The Moderate Trap
Tags: Conservatism, Government, Republican Party.
Click here to get Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan.
Melissa Clouthier over at Pajamas Media has an excellent blast against the concept that the GOP must become more “moderate” if we are to win again. Of course, we are most recently treated to the Specter party-switch and some how or another the fact that a rank opportunist ran away and hid when the going got tough is supposed to tell the GOP that just as discretion is the better part of valor, so is cowardice the better part of discretion. We’re supposed to valiantly hide conservatism in a closet and hope no one notices that we stand for something. This is designed to make it easier for us to pour money and effort into re-electing moderates in Pennsylvania…which just worked out oh, so well for us, didn’t it?
Ladies and gentlemen, did you know that your humble correspondent is a moderate? Oh, I know – to our liberal friends who visit here I’m just a step away from advocating a return to feudalism, but the fact remains that I’m a moderate. Think about it – I’m opposed to the death penalty; I’m against free trade; I want amnesty for illegal immigrants. In all of these things, I am clearly out of step with the large majority of GOP voters. And yet I’m a GOPer. And I’m not asking my fellow GOPers who are in favor of the death penalty, free trade and deportation to change or mute their views or risk losing my support. Honest people can have honest disagreements and remain friends and close allies. I am absolutely confident that no GOPer will ever wish for me to be out of the party on account of my views. Why is this?
Because I believe in the core GOP values: limited government (which means low taxes and spending above all); judicial restraint; strong defense; law and order, faith and family. Now, if I were to ever be in elective office, after garnering ardent GOP support for my bid, just what sort of person would I be if I then went on to vote in favor of some Democrat spending boondoggle? How is that in accord with the core GOP ideal of limited government? Why, in the end, should a GOPer put his faith in me if I can’t even hold to something as basic as that? On the other hand, if I were a staunch vote for spending restraint, national defense and family independence, what would a GOPer have to say to me if I, in addition to this, cast a vote in favor of a path to citizenship for illegals long in country? Oh, to be sure, a lot of GOPers would disagree and say so…but there would be no call for my ouster. There’d be no reason for it – I adhered to core GOP principles.
This what we mean by the “big tent” – that you can have differences of opinion, even quite stark ones, but when push comes to shove and a basic belief is at stake, its time to come down on the side of the basic belief. As a for-instance, GOPers can argue about whether we should cut the income tax or cut spending…but no GOP can say its time to raise taxes and/or raise spending. The moderates, so-called, will have to dance to core tunes. I do. We don’t have to agree on everything all of the time, but we do have to agree on a few things when push comes to shove. We tried the moderate path in 2006 and 2008 and it got us clobbered – we tried to be a nice version of the Democrat party. No more; no, thanks. Time to be the Republican party, and win under that banner, as we’ve won so many times before.
Thank you for visiting Blogs For Victory. If you enjoy our content, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of our servers.Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
37 Responses to “The Moderate Trap”
Caucus of Corruption
You may be in for a very, very nasty surprise. You watched a documentary on the formation of a communist economy in Argentina and thought, “Hey, that looks pretty cool.” That would make you as bad or worse than Obama in the eyes of many GOPers, especially those who are not automatically inclined to agree with you for religious reasons.
The fundamental principle of the Republican Party is, and when you get right down to it always has been, capitalism. You are not a capitalist.
Mark
e tried the moderate path in 2006 and 2008 and it got us clobbered – we tried to be a nice version of the Democrat party. No more; no, thanks. Time to be the Republican party, and win under that banner, as we’ve won so many times before.
It is really that easy,
The left is so far to the kook side I believe they have totally lost their sanity.
As a party they have been on a gradual swing for 40+ years until now they are dominated by the most foaming at the mouth rabid athiest kooks on the face of the planet, they hate the very country that has blessed them, and are cheerleaders for foreign trolls who would destroy us.
If we attempt to be middle of the road “moderates” in 10 years we will be where they are at now and they will have fallen into total insanity!
Stay the course we lost the congress and the wh because we tried to be a light version of them….it wont work.
“we tried to be a nice version of the Democrat party”…Mark
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You can’t possibly be serious. The whole Republican campaign was in direct opposition to the values of the Democratic Party. The American people saw the dark and ugly side of the Republican agenda and voted against it.
If you ’stay the course’ and continue in this vein, the voters will keep rejecting you.
so we been waiting what…2 months…stimulus….create jobs…and last month…another half million americans go on unemployment…im sure they somehow conived to keep that figure relatively low…but…
WHERES THE JOBS?
they cant track the stimulus funds for public work projects…front page…todays news…rich cats stuffing thier pockets with tax dollars…promising the moon…but when it comes down to the good ole’ boy network…its just a flash in the pan…moneys gone on surveys and planning…no jobs…just hollow rhetoric…mroe excuses to reward your buddies for gettin ya voted into office…thats it…nothing new here…move on now…or else….
canadianobserver says: “and voted against it.”
you have no clue why people voted the way they voted stooge….what half wit rhetoric…you pulled out of your beehind…
CO,
No, what the people saw was a campaign of slander against President Bush unprecedented in its nastiness which eventually made that good man unpopular in spite of his amazing successes…meanwhile, GOP going along with the Democrat internal policy (big spending, everyone who is connected getting cushy deals) essentially took away the rationale for the GOP. Along comes Obama – who campaigned as a popular, moderate, tax cutting defense hawk – and, viola!, you’ve got ultra liberals in power…and thinking that Americans voted for ultra liberalism. The people in for a rude shock are actually all on your side, CO.
Sergei,
You’re missing it – it is the power of the people; not the leftwing “power to the people” which is really just a mask for Leninist control, but power of the people. What is cool about that video – and I doubt even the makers of it understand – is that the people went and did it on their own. Now, the part to warm a lefty’s heart was the de-facto seizure of the means of production by the people…but the part to warm a distributist heart is the fact that the people, average people, were commanding their own affairs. No doubt lefty’s will try to claw their way in to things like that and take control…and if they succeed, the whole thing will fall apart, but the power of the people is what we GOPers are all about.
You see, it is only in the weird mind of the left that the GOP wants low taxes in order to benefit “the rich” – the actuality is that the Byzantine tax code is the best friend of the genuine rich (ie, John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller, Bill Gates, et al) while the supply side tax system is the best friend of the most productive members of our society (ie, that building contractor down the street who is “rich” in the sense that he make $500,000 per year, but not rich in the sense of having a billion dollars tucked away in tax shelters). We want low taxes so that hard working people will work even harder.
On spending its not a matter about not caring about the poor – Republicans are very generous with donations to same – but about understanding that the poor aren’t the primary beneficiaries of government spending. Government unions are; pork barrel politicians are; “community organizers” are…but the actual poor stay poor under liberal social spending. We don’t want them to stay poor…we want them to enter the hard working middle class.
js02 says:
May 11th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Reagan took until 1988 to bring unemployment below where Carter had it in 1979 [5.6%]. Reagan’s high was 10.8%. To be fair President Obama would have until April 2016 to bring his rate down from 8.9% to < 4.2% which was the Bush low for joblessness. No one on either side of the aisle figured this mess would resolve itself overnight. Even those who wanted to “let the banks fail” or “do nothing” realized there had to be a period of healing leading to recovery; that period is now.
LE says: (lip service to a false god)
reagan did piss away 3.4 trillion dollars in his first 100 days in office…stooge excuses wont hide the truth….
reagan did not piss away 3.4 trillion dollars
(correction)
js02 says:
May 11th, 2009 at 8:53 am
While the numbers reflect the diversity of the two situations the ultimate solutions are the same. Reagan raised corporate tax rates and became the largest deficit spender of the century to that point. Before the 1982 congressional elections, reagan’s policy was steadfast–deregulate and no tax increases. With a loss of 26 seats in the House to the Democrats and his re-election prospects lookin bleak there was a swift reversal of policy that resulted in spending tens of billions of dollars above the bidgetary limits to spur the US economy. This effectively killed the recession of 1982-3 and preserved Reagan as a viable candidate for reelection.
“No, what the people saw was a campaign of slander against President Bush unprecedented in its nastiness which eventually made that good man unpopular in spite of his amazing successes”…Mark
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What would those ‘amazing successes’ be, Mark?
You must realize that the voters, looking at more of the same from the Republican candidates, decided they didn’t want to put the country through another 4 years of heartache and voted for the man and the party who offered a complete change of direction.
They were sickened by what GWB & the Republican party did to America during the previous 8 years and clearly showed their distaste & contempt at the polls.
It’s telling that you had to go to Pajamas Media to find an opinion article supporting your analysis.
I’ve been following this blog long enough to take measure of your predictive abilities and political acumen. You have been consistently incorrect about everything under the sun.
Mark: Think about it – I’m opposed to the death penalty; I’m against free trade; I want amnesty for illegal immigrants. In all of these things, I am clearly out of step with the large majority of GOP voters. And yet I’m a GOPer.
But not an elected one. You have yet to run in a primary, win a primary, run in a general, and, most importantly, win a general election. Any general election. That’s kind of important if you want a serious voice in how government is run. And until you do then your contention, I am absolutely confident that no GOPer will ever wish for me to be out of the party on account of my views will remain untested.
There is also the very real possiblilty that your individual brand of “moderation” wouldn’t play equally well in all regions of the country, or all districts within a given state, for that matter. Said in another way, different brands of “moderation” fit different localities better than others. The author of the PJM piece calls this self-evident. But then she hedges her bets by saying, Those on the Right — most of them and perhaps enough of them — understand this reality. That, to me, is really the problem at present: there aren’t enough.
You consider a desire to return to the gold standard, a push for increased religious influence on government, and the insistence that conservatism is always right and liberalism is always wrong to be “moderate” positions, Mark?
js02
the run of the stooges,
leadmoron from a make believe porno blog,
orlandope, and good ole guy…..where o where are joe BO and AF?
I think bloch is having her sewer (at home) rotorooted.
anyway I think it is a howl that the most foaming at the mouth partisan marxists who hate the GOP are telling us how to return it to power…..DUHHHH WTF???????
js02
lets not forget Caterpillar….didnt O-CHIMPY say they will be hiring in the next month……..tap tap still waiting. MORE LIES ?
anyway I think it is a howl that the most foaming at the mouth partisan marxists who hate the GOP are telling us how to return it to power…..DUHHHH WTF???????
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Nobody is telling you how to return to power. We are laughing at you for being so blind as to not see what you would need to do to get back to power. Instead you just keep pushing for even more of what was rejected the last 2 elections.
The collective GOP is moving further and further into insignificance.
Hey Mark, if the GOP moves a bit more to the right, maybe even you can be called a “kook leftist”.
CO,
Oh, I don’t know – how about liberating 50 million people from tyranny in the large things and, in the small, having girls in Afghanistan go to school and helping push back the scourge of AIDS in Africa? Just in those three things, President Bush is in the top 10.
ricorun,
Indeed, but we will be putting that to the test – I know a splendid candidate very much in line with my views who is just trying to sort out a couple issues in the legal sphere (does writing on the internet for someone’s blog constitute an in-kind donation? That sort of thing) before he announces.
orlando,
The statement that “liberalism is always wrong” is a self-evident truth; one can’t be in the extreme when one holds to such things.
The statement that “liberalism is always wrong” is a self-evident truth; one can’t be in the extreme when one holds to such things.
Are you trying to spoof yourself?
The statement that “liberalism is always wrong” is a self-evident truth; one can’t be in the extreme when one holds to such things.
I agree, Mark.
When one holds to liberalism, he is out of his mind, a reprobate.
Mark: Indeed, but we will be putting that to the test – I know a splendid candidate very much in line with my views who is just trying to sort out a couple issues in the legal sphere…
I hope I get a little credit for lobbing that big fat softball up to you underhanded and over the heard of the plate, lol!
Anyway, I presume you know you have about a snowball’s chance in hell — which I suppose is a good thing in a way: no matter what happens you can always claim you exceeded expectations. But then again, the only thing that really counts is winning. Politics isn’t like horseshoes or hand grenades. Ask Jim Tedisco.
But then again, the only thing that really counts is winning.
Well, no, Ricorun, it’s not all about winning.
It’s about obeying God.
Of course, to liberals its all about power and forcing people to bow to their brutality.
You see, people in America are very complacent, the don’t realize what is about to hit them, and that shouldn’t be … but hard lessons are hard lessons, ya know. They will find that their putting all their hopes in the State were empty hopes…and they will cry out for help…it will be monumental, as education has taken such a strong grip over the years.
I find this call to moderation from our liberals quite amusing. What they really mean is to become democrats, of which I would rather be tortured in a Ugandan prison.
When conservatism is articulated and adhered to, the GOP wins, as evidenced by 1980, 1984, 1988, 1994, 2000 & 2004. It’s a return to conservative principles is what is needed, but our liberals know that, hence their desire for moderation.
All in all, I support Mark’s main people: That people don’t have to change their values to fit a party mold. Really, and I know I’ve said this countless times, but there are small-government Democrats and big-government Republicans, socially liberal conservatives and socially conservative liberals. Some people vote for a single issue. People vote for a whole slew of reasons.
When people ask for the party to come off as more moderate, they are asking for the party to move relatively further to the left and give up some of its stated views. But if some of the members of the party vote against the platform anyway, what does it matter? The only reason I can see for this is the desire for political exile of certain views certain people find unfavorable. If enough people are frightened enough to not speak their mind, or a large enough stigma against a view, regardless of the reasoning behind that view, exists, then people holding that view would find it much harder to get representation in the government.
But even if the GOP does publicly denounce those views, that doesn’t mean the people holding those views will go away. They would find representation in some other party. And that is what the Democrats want. They want the GOP to fracture into several parties with specific interests, so they have no unified opposition.
So this whole call for moderation isn’t to make the GOP more palatable, but to label the GOP as extreme in comparison. It is a war for the control of people’s perceptions. Who decides what is extreme? People’s perceptions. How do you change people’s perceptions? By leading them along a garden path of thoughts and stereotypes that support a certain view.
Conservatives should make the effort to highlight the core hypocrisies of those in the Democrat party calling for GOP reform of ignoring their own fracturability and competing interests and not-currently-perceived-as-mainstream views. The hypocrisies and contradictions are plentiful, I am sure.
Sorry, make that “I support Mark’s main point:”
I think both parties need to more to a more moderate view point… that typed, I also think that the Democrats have the greatest distance to cover. They have moved so far to the left they are making JFK look like a Republican.
dvindice
They have moved so far to the left they are making JFK look like a radical conservative Christian Republican .
tweaked it a little…both are true!
Marxism-Leninism fell with the Soviet Union. Virtually nobody on the Left, even the Very Very Far Left, is advocating socialism (in the Marxist sense of the word). The big thing right now among radicals is anarchism.
In order for American democracy to work, there needs to be a functioning opposition. The GOP is too big to fail.
orlando,
No, as usual I am successfully getting your goat.
ricorun,
Snowball’s have better chances in heck…but it will be a lot of fun and, who knows?, lightening might strike, and wouldn’t that just be the most wonderful thing.
No, as usual I am successfully getting your goat.
So you were serious? That’s even worse, but one can hardly expect better from you, I suppose.
Sergei,
I don’t think so – I look at Soros, Moore, Waters, Frank, Dean and Emanuel and all I see is a collection of junior-league Leninists…not that they are reading Lenin’s collected works and writing tedious justifications of his actions…but they have that same hatred of all who oppose them coupled with an arrogant presumption that they know best and that if they have to force us to be good (in their view), they’ll do it…
they have that same hatred of all who oppose them coupled with an arrogant presumption that they know best and that if they have to force us to be good (in their view), they’ll do it…
OK, this time, you have to be spoofing yourself. Not even you can have a blind spot this big…can you?
Mark, do you know what Marxism-Leninism is?