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Old 02-12-2010, 04:14 PM
 
26,171 posts, read 48,888,485 times
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Finally, some honesty from one of the GOP's leading lights. GOP'er Tim Pawlenty "tells all" in an Esquire Magazine piece.

Excerpts:

- "The marketplace measurement in politics is something called an election," ... "And in 2006 and 2008, the marketplace was telling the Republicans 'We prefer the products and services of your competitors.'" ... the GOP "blew it" ... "We got fired for a reason" ...

- Party strategists have long acknowledged that the presidency of George W. Bush badly damaged the Republican brand....Pawlenty's critique is one of the first attempts by a likely 2012 Republican presidential candidate to gain distance from the personalities and policies of the Bush Administration....The danger for Pawlenty ... is that there remains a significant segment within the Republican base who still supports Bush and many of the policies he put into place.


IMO, that's a pretty good analysis by the writer at the WaPo, and echoes what many of us in these forums have said for a long time, that G.W.Bush was a DISASTER for our nation and that we need to move on and do better.

So, what do you think of Gov Pawlenty and his points of view?
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Old 02-12-2010, 04:26 PM
 
6,082 posts, read 6,025,239 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike from back east View Post
So, what do you think of Gov Pawlenty and his points of view?
As a left leaning indie, if a GOP candidate has constructive solutions to building the nation, then I'd be willing to give him a 2nd look.

As I posted before, the pre-1987 GOP have an admirable record (http://www.gop.com/index.php/learn/accomplishment/ - broken link)of domestic infrastructure investment, social justice and equity.
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Old 02-12-2010, 04:28 PM
 
Location: Michigan
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I don't think Pawlenty can win the nomination that way. When you analyze the last election cycle, it's a fluke that McCain was nominated. In 2007 they wanted to read him out of the party for being insufficiently pro-torture. He only squeaked in because Romney and Huckabee split the far-right vote. Assuming that doesn't happen in the next cycle, I don't see any way for a Pawlenty to overcome the red-meat populism of a Palin or Huckabee.
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Old 02-12-2010, 04:32 PM
 
Location: SARASOTA, FLORIDA
11,486 posts, read 15,278,971 times
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We need to be critical of all republicans.

We need to demand they are fiscal minded conservatives and not some left side RINO.

The conservatives stand for less government, lower taxes, better security, personal responsibility etc and will no longer allow any RINO's to hurt what the party stands for.
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Old 02-12-2010, 04:43 PM
 
Location: Missouri
4,272 posts, read 3,780,492 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike from back east View Post
So, what do you think of Gov Pawlenty and his points of view?
The Bush Presidency was a small part of the reason I didn't vote Republican in 2006. The larger issue for me was the 2000 to 2006 clusterf@#k Congress that the Republicans led. I did not appreciate the "animal house" attitude they brought to their job. And I really did not appreciate paying them for their "service". And I am offended that I have to pay them a pension for their "attendance"

So, the governor almost has me pegged.
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Old 02-12-2010, 06:41 PM
 
26,171 posts, read 48,888,485 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kovert View Post
As a left leaning indie, if a GOP candidate has constructive solutions to building the nation, then I'd be willing to give him a 2nd look. As I posted before, the pre-1987 GOP have an admirable record (http://www.gop.com/index.php/learn/accomplishment/ - broken link)of domestic infrastructure investment, social justice and equity.
Same here. I voted GOP most of the time, starting with Nixon, but 1992 was the last time I voted GOP. People forget that GOP'ers Lincoln and Eisenhower were the fathers of our transcontinental railroads and interstate highway system, respectively. It was GOP'er Eisenhower who used federal troops to integrate schools in the south after the landmark 1954 SCOTUS ruling in Brown vs Board of Education.

Quote:
Originally Posted by geofra View Post
The Bush Presidency was a small part of the reason I didn't vote Republican in 2006. The larger issue for me was the 2000 to 2006 clusterf@#k Congress that the Republicans led. I did not appreciate the "animal house" attitude they brought to their job. And I really did not appreciate paying them for their "service". And I am offended that I have to pay them a pension for their "attendance" So, the governor almost has me pegged.
Speaking of "animal house," I recall when Newt Gingrich and a whole crop of new GOP'ers in the house came into office after the 1994 mid-term election; they were such a vulgar lot that senior house GOP leaders took them on a two day retreat to PA to teach them proper manners and decorum in the house of reps. I hated Bush-43 with a passion, he blew away our balanced budget, vastly increased farm subsidies (like the absurd ethanol subsidy), shamelessly pandered to the religious right, started a war on bogus grounds, and people wonder why I ranted and railed about him since this forum opened.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunny-Days90 View Post
We need to be critical of all republicans. We need to demand they are fiscal minded conservatives and not some left side RINO. The conservatives stand for less government, lower taxes, better security, personal responsibility etc and will no longer allow any RINO's to hurt what the party stands for.
Sounds good, but the devil is in the details of defining exactly what is meant by what you seek:
- By less government do you mean keeping government out of people's reproductive choices? Keeping government out of allowing people marry whom they wish even if it's a person of the same sex? But many of today's GOP'ers WANT to inject the government into these topics.
- By less taxes do you mean balancing tax revenues with the bills that are on our nation's plate so that we get to a balanced budget and pay down some on the debt each year until it's retired? With Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich we got there by the late 1990's after a lot of struggle. To me, that is what a fiscal conservative would do. Of course, it all got thrown away by G.W. Bush as soon as Bush took office, and people wonder why we hate him.
- By better security we have to define if we want to be pro-active and have a presence of eyes, ears and/or boots on the ground in most parts of the world, or do we want to be more isolationist and have a big military that is totally based stateside?
- By personal responsibility do you mean teaching young people about morals, ethics, sex ed and birth control so that they DON'T get pregnant? IMO, personal responsibility here, not to mention proper nutrition, the value of a dollar, etc. But many of today's GOP'ers WANT to teach kids only about abstinence and many school districts have to supplement their budgets by installing soda pop and junk vending machines.

Biggest enemy we have is our national desire to drink good champagne while only offering payment at beer prices.

I would say WE need to be critical of ALL politicians, regardless of party, and WE should GRADE them on what they do to IMPROVE our nation and the well being of our people (a difficult balance to find), and if any of them fail, we boot them out, or try to. Problem is, if a long-term politician is able to bring home the bacon for his/her state, the people in that state will keep electing them, even if they are a disgrace. About all we can do is send money to that dudes opponents.
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Old 02-12-2010, 06:58 PM
 
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
14,129 posts, read 31,186,597 times
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I love these repubs who claim they didn't win because the party wasn't right wing enough. I hope they keep thinking that way and travel farther outside of the mainstream. I'm sure today's young people must consider the Republicans a bunch of nutty old kooks.
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Old 02-12-2010, 07:16 PM
 
26,171 posts, read 48,888,485 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CAVA1990 View Post
I love these repubs who claim they didn't win because the party wasn't right wing enough. I hope they keep thinking that way and travel farther outside of the mainstream. I'm sure today's young people must consider the Republicans a bunch of nutty old kooks.
Agree. Real reason the GOP lost so much in 2006 and 2008 is that they went too far to the right, yet those folks want to move further to the right and want GOP politicians to be out there on the fringe with them.

Working in DC for 30 years you get used to reading about NATIONAL politics ALL the time. I didn't vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 but I watched him carefully. What I noticed was that he played to the middle, not the fringes where all the noise is found. Nixon played to the middle also, with his focus on the "silent majority." The political leanings of our citizenry looks like a normal bell curve, with the vast measure of people living a few points to either side of dead center. Whoever crafts policies and speeches for that large lump in the middle will get ~60% of the vote, and Clinton did just that and always earned a ~60% approval rating. Clinton also had an ear for the latest polls; though the GOP spinsters accused him of going with the latest polls, we could just as easily spin that Clinton was just following the will of the people - as a leader should in most things.

If Pawlenty has any sense, he'll play to the middle so he can appeal to the independents, who are a larger bloc than either the GOP or the DEMs. The GOP fringe will vote GOP no matter what.

No matter what he proposes or how good it sounds, its all for naught if he can't get Congress to craft good bills for his signature.
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Last edited by Mike from back east; 02-12-2010 at 07:49 PM..
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Old 02-12-2010, 07:39 PM
 
6,082 posts, read 6,025,239 times
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There may be more stand up guys among the GOP than is publicized.

I hope his compadres don't label him a pinko traitor.
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Old 02-12-2010, 07:40 PM
 
Location: Fredericktown,Ohio
7,168 posts, read 5,356,396 times
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I was not impressed at all but do not be offended I am hard core when it comes to voting for anyone running for public office.He was sort of wishy washy when asked about the bank bail out,if I read it right it sounded like he was for a partial bail out of some banks.Then on the other hand he was against the auto bail out and thought they should have went into bankruptcy.That is double speak to me.
Then right at the begining of your article :
Quote:
"The marketplace measurement in politics is something called an election," ... "And in 2006 and 2008, the marketplace was telling the Republicans 'We prefer the products and services of your competitors.'" ... the GOP "blew it" ... "We got fired for a reason" ...
So we know that he understands free market principles,even {D}Alan Greyson said the gvt has no bussiness picking winners and losers.So why does that not apply to the banks?Could it be he was half way pandering to Wall street?
Myself,I won't support anyone who votes for subsidies,bail outs and cash for clunkers and like minded programs.
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