Originally Posted by Jim in CT
"you get clobbered in the election, then either you didn't fight well enough, or the people have abandoned your principles. " Or a little bit of both, plus some impact from the fact that every TV station except one will claim that you are pure evil.
In my opinion, it is a lot of the first two, and not enough fight and pushback against the third.
Not fighting well enough is, to a great degree, abandoning your principles (not sticking to your guns, as you put it), which, to a great degree, is why the people also abandon them.
And when media pundits paint a false picture of you, fight back against every little point. Don't let them get away with anything. If you worry that it might make you look defensive, make it obvious that you are on offense. The more you're concerned about reaction, the less you will take action. If you let the media define you, that will stick in the public mind, and your lack of a rebuttal laced with a definition of who you really are, will confirm the media picture and make you look weak.
"Is the answer, then, to compromise your principles and win elections?" I don't know. Maybe winning with a John McCain is better than losing with a Ted Cruz. I'm not saying that's what I believe, I'm saying there's a case to be made for that argument.
A case can be made for any argument, if it is one. If you're ambivalent, you will lose. Make the case for the argument you believe in. Make it strong, articulate, speak the speech well with passion, and consistently BE what you argue. Don't waffle. Don't say one thing then compromise it and do another. George Bush Senior supposedly lost his bid for re-election due to a great degree because of his "read my lips" quote which he went back on.
Conservatives acting like liberals is not the most winning combination. And it is a compromise from which they cannot escape. The compromise is woven permanently into the fabric of how they must govern in order to "win."
"Isn't that what has been happening for the past several decades?" Not in New England, where it's almost impossible to get elected if you are in the GOP. And the US Congress has been controlled by Democrats for far longer than it has been controlled by Republicans.
I was speaking mostly of national politics in which the Republicans consistently caved, "compromised," over the past several decades, not that they mostly won because of that. Rather, I think, that is why the Congress has been controlled by Democrats longer than by Republicans. People of just about every ethnicity or culture admire strength over weakness.
Local politics in the East has an interesting history. It used to be very "conservative." Who I consider the last fully conservative President, Calvin Coolidge, was a quintessential Northeasterner. He was immensely popular. And he did not compromise at all. And he was known and respected for that. He won because of that. He consistently "stuck to his guns" even in the face of the most withering sentiment to act outside of the scope of constitutional executive power. And this was an age when progressivism was politically catching on like wildfire. Unlike the manufactured political debacles of Katrina and Sandy, he refused to give federal aid to a huge flood disaster as bad, or worse, than Katrina in a state in the South, and was excoriated by the press, and the Democrats and even by Republicans for not doing so. (There was no FEMA then.) He said it was strictly a state matter, and the federal government had no business being involved. He was accused of being anti-Southern and wouldn't act that way if the same disaster happened in his home state of Vermont. As it turned out, it did happen in his home state, and he acted the same way. And both states, Southern and Northern, managed to recover, as was appropriate, on their own initiative. He was a penny pincher and made it his duty to cut expenditure to bare necessity. And when his fiscal policy actually reduced the national debt for the first time since before the Civil War, his response was to cut some more. The "economy" and the country flourished during his tenure. He didn't run for re-election, though he could have won in a landslide. He served a good six years (the first two as a Vice President taking over for the deceased Harding) and considered his job done and time to go back home. He was frugal, as were Vermonters, in his personal and public life. Then the burgeoning progressive tide swept into power, and the Constitution was eviscerated, and the debt has continued to rise.
I cannot disagree with anything you are saying. But today, it's very difficult for a true conservative to get elected, at least to the Executive Branch (we continue to do well in midterms, because the liberal media cannot demonize hundreds of candidates running all over the country).
Detbuch, I don't htink things can be fixed at this point. Those who understand elementary school arithmetic, have been saying, for 50 years, that SS and Medicare will go bankrupt due to the Baby Boomers. For 50 years, people who say that out loud have been demonized. I don't know that we can avoid going over the cliff at this point, because the Tea Party isn't going to control Congress and the white House. My predisction is that we slog along this way for 25 more years, then we start bouncing checks to people receiving entitlements. The impact of that will be so bad, that not even Spence will be able to say that Paul Ryan was wrong. That could well be the end of liberal economics, because no one will be able to claim that the liberals were right and the conservatives were wrong.
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