Obviously I am very disappointed in the results from election night. So much so, that I really have not had the heart to even write this. But, Kathleen Parker got me out of that and quickly too.
The truth is, Romney was better than the GOP deserved. Party nitwits undermined him, and the self-righteous tried to bring him down. The nitwits are well-enough known at this point — those farthest-right social conservatives who couldn’t find it in their hearts to keep their traps shut. No abortion for rape or incest? Sit down.Legitimate rape? Put on your clown suit and go play in the street.
Equally damaging were the primary leeches who embarrassed the party and wouldn’t leave the stage. Nine-nine-nine, we’re talking about you, Herman Cain. And Gov. Oops? You, too. And then there were Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, who never had a real shot at the nomination and certainly could never win a national election, yet they refused to surrender to the certain nominee.
Did they have a right to persist in their own fantasies? Sure. But not if they were serious about getting a Republican in the White House. Thus, for months and months, Romney had to spend his energy and, as important, his money to prevail in the primaries against opponents who had no chance and who ultimately hurt him. During that same precious time, Obama’s campaign was busy pinpointing specific voters, practically learning the names of their dogs, and buying ads in niche markets.
Wow, so it is my fault. Not that I am even “furthest right” when it comes to social issues. I have made no bones about it, I didn’t like Mitt Romney as the nominee. I have been saying for over a year that had he got the nomination he would lose. I didn’t even think that because of his wishy washiness on social issues. To me social issues are not really the purview of the federal government, and I don’t care which side is trying to make the case that they are. You cannot legislate your sense of morality onto someone else, it comes from within. That said, people still want to see that you have core convictions.
I also have seen many of the more moderate republicans all across social media blaming the tea party and SoCons. Really? I will say it again, I didn’t like Romney as the nominee. I didn’t want to vote for him. When push came to shove, I went out and I did it. Not only did I vote for him, I went out and worked my ass off trying to get him elected. I spent the final six weeks of the cycle on trains, planes, and automobiles crisscrossing the country from swing state to swing state. I spent 7 to 8 hours per day knocking on doors, then spend another few hours making phone calls. I did this in close to freezing temperatures and pouring rain one more than one occasion. I slept in hotel that I had to keep changing rooms because of bugs. Don’t tell me that I didn’t take one for the team.
Every Tea Party minded person I know personally did similar things as well. Americans for Prosperity, one of the tea party umbrella groups, helped get people like me out to swing states. Do you think that Romney was their initial choice? Not likely, but we will never know as they don’t endorse candidates. But, you still saw them working night and day on the GOTV effort. Like me, they understood the stakes.
Now, what did the squishy middle do? Were they there? Did the same people who are throwing this blame around at people like me get out from in front of their computers and make the same personal sacrifices that I made? Many of the ones that I know didn’t. They sat around posting things through social media to people who already agreed with them. Boy, that was helpful.
One thing that was proven without a doubt is that the moderate wing of the party cannot the presidency without the crazies from the far right. To the people who believe that all life is sacred and is worth fighting for. I will admit that some go too far for my tastes. I refuse to engage with people who show horrific pictures of dead babies and ask me if I think it is ok to rip babies out of their mothers wombs. That is emotional blackmail. But, if you think that same tactic isn’t used on the left you are sadly mistaken. They take one person out 45,000 that has some obscure sob story and then tries to pass a law that forces everyone in the country to change their life in order to accommodate their plea of the day. While of course the opposite is true as well. But I am sick to death of hearing that I caused the loss of the senate and I am somehow personally responsible for Romney’s loss.
I was there, I was in a tightly contested county in a swing state on election day. No kidding, they had me knocking on doors that already had literature on it. I called and told them that this was happening. I was told to just keep going. I walked seven miles on election day, going door to door. At one point I had to find a woody area so I could go to the bathroom because I knew that one of the drivers wouldn’t be able to get me in time, I was so far out from the victory office. Luckily I had napkins with me.
After returning from day of door knocking I was making calls all day. I was calling Minnesota. You know what, 3 out 5 calls were wrong numbers due to bad area codes. How the heck is that my fault? Didn’t the campaign bother to update the phone lists? Apparently not. The campaign is denying the story of software they created for the GOTV effort, but I can tell it was true, at least in Ohio. It wasn’t working properly.
Where was the Romney campaign in Wisconsin? Why didn’t they use the popularity of Paul Ryan as the hometown boy with the all the advantages they had with Governor Walker’s grassroots efforts? They didn’t put enough resources in that state. That is my fault how?
I am sick to death of hearing that my voice shouldn’t matter in the party. That my views are somehow less important than theirs. That I should be giving up on my principles to tack left. Because heaven knows that is what the democrats do when they lose elections. They moderate.
I happen to believe that we need immigration reform in this country. But I am not willing to sell out my principles in order to get it. The facts are President Reagan signed immigration reform decades ago, did that help bring Hispanics into the party? No it did not. Did the democratically controlled congress keep their end of the bargain? If they had we wouldn’t have millions more in the country. Read the law that Reagan signed Ms. Parker. The borders were supposed to be secured. The law was supposed to go after employers that violated the law by giving any additional positions to illegals, oh excuse me, undocumented workers. None of that has happened. So I am supposed to put my trust into the democrats doing the same again? I guess if I am stupid I should.
What people like you Ms. Parker are really saying is that my views matter so little that I should be just cast aside. Lets also take a stroll down memory lane of the past few GOP presidential candidates. McCain, a moderate. Dole, a moderate, Bush I who governed as a moderate and destroyed the yacht industry while president. An industry that all these decades that has never come back, and never will. Thanks to his “luxury” tax thousands upon thousands lost their jobs, companies went out of business, and America, once the #1 exporter of said yachts is now the #1 importer. The industry died and it cost the tax payers millions and millions of dollars. Yes, that is the leadership that the right should be looking for.
President Bush 2 is the only one of them that was ran as conservative unabashedly. He was successful not just once, but twice. Now, he still ended up with big government polices and spent money like a drunken sailor (sorry to all you drunken sailors) that has gotten us to the point where we are now. Above and beyond all the money and the big government policies that President Bush promoted and acted upon during his presidency, his biggest sin was acting like you are suggesting. He rolled over and allowed the left to control the narrative. He didn’t fight back on all the lies. He felt that the presidency shouldn’t be used in that way. While in theory I agree with him on that. I, to have a great deal of respect for the office of the presidency, but times have changed. We have 24 hour news cycles and cable channels that do nothing but spit out a point of view and will use lies if necessary to promote their agenda. That must be countered and countered hard. His refusal to do it, is a big part of the reason we even have a President Obama. So no, Ms. Parker I reject your advice. The protection of religious liberties matter. I will fight for them from shore to shore in this country. The word marriage has meaning. If gay marriage was simply about benefits, the problems would have been solved years ago. If DADT tell was simply about serving in the military we would not have seen people in uniforms marching in Gay Pride parades this year, even though that is clear violation of military code of conduct. You wouldn’t see gay couples suing conservative churches to perform marriage ceremonies. They are trying to say that my beliefs are bad, that there is something inherently wrong with them. I don’t care what a gay couple does in the privacy of their bedrooms, but I do care what they are trying to do to my church. They want tax write-offs and hospital visitation fine. But stay out of my place of worship.
Did it ever occur to you Ms. Parker that Romney was never able to make the connection to voters? Did it ever occur to you that he never gave a coherent reason of why he should be president other than he wasn’t Obama? Now that was more than enough for me, but for the low information voter it wasn’t. Most people don’t like change just for the sake of change. They will dance with the devil they know. That is part of human nature. Did it every occur to you that people in this country don’t want to elect someone who is wealthy as he is? The left, that you seem all too willing to model after, has done a great job in creating a society that wealth is a bad thing, that people with money are ogres, evil, and someone who isn’t compassionate.
People in this country want conviction Ms. Parker. Romney didn’t show that he really had that. People want real conviction because it is a sign of leadership. Stop blaming me and put the blame where it belongs, on the left who have convinced people that anyone that dares calls themselves a republican, or gasp even worse a conservative, lacks compassion and is racist. Look in the mirror Ms. Parker, because you yourself have bought into that argument.
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