has been consistent and reliable. Except for that whole resigning from the governorship. That pales in scope to Reagan’s pulling out of Lebanon. Overall, Palin has done good, as we say down here.
I’m supporting Cain this election cycle. Since he’s from Georgia, I know more about him and his history and his record. Not perfect, but he’s good.
Having said that, I could easily support Palin. And, though not as easily, most other on the GOP side.
I’m terribly sorry but you couldn’t have picked worse example for you supposition. Palin aside the other two “politician” lost respect not only for what they did or didn’t do legislatively but because their personal lives mirrored their inability to remain committed to what they “said” they believed in. Gingrich betrayed his wife and family and then had to resign betraying his constituents and his fans. Arnold did the same, he just didn’t have to resign but because he didn’t remain faithful to the principles he ran on he was unfaithful to those who elected him and his family.
I refuse to support people who say they believe in what I believe and then go out and act as if they’ve never heard of the morals I live by. I don’t give a rats )&)&** who you are, how much money you make, where you graduated, what color you are or what god you worship. If you are taking bribes, sleeping around, hiring your friends and relatives, making shady business deals or being influenced by special interest you need to go. No matter what party you belong to.
The PARTY IS OVER. Please take your ball and go home. Do not pass go, do not collect any amount of our money. Just go and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
And if we can’t come up with a better field of leaders than we have on either side maybe we ought to give it up and descend into the chaos we deserve.
“We have met the enemy and he is us”.- Pogo
I disagree, Washington (and Austin) changes people. Many fine conservatives have been elected and then slowly corrupted.