[Loki]

This thread is dedicated to Tex, and to all the other conservatives who were upset by the Republican defeat on Tuesday.

Guys (and gals, if any are out there) – why so glum? None of you strike me GOPers. Rather, you all tend to strike me as conservatives. McCain and others in the GOP have stated that the party has “lost its way”. Others who were being more blunt pointed out that the GOP was more interested in staying in power than in actually promoting a conservative agenda. The ballooning deficit, the lack of border security, the fact that the government is now bigger than it has ever been, the intrusion of federal oversight into items that by the constitutional supposed to be left to the states, the spend-spend-spend, the lack of troop resources – these are all items that have occurred within the past few years under the current GOP leadership and have true conservatives gagging on their milk and cookies. And these occurred while the GOP had control of all three power centers on Capitol Hill. In other words, they had plenty of opportunity and never took advantage.

Under the new Democratic regime you actually have a better chance of getting conservative issues enacted than you did under the GOP. Froma Harrop had an interesting piece about this the other day. Link is here, if you’re interested. She overstates the “Democrat Plan”, because this election wasn’t about a Democrat plan (the Democrat plan seemed to be “Let the Republicans destroy themselves”), but her points are valid. And if you look at the types of Democrats won in the Midwest/Great Lakes you will see that they are centrists, or have some stances that are considered conservative (Minnesota’s Democrat is a prime example). And here I’m talking primarily about fiscal conservatives – I’m sure most of the religious conservatives know by now the scorn by which the GOP held them when the GOP did not need the Religious base for backing on issues.

Bottom line – Conservatives stopped being represented by the GOP at least six years ago and the party is now as corrupt as the 1994 Democrats that the GOP soundly thumped. Perhaps more so, as the ’94 Dems never paraded on values, while the ’06 GOP made a big point of trying to court values voters with morally reprehensible characters and scandals.

This defeat is a great way for the party to clean house and get rid of the deadwood. Can any of you honestly say that Bob Taft makes conservatives better? Rick Santorum? Kenneth Blackwell? Denny Hastert?

Your party needs to reconcile the differences within itself. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and George Voinovich (Ohio) are two centrist Republicans that have been blasted by people within the GOP for not being conservative enough. And they were viciously attacked on TV in their home states by people within the Republican party. Think about that for a second. These are two steady Senators who are a boon to your party, who have been attacked not by the opposition, but by the party proper. But these centrists are, for now, the future of your party. As the Dems found out for their party.

I’m wandering a bit, so to drive it back to my main point – Conservatives stopped being represented by the GOP a while ago. This is a time for the corrupt face of the party to be cleaned out and the next generation – one that hopefully will do more than pay lip service to conservative values - to come in.

[Krydor]

If the other thread is any indication, I'm in agreement with most of what you wrote.

[williamssl]

I'm not gonna bite so much on the "corrupt " arguments herein, but like Krydor, I'm mostly in agreement here. Big opportunity that needs to be seized and this is solid tipping point (sorry, consultantspeak) to drive that to happen.

God Bless America, and God Bless Texas

[Outback Frito Pendejo]

I see several potential good outcomes here. Loki's point about how the parties should look to centrists is good news to a moderate like me. Meanwhile, there should be enough balance between the parties in Congress that centrist swing voters will have opportunities to work in a bipartisan manner, reducing emphasis on hardliners. And maybe W starts thinking about his legacy and does something useful about Medicare and SS. (OK, so that's a stretch.)

[williamssl]

W fully intends to pull a Clinton and (re)write his legacy post-presidency.

Sorry. Sitting in waiting room at doctors and its either read last year's People mag or do this via blackberry.

[williamssl]

OK Loki I'll bite on the "corrupt" thing. I can't have you put some good thought into this and words on "paper" and just get a couple "I agree for the most part"'s from two of your main target audiences.

What specifically do you mean on the "corrupt" thing? Is this a Jack Abarmoff type thing or, when one thinks of corrupt politics, Lousiana comes to mind (as example)? Or are you talking about a corruption or perversion of the core values of the party? Or both? Or something else?

[Krydor]

As far as I can make out, the Repubs allowed themselves to branded corrupt. A perception becomes reality kind of thing. You could probably apply it to all of your examples.

A complete corruption of values, in my eyes. It doesn't matter if you are a fiscal conservative (me) or a social conservative. They thumbed their noses at their two core constituencies. They did not fullfill the Contract with America and managed to do in 12 years what took the Democrats 40.

There are longer and more detailed rants on this topic floating in my head and in cyberspace.

[Loki]

The specific corruption I was referring to was a combination of my memories of the ’94 Dems and the current Ohio GOP.

To wit: The 94 Dems were convinced of their own superiority. Their arrogance was overwhelming, and they believed the rules didn’t apply to them. I remember the check kiting scandal, and how a number of the Dems caught up in it were shocked that people had a problem with what they did. And the “punishment” was a joke - nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a “naughty naught!” finger wave. They were a party more interested in keeping power than in actually doing the jobs they were elected to do.

In that aspect, this current group of Republicans is much the same way. They honestly didn’t believe the rules applied to them. Delay is one of the more gregarious examples – he was up on ethics charges, and instead of actually admitting his guilt the GOP blamed the people who accused him of violations and redid the ethics board with people who wouldn’t find him guilty. The Foley scandal is an even better example – a man who is in charge of young boy volunteers on the Hill who is having questionable and very creepy relations with them. And he’s gay, to boot.

The Ohio GOP – you already know about Ney. And Bob Taft is the first Ohio governor to be convicted of commiting a crime while in office. The secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell, was involved in shady dealings with Diebold (the voting machine company) at the same time as Ohio was having all sorts of voter fraud issues (some of which were connected with the new machines).

There were other examples, too, but these should be enough. There were members of the GOP on both the state and federal level that were corrupt. There were others that were not corrupt but turned a blind eye to those that were. This was doubly damning to the GOP, because they marketed themselves as a values party. Part of their base trusts them with that. They look at the Dems as a moral vacuum but at the GOP as filled with people they can trust. And people like Delay, Taft and Foley stomped all over that. To add to that, people like Delay and Taft are leaders within the party (sadly, others who aren’t corrupt – like Linc Chaffee and Mike DeWine - paid the price).

You and Krydor made good points, too, that dovetail into the argument. Please note, I’m not saying that the entire GOP or all the conservatives are corrupt. But enough of them, and enough of the ones in power, were questionable enough to drag the entire party down.