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Who You Calling a RINO?

November 18th, 2009 at 9:49 am David Frum | 58 Comments |

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Here’s something I’ll never understand. Why is it that those of us who are willing to do what it takes to beat Democrats are called “Republicans in name only” or worse? Meanwhile those conservatives willing to accept years of Democratic government rather than adjust any point congratulate themselves on their commitment and dedication. Seems backwards, no? For the moment, of course, it’s the latter group who outnumber the former. But that will change. As sure as anything in politics, that will change, for the reason once brutally explained by Benjamin Franklin: “Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other.”

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58 Comments so far ↓

  • sinz54 // Nov 19, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    Oldskool: As long as (R)s rely on a Lee Atwater or a Karl Rove to whip the troops into a frenzy every two or four years, they’ll always be hostage to the screamers and snarlers
    What the GOP is slowly beginning to realize,
    is that the strategy of turning out the base is no longer a winning strategy.
    The reason is that today, Independents are the largest bloc of voters by far–larger than registered Dems or registered Repubs.

    And how the Independents vote determines the election. If Independents vote Dem as they did in 2006 and 2008, then it won’t matter if the GOP base turns out. The GOP will lose anyway.

  • sinz54 // Nov 19, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    AmericanMuser: It was under lax and pathetic regulatory oversight that a Republican president and Republican congress allowed corporations to betray shareholders with questionable and highly leveraged credit default swaps
    The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which gutted the SEC’s power to regulate Credit Default Swaps, was signed into law by President Clinton.

    The Clinton Administration had a lot of pro-business people in it like Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, etc.

    This Act, which sowed the seeds for the disaster of 2008, was pushed by Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Phil Gramm. (It also sowed the seeds for the Enron disaster too.) And Clinton signed it. It was truly a bipartisan disaster.

  • sinz54 // Nov 19, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    AmericanMuser: Why don’t Republicans push to allow consumers to shop for healthcare across state lines, require everyone to have healthcare, and deny insurers from rejecting consumers with pre-existing conditions?
    That was EXACTLY the McCain health care reform proposal in his 2008 campaign.
    But he didn’t win.

    The Heritage Foundation is still pushing a reform package along those lines.
    But be realistic. With the massive liberal majorities in both houses of congress, the GOP has absolutely no chance of any of their proposals being accepted. Olympia Snowe tried to just put a trigger on the public option. After five months of negotiations, the Dems got nailed by their liberal base and even this modest proposal was rejected.

  • Hikaru // Nov 19, 2009 at 11:46 pm

    “The Heritage Foundation is still pushing a reform package along those lines.
    But be realistic. With the massive liberal majorities in both houses of congress, the GOP has absolutely no chance of any of their proposals being accepted.”

    But the problem is, THF is still pushing for sweeping upper-class tax cuts and virtually no oversight on private insurers practices. You can have a good idea, but surrounding it with bad ones doesn’t help it.

    Same applies for Obamacare, but from a person who knows nothing of the inside politics (or average voter), they see someone trying to do something. Just yelling no at everything only gets you so far.

  • MI-GOPer // Nov 20, 2009 at 9:08 am

    OldSkrewl opines: “Lucky for you the people who created this site obviously don’t read it or you’d be gone already.”

    Wrong-o, troll breath. I am in frequent contact with David Frum and lots of fellow moderate GOPers –as well as intellectual conservatives– who share a concern about the direction of the GOP and how the conservative movement fits into that effort. If you knew anything beyond saiting your self-interest, you’d know from my comments here that I participate in CPAC, in the Federalist Society, Brookings, MainStreet and the Natl Press Club.

    But, like other trolls here, you don’t care to stick to the truth. It’s whatever you need to manufacture in your brain to reassure your ample ass isn’t on the chopping block with the Obama Messiah’s downward trend toward a One Term Legacy.

    I get it. You’re motivated by self-interest of hard core partisan rhetoric. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are one of the last cowards manning the barricades around the White House as the new GOP Presidential Team of 2012 comes to evict the Obama Messiah.

  • MI-GOPer // Nov 20, 2009 at 9:11 am

    By the way, OldSkrewl, you got p’wned here:

    OldSkrewl joins in with some more name-calling and mindless taunts. Just a suggestion, OldSkrewl, get your facts straight… when Frum talks about losers hampering the GOP from rebuilding the Party… he’s talking about losers, cyber stalkers and trolls like you who comes to incite, inflame, annoy and irritate without purpose or constructive gain.

    But I can appreciate why you’d like to spin it another way –even if it stretches credibility beyond Chuckie Schumer’s hairplug line or wider than a Debbie Stabenow. You are such a weak sister, OldSkrewl.

    Imagine something wider than ol’ Bessie StupidCow’s ample backside? Or farther than ChuckieSchumer’s hairplug line? Impossible.

  • rbottoms // Nov 20, 2009 at 1:11 pm

    MI-GOPer: Let me guess — in real life you’re the obnoxious barfly that no one listens to but never shuts up.

    Ever seen the movie Barfly? Best interpretation of Bukowski’s writing. Anyway, he and that other guy are in my ignore list. I don’t waste the electrons responding to them.

    Last week’s election results in Virginia and New Jersey, where Republican candidates for governor triumphed over their Democrat opponents, say more about the public’s rejection of Obama’s big government solutions and less about Republicans articulating a message to help Middle America.

    Uh, we increased our majority in the House of Representatives. You know, the body that makes the laws. Governorships are nice stepping stones to running for president, but since at least one senator has disproved you can’t get to the White House from that chamber there’s less shine than before.

    Please, let’s have more teabagger victories like NY-23.

  • handworn // Nov 24, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    rbottoms, both nominees were Senators in the 2008 race. That doesn’t prove much. The 1960 race is more like it, in which a Senator beat someone with experience in the executive branch.

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