Robert Meyer
Delaware Republican primary: A 2008 mentality applied to a 2010 reality
By Robert Meyer
It's already old news that Christine O' Donnell won the Delaware Republican primary in upset fashion. It took less than two seconds flat for the establishment pundits to declare her unelectable. Of course that's what they said about her chances in the primary. This development created a rare flutter of frustrated animation in the perpetually stoic demeanor of former White House strategist Karl Rove. The pungent taste of sour grapes was in the mouths of old guard RINO apologists after the primary results were publicized.
The message has been clear during this election cycle: incumbents are out of favor, and within the ranks of the Republican Party, dead wood is being pruned out and "new blood" principled conservatives are being grafted in. The Tea Party influence is obliterating the glass ceiling within establishment Republicanism that has suppressed the ascendancy of conservative ideas.
Rove claims the elections of these young guns rather than the establishment icons might cost the Republicans a few potential senate seats in November. Of course 51 Republicans in the Senate would restore chairmanships and the opportunity to control legislative agenda's. That is important to elite power brokers, but not to the average citizen. What good is a majority if a half-dozen RINO's cave on platform precepts, or vote in sympathy with the Obama agenda?
The conventional wisdom that outsiders like O'Donnell are unelectable is applying a 2008 mentality to a 2010 reality. The unelectability myth has been disproved by the earlier results in other states, and commentators are slow to identify the current populist ideological wave. The argument is that people in states within certain geographic parts of the country aren't going to vote conservative? Why not? Unless it is the case that they are satisfied with electing representatives that are just going to be rubber stamps for every disastrous ploy that Obama wants to foist upon America. And even more curiously, why vote for an over-the-hill war horse who embodies a light version of the same bitter, ineffective medicine? If it turns out we lose the battle this time around, so be it. If necessary though, let's go down swinging, by giving uncompromising support to candidates articulating and standing on a conservative platform. Let it be known that if you lean on a political platform for support, you better we willing to stand on it proudly.
Candidates like Mike Castle think it's their birthright to be perpetually elected regardless of the positions they take. In the 2010 reality, this model doesn't work. What is even more troubling is when candidates such as Charlie Christ in Florida, Castle in Delaware, and now Murkowski in Alaska, all pout and act like spoiled children, rather than being gracious, and in the name of unity support the candidate who won the primary. Christ and Murkowski are running as Independents, and of course will likely divide the Republican voting block. Castle is snubbing and turning a cold shoulder toward O'Donnell. All three are acting both dishonourably and selfishly. If nothing else, we are ridding ourselves of the political cry babies.
I wrote a piece in November of 2008 called "A time for purging." Here is the first paragraph from that piece.
"On election night, just after Barack Obama was declared the President-elect, Fox News interviewed Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who is thought to be a rising star within the ranks of the GOP. With a facial expression which telegraphed resignation, Ryan offered a synopsis of the Republican party's problems, and a sense of resolution, that eerily mirrored a speech given by Ronald Reagan on March 1st, 1975, entitled, 'Let them go their way.' More than anything else, Ryan expressed the idea that too many Republican's had been afraid to stand on conservative principles, and it was time for that practice to end, and it is time for that sort of politician to go."
In the Republican primaries so far, we are seeing the initial phase of Ryan's vision beginning to come into fruition. We are seeing some of those types politicians voted out or on the ropes. If we search diligently for some silver lining in the election of Obama, it is that the nation now has had the opportunity to come face to face with what genuine liberal radicalism looks like. That is why candidates who didn't have a prayer under the 2008 mentality, have a great chance to win given the 2010 reality. The conservative voter is loaded for bear, and those sort of folks who voted to usher in the Obama utopian vision are disillusioned and unmotivated.
It's pretty hard not to get excited about November 2cd. It's time to discard the 2008 mentality and bask in the 2010 reality.
© Robert Meyer
September 20, 2010
It's already old news that Christine O' Donnell won the Delaware Republican primary in upset fashion. It took less than two seconds flat for the establishment pundits to declare her unelectable. Of course that's what they said about her chances in the primary. This development created a rare flutter of frustrated animation in the perpetually stoic demeanor of former White House strategist Karl Rove. The pungent taste of sour grapes was in the mouths of old guard RINO apologists after the primary results were publicized.
The message has been clear during this election cycle: incumbents are out of favor, and within the ranks of the Republican Party, dead wood is being pruned out and "new blood" principled conservatives are being grafted in. The Tea Party influence is obliterating the glass ceiling within establishment Republicanism that has suppressed the ascendancy of conservative ideas.
Rove claims the elections of these young guns rather than the establishment icons might cost the Republicans a few potential senate seats in November. Of course 51 Republicans in the Senate would restore chairmanships and the opportunity to control legislative agenda's. That is important to elite power brokers, but not to the average citizen. What good is a majority if a half-dozen RINO's cave on platform precepts, or vote in sympathy with the Obama agenda?
The conventional wisdom that outsiders like O'Donnell are unelectable is applying a 2008 mentality to a 2010 reality. The unelectability myth has been disproved by the earlier results in other states, and commentators are slow to identify the current populist ideological wave. The argument is that people in states within certain geographic parts of the country aren't going to vote conservative? Why not? Unless it is the case that they are satisfied with electing representatives that are just going to be rubber stamps for every disastrous ploy that Obama wants to foist upon America. And even more curiously, why vote for an over-the-hill war horse who embodies a light version of the same bitter, ineffective medicine? If it turns out we lose the battle this time around, so be it. If necessary though, let's go down swinging, by giving uncompromising support to candidates articulating and standing on a conservative platform. Let it be known that if you lean on a political platform for support, you better we willing to stand on it proudly.
Candidates like Mike Castle think it's their birthright to be perpetually elected regardless of the positions they take. In the 2010 reality, this model doesn't work. What is even more troubling is when candidates such as Charlie Christ in Florida, Castle in Delaware, and now Murkowski in Alaska, all pout and act like spoiled children, rather than being gracious, and in the name of unity support the candidate who won the primary. Christ and Murkowski are running as Independents, and of course will likely divide the Republican voting block. Castle is snubbing and turning a cold shoulder toward O'Donnell. All three are acting both dishonourably and selfishly. If nothing else, we are ridding ourselves of the political cry babies.
I wrote a piece in November of 2008 called "A time for purging." Here is the first paragraph from that piece.
"On election night, just after Barack Obama was declared the President-elect, Fox News interviewed Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who is thought to be a rising star within the ranks of the GOP. With a facial expression which telegraphed resignation, Ryan offered a synopsis of the Republican party's problems, and a sense of resolution, that eerily mirrored a speech given by Ronald Reagan on March 1st, 1975, entitled, 'Let them go their way.' More than anything else, Ryan expressed the idea that too many Republican's had been afraid to stand on conservative principles, and it was time for that practice to end, and it is time for that sort of politician to go."
In the Republican primaries so far, we are seeing the initial phase of Ryan's vision beginning to come into fruition. We are seeing some of those types politicians voted out or on the ropes. If we search diligently for some silver lining in the election of Obama, it is that the nation now has had the opportunity to come face to face with what genuine liberal radicalism looks like. That is why candidates who didn't have a prayer under the 2008 mentality, have a great chance to win given the 2010 reality. The conservative voter is loaded for bear, and those sort of folks who voted to usher in the Obama utopian vision are disillusioned and unmotivated.
It's pretty hard not to get excited about November 2cd. It's time to discard the 2008 mentality and bask in the 2010 reality.
© Robert Meyer
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