Friday, November 14, 2008
Politics / Woods Lamar Tells How GOP Can Come Back
Posted by Jeff Woods on Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 9:00 AM
“We can stand around and talk about our principles, but we have to put them into actions that most people agree with." “What people were listening for in this election is, what are you going to do about my pocketbook, my health insurance, my electric bill. We need to step back and fundamentally change the way we talk about issues and be focused more on what we can do to help the country rather than what we can do to help the Republican Party.”Lamar is touted in the article as a successful Republican whose advice should be heeded. And of course, he's correct that the party needs to appeal to independents and moderates. But to win elections, it also helps if the Democrats in your state are too pathetic to put up a fight.
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Lamar left out one other major fact, we conservatives and this goes for both Constitutional Libertarians and your garden-variety of Republican, need to be less like Lamar in as much as he is too fundamentally moderate on economic issues such as "global" i.e. free trade as the DINOS and RINOS like to call it.
This so-called economic downturn which is a deepening recession and approaching depression status would not have been as devastating had the world's major economies been so synchronized that when NYC's Wall Street sneezes the Hong Kong farts. Fast track trade agreements which circumvented Congress' mandated legitimate sole responsibility and gave the power to the Executive Branch of Government are quite illegal on face value and immoral at under any cursory in-depth study.
Moderates like Lamar really stand for nothing...when the immigration issue arose earlier last year, he was coy and evasive as to how he would vote when the folks back home resoundingly had made their wishes known.
Lamar Alexander, is if the dinosaur variety or Republican, for whom abortion, free-trade at any costs, wealthy electorate tax breaks, rampant business deregulation and trickle-down-all-over-us economics constitute a reasonable platform.
His and Bob Corker's careers are coming to an end because true conservatives need to pick and choose wisely the issues they stand against and those they stand for.
Lamar, do you want to really help rebuild the Republican Party? Then do consider and advise the Who's Who of the party leadership on the following:
1. Drop Support of "free trade" and reverse it where and when possible. Global Free Trade is an abysmal economic principle failure by any measure and by the immoral yardstick, an abomination to mankind as we in America are about to learn.
2.) Get out of the America's bedrooms...whether it be Gays wanting marriage, women wanting control over their bodies (their right to commit the certain sin of murder of an unborn baby) or any other issue concerning the sanctity of our personal sexual lives. No true conservative wuold want the government nosing around in this area of the people's lives anyway.
3.) Get behind the people with unwavering support for their the fight to keep our nation free from marauding hordes of Huns from across any of our borders North, South, East or West. Support the arrest, prosecution and permanent inprisonment or deportation of ALL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. This means no dainty two step dance around when the issue comes up for a vote. Get behind the people or out of their way.
4.) Invoke a concerted party effort to pull back from the unreasonable and largely internationally provocative expenditure of the peoples treasury in payments to the world. Stop ALL foreign monetary support EXCEPT for a small contingent of friendly unwavering allies...Israel, Great Britain, etc.
5.) Truly support balancing the budget adjusting export and import injustices (such as market dumping) by trading partners with immediate transparent tariffs. A tariff free world is only realistic if the global market world is trading with aliens from ANOTHER world. Do you know something here that we all don't Lamar?
6.) Reign in ALL black ops budgets across the board NO EXCEPTIONS. There are limits to the people's patience and ours has worn thin this economic collapse means we can and will no longer
tolerate %500 toilet lids and $1,500 hammers.
7.) Abandon the granting of increasing of power to the new Imperial American Presidency that arguably President Bush abused inexcusably these last 8 years and most other Presidents these last 40 years have abused as well. Give Congress its power to contemplate, focus and resolve the nation's problems once again. Give the power back to the people...right or wrong it is our nation and our government. If we'd wanted an oligarchy, theocracy or dictatorship we'd have voted for one.
8.) This is a tough one but this is where we are at in the road Lamar, reduce your Senate and House benefits plan to more reflect a parity with what the common folks have which is to say not much of nothing. You say you truly feel our pain? Great, then how about adopting that Rheumatoid Arthritis I can't shake in my shoudlers and hip. Make the effort to step back in time and reduce the Congressional and federal worker's benefits to roughly what the "average" u.S. worker receives and then we'll talk about whether or not you truly feel my pain or not. This you will note requires no nationalizing of the U.S. health care system or any additional expenditures instead it will save us money as every good RINO say the want to do. Prove it.
9.) Stop playing the coy cat and mouse games with the other party(ies) on the hill including the illusory shadow government we are supposed to be under the thumb of. Expose, fight and defeat the conventional wisdom in D.C.When you discover corruption even in your own party expose it even if ti damages the party. Stop protecting the other party members as a loyal opposition. Expose fight and defeat ALL corruption.
10.) Drop the issue of prayer in public schools, it is a red herring , a dead issue and an issue that cannot win in a head-on fight with the constitutional contortionist within the ACLU. It make the Republican Party appear as antiquated imbeciles.
Now, the above may invoke extreme nausea and resistance from even a misguided moderate like yourself but it is a hard medicine your party and you will have to take if you are to regain the White House or control of Congress again anytime within the next 70 years or so.
It is your choice Lamar, but none of those issues above are any longer negotiable and the people will be heard loudly and ugly if not quietly and peacefully.
NO Lamar, Republicans need not be more like you...you and Republican and Democrats need to be more like the normal average American instead of some sort of wild eyed global trader/travler.
What good to travel and live abroad if you don't fundamentally understand your own nation first Senator?
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I am disappointed in Lamar. As a former Tn resident, I voted for him during his run as Govenor and lived in Knoxville when he was UT's President. Doing research on S.190, the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
co-sponsored by McCain, Lamar was lobbied by CDI(hired by Fannie Mae) to not sign the bill. He ,along with other Republicans, refused to sign which killed any chance of the bill reaching the Senate floor.
It seems that Lamar, along with many other Republicans, have lost their backbone. This is why we are in the mess we are in now. Now if the Rep. party wants to gain seats back, they need to stand for something once again.
