While I’m mentioning Deace, I have long not understood the Republican hostility towards him. Sure he doesn’t tout the Republican line like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, but we know that because he has been very clear that he serves Almighty God not a political party. I’m fine with that, its not like he is our Party chairman, he’s a radio talk show host.
As for Dustin’s comments about what I have written about Doug Gross and Dave Roederer, I will continue to stand by every single word that I have written on this blog. Maybe I’m wrong but just because Doug and Dave have a long history of political involvement in this state doesn’t mean that their line of thinking is correct when it comes to watering down what our Party stands for and their insistence on pissing on Iowa’s First in the Nation status.
Quite frankly I’m a little bit disturbed that more people are not outraged that some of our Republican leaders want to moderate our core principles. Trust me folks, a Milquetoast Party of Iowa isn’t ever going to win an election. Secondly, I feel it is a crime against the Party when Doug and Dave openly speculate that major candidates will skip the caucuses because of the large group of Republican evangelicals that dominate the First in the Nation Caucus. Our best way to grow our Party is through the caucuses, look at what South Carolina has done with its First in the South status.
Anyway, I understand that Doug and Dave are key movers and shakers, especially when the caucuses roll around. That’s why they should me the Iowa Caucuses number one cheerleaders, not its main detractors. While I’m sure both advised Romney and McCain to play hard in our state, the simple fact is sometimes you get beat; especially we you fail to bring in new people to the process. So while I’m sure they are not used to people holding them accountable for their words and actions, I will continue to do so. As I’ve said before when they stop bemoaning about Iowa’s social conservatives and pissing all over the Iowa Caucuses, I’ll stop writing about them.
On a related note, I meant to write about this on Monday. Before I loaded up my Thanksgiving plate we took time to pray like so many other families do. Before the prayer a member at the table read the following:
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
Abraham Lincoln
President of the United States
1863 Proclamation of Thanksgiving
I’m always amazed how our founding documents and the words of our great leaders remain timeless. I often try to think what our Founders or Lincoln would think about the current debate we are having about moderating our position, or the growing belief that government’s law is supreme, not Gods. Or what would they think if they walked into the new Capitol Visitor Center and saw engraved in the walls “We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution,” which is a complete misrepresentation of our nation’s real history.
I laughed in my History of Political Thought class in college at the notion that a Democracy will evolve into socialism over time. I’m not laughing anymore.
Our Founding Fathers were much smarter than we are - a sad truth.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with social conservatives are not their views, but the way their brains work. They believe in absolutes (spare me Yoda). You are either hot or cold, you are either saved or you're not. So telling a social conservative, "sure, we agree with you on gay marriage, but we're not going to make it a campaign issue," trips a moral/ethical trigger somewhere and drives them crazy.
ReplyDeleteYes, we need to stick to our principles! No one disagrees with that or is advocating otherwise. But it's the GOP's sins of spending that are killing us, not our sins of omission.
Krusty-
ReplyDeleteYou keep driving this "moderate our core principles" argument. But I must wonder which core principles you think are unassailable.
Ronald Reagan signed the last piece of so-called "amnesty" legislation. He also stood up for allowing gays to openly teach in schools when that was not the "conservative" viewpoint. Reagan also chose moderate vice-presidential nominees (twice in 76 and 80). As best as I can tell neither he, nor Nixon, nor George H.W. Bush, nor George W. Bush lives up to the standard being set by you, Steve Deace, and others that support those views.
I'm not saying Iowa should nominate Joy Corning or embrace some Lincoln Chafee style nominee. What I am saying is that the party needs to recognize that the best nominee may not check every box on the soco/neocon/fiscal conservative slate. And maybe their speeches and ads should reflect issues that people in the center care about.
Registration numbers and elections don't lie. Iowa is trending blue. And if you think the solution is to lambaste people like Roederer and Gross who are trying to expand the party beyond a narrow traditionally defined social and fiscal conservative spectrum then you will be having this same conversation in December 2011 and 13.
Here is where I get confused with posters like the person posting above. Until 2008, Gross and Roeder controlled the party. If you recall, Gross was our nominee in 2002 (by most standards a good year for Republicans nationally) and he got KILLED. If their ideas were so great and capable of building the party, why is that they have failed to do it durrign the 10 years they controlled the party after Bransted left office? In all honestly if they were half the leaders they claim to be we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Gross would have won in 2002, Ganskie would be our Junior US Senator and the party would still be controlled by the old Bransted guard. The fact is, they failed and made the conservative revolution that took place in the 2008 caucus and ultimately installed people like Steve Scheffler and Kim Lehman in their leadership positions possible. Sorry, but coaches with losing track records don’t often get their contract extended.
ReplyDeleteAmoryblaine, you have to admit that both sides are not being very nice to each other.
ReplyDeleteI don't know party history, I just know there needs to be compromise, and I tend to agree with your views.
Ronald Reagan
"Die-hard conservatives thought that if I couldn't get everything I asked for, I should jump off the cliff with the flag flying-go down in flames.
No, if I can get 70 or 80 percent of what it is I'm trying to get ... I'll take that and then continue to try to get the rest in the future."
I loved RWR for his clarity of thought.
Gross lost in 2002 because Iowans liked the Democrat scum bag lawyer better than the Republican scum bag lawyer.
ReplyDeleteOcums razor: Where the simplest solution is almost always right... can help make what would be a volumes length post, quite short... this past election was not a condemnation of core Republican principles, this was a "performance" election, not a "policy" election. To add insult, we were lazy and unmotivated and the opposing team completely outworked us! Our party with precious few exceptions, has defiled our own plank and purpose by agreeing to legislation that alienated us from our base and added decades of $$ damage that our children will now have to fix.
ReplyDeleteGross was Romney's state chair, is he sowing the seeds for 2012 to give Mitt a "bye" to avoid a repeat of 2007-8 where he $pent a ton of kampaign assets only to have his investment destroyed by a
"bigoted whisper" movement in the home stretch? Doug and others like him need to be called out for a better definition before we give them ceremonial "horns" to wear on their noses and turn them out to pasture with the other Rinos.
Let's stay home on the core values that made this party great, and learn how to sell our message to those who simply need "taught" what it will take to restore us to greatness!
The reason people like Gross are getting lambasted by people like Krusty is becuase Gross is blaming social conservatives for the 2008 losses that weren't social conservatives' faults.
ReplyDeleteWe lost because we didn't have a good economic message. That's the stuff the Doug Grosses of the world are supposed to be good at, and they failed, and now they are pointing fingers. Don't forget, social issues won in places like California and Florida. That wasn't our problem.
So of course the So Cons are defensive and suspicious of him. They have every reason to be.
There is nothing wrong with the Republican party's message. It's the messengers who suck. They haven't been able to use our message and reach out to new voters and they haven't been able to apply our message to the areas that are of greatest concern, like the economy. And this message must include SOLUTIONS. Plus, when they get all wishy washy on the social issues it seems like they can't stand firm on any of the other issues either. It all goes hand in hand.
ReplyDeleteIowans Rock...you had me at the word "suck", how pathetic is that?
ReplyDeleteTo expand with an example, John McCain, our own nominee who carries the precious mantle for which we have labored so long to preserve...suspends his campaign to return to Washington and votes to $pend trillions (literally) to nationalize the mortgage industry while flipping the bird at the precepts of capitalism! He bailed out the banks and "bailed" on our principles!
This argument that just because social issues (read gay marriage) won in Florida and California is some sort of proof that this part of the Republicans message is working is a fallacy.
ReplyDeleteA large percentage of the people who opposed gay marriage in FL and CA support civil unions according to the polling. Which aligns them exactly with the Obama/Culver position on the issue. A minority of people back the soco's desire to have no recognition of gay couples. That extends to Iowa where a poll was recently taken on the issue.
I like Deace, but he hurts his issues with his treatment of those who agree with 80 to 90% of his platform.
ReplyDeleteFor example: He referred to Fred Thompson as "just as bad as Obama or Hillary on the abortion issue" on the air. Why? Did Fred come out FOR infanticide like Obama did? No, Fred's all for getting rid of abortion, but he thinks that the Supreme Court and executive orders are the way to get this done. Deace's candidate of choice, Huckabee, was promoting a Konstitutional Amendment to ban abortion. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with Steve/Huckabee's position on this particular issue is a "RINO" who needs to be shunned.
Steve likes to talk about how Reagan was his hero, but if Reagan were out there running for office today Steve Deace would be taking cheap shots at him the same way he did to Romney, Thompson and any other Republican nominee not named Huckabee.
I consider myself to be a social conservative, but I cannot for the life of me understand why it's better to see Obama in office than have a candidate who agrees with 75% of my issues. I guess the old saying is right: The Perfect IS the enemy of The Good.
Oh yeah, and can we PLEASE stop all the bullshit "Mormons are a cult" that I heard from so-called Christians last year? From my experience, Mormons are a damn site better at putting their faith into action than 90% of the "Christians" in America. They emphasize taking care of your extended families (including members of your community), living by God's laws, and treating everyone around them with respect and honesty.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe their faith has a few quirks that mine doesn't have: They still are more Christian than the majority of the self-professed "Christians" out there, and I'd vote for a Mormon in a heartbeat over a Christian who wants to explain how Jesus really meant "suffer the little children whose parents allowed them to be born".
(I'll concede that Romney had some flip/flops in his past stances on abortion, but what I'm talking about here is people talking shit about Mormons in general, not the specific policies of ONE Mormon.)
Wait...
ReplyDeleteIs this no longer the party of Reagan?
This is a big party coalition, and it has to be to stay competitive.
If you want to side with the Rush Limbaugh's and the Ann Coulter's of the world be my guest, but the truth is 80-90 percent of the people are not only not agreeing with you, but dont give a flying crap.
Everything sounds good in the Krusty echo chamber, that has what? at the max 20-25 readers a week?
You want to know why you lost the election? Here is why
1. George W. pretty much made it impossible because he was a horrible president. Besides Jimmy Carter and LBJ, I cant think of anyone who did worse.
2. Sarah Palin. No she didnt drag on the ticket, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that she was even neccessary to motivate a base that should have been motivated two months before is the problem!
3. The economy. No more lip service. If you truly believe in Free Markets, than quit giving money to everyone and every country that asks for it!
4. We need someone who can articulate the conservative message in a way that will get political novices interested.
Palin is not the answer and neither is Romney, had he made it through to the nomination, he would have been slaughtered, not only for socialized medicine, but also a little something that happened in Italy in 1968, where he, like the past two Presidents and Vice Presidents was conspicously absent from the War in Vietnam.
I believe that Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal are our two best bids. But Obama has gotten the 10 most popular democrats in the nation and put them on his cabinet, hence on his ticket, which is no doubt a political move and a good one. It will take a lot to beat him anyways.
Deace can do what he pleases. What displeases is a County GOP Chair fixture on Deace pounding his shoe on the table screaming, "RINO." Is this about growing a political party, or a cultist pursuit of purity?
ReplyDeleteKeep on excludin', you'll just keep on losin'.
Religious bigots have hurt Iowa's status-reputation more than our events or policies for that matter.
ReplyDeleteHappened to be at one of the Huck appearances here in Iowa and they were almost on their kness in adoration. Huck isn't stupid, he knows this tactic can play again in a few years and I don't think his being a minister will stop him from reaching back into the bag of dirty tricks to destroy Mitt, Sarah or whoever else may appear to threaten him. I don't support all his policies or positions but then again, the only perfect person was nailed to a cross! Next time someone runs this type of kampaign in our state, they need to be dropped off in one of our border rivers and told to float downstream and never come back!
I think Russ has a point on the Mormon thing. They are often very good at putting their faith into action (i.e. Prop 8 in CA).
ReplyDeleteThe only problem I have with them as a group is that a large majority of them backed Romney, seemingly just because he was a fellow mormon, and despite the fact that had crapped on the life and marriage issues which their church hold dear.
It's king of like a Republican woman voting for Hillary or a Dem woman voting for Palin just for the woman thing.
They should have been the most pissed-off at the flip flops, but they didn't seem bothered by it for the most part.
http://www.muscatinejournal.com/articles/2008/12/03/news/doc4936d9b3b3f96315049803.txt
ReplyDeleteA vote of no confidence would be a start in rebuilding Republicans confidence in their party.
There was just as much religious bigotry being aimed at Christians by the Romney camp who claimed that the only reason people were not voting for Romney is because the evangelicals had it out for him and his religion.
ReplyDeleteThey refused to acknowledge that Romney was just a highly flawed candidate due to the flip flopping.
"Everything sounds good in the Krusty echo chamber, that has what? at the max 20-25 readers a week?"
ReplyDeleteYou are a tad off Emily...
Until we stop using words like Religious Extremists and RINO in conversations, nothing will change.
ReplyDeleteIowa Fan, bigotry is to politics was raciscm was to civil rights just decades ago...it's a problem.
ReplyDeleteExtremists teach suicide as a blessing to their children, and then send them off to die.
Rinos have clearly damaged our party in the past 10 years as we forgot why the Republican Revolution was such a success, stopped teaching Republican values and became intoxicated with power, tried to be all things to all people, (aka moving to the center) and look where we are today!
Out of power, out of touch and very hung over as a result.
How come every discussion that we have on here turns into a damn shouting, blame-game, pissing match?!? I'm tired of this guys! We need to put as much thought and passion into fighting the liberals and socialists as we do each other. Like IowaFan said, until we quit bitching about each other, we'll never win elections...and that goes for both sides. What we need to do is look back in the not so distant history that was 1980 and 1994. What worked those years will probably work in 2010 and 2012.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me Krusty,
ReplyDeleteThat was a LARGE understatement.
You do an amazing job on here, and I am sincerely glad that you take the time out of your day to create this forum for open ideas and expression and what I said was in no way a slight to your blog in any way shape or form.
To put it a little different...
We need to get past the echo-box and get in contact with people who arent a lock to vote Republican and show them how conservative ideals work for them.
Social issues aren't going to be enough.
We need to make sure that we stand by our principles without alienating people. We ran John McCain who was suppose to have the best chance at carrying the hispanic vote and in turn winning the west and the dems turned NM, NV, and CO (and if McCain was not our nominee, we would have lost Arizona too). All because of this new Republican view against immigration!
In short, I am sure your viewers are numerous, as your posts are well written and very articulate, however, no matter how high the number I am sure it pales in comparison to the amount of moderates, Reagan democrats, disenchanted libertarians, first time voters, minority voters, young voters and women voters we will need to win in 2012, or to cut into the Democrats majority in 2010.
Thank you for your time and attention,
Em