they will NEVER learn! Americans want BOLD differences NOT pastels and I will remind them of that every time. They did NOT help this man to get elected he is a Senator of the people! His millions in donations came from We The People NOT the RNC which had no problem giving that LEFTIST in NY23 1 million dollars. The beauty of Brown is he is NOT beholden to them but to the people of his state to his WORD and that would be how they all should be elected!

I agree. I suspect they fully understand but are triangulating how to make hay over all this without actually changing anything.

I don’t think they’ve learned anything yet and probably will not until each of the squishes – each of the careerists who believe one thing but say another to appease their constituents, each of those who call themselves Republican but barely give a nod to the party’s platform – until each of them is safely out of office either primaried by a real Republican or defeated by a Conservative Democrat.

Perhaps then they will learn.

More importantly than that, however, is whether the American people will learn from all this, internalize it and then maintain the pressure for another 10 years or so…or whether they will put a Republican Congress in place and then think their job was done…like we did only a few years ago.

lesson. For the past year, I kept waiting to see if they would wake up and listen to the people, but the failure of our leadership in December to stop the HC bill, showed that they were going to go along. They still look and sound like the same mealy mouthed members the Dems have managed to run roughshod over. At this point, I do not even think they can change. Of course, there are a few exceptions, as in Demint and Coburn, but the leaders, are not pushing back like they should be considering they lost 2006 and 2008.

Anyway, we have to keep doing what we are, not change our message to the Establishment GOP, and continue to promote conservative candidates in the primaries. If we leave it to the present GOP leadership, we will just have more of the same, and the Leftist/Dems running the show, no matter who is in charge.

genuine Conservative congressman elected in a Tea Party environment than the old guard changing its ways.

This is a once-in-a-generation chance to change the composition of the Republican party with a large injection of genuine conservatives. Politics is an eternal struggle, but we have a chance here to have a decade or two impact (I’m not saying majority) if we can elect a genuinely Conservative 2010 class.

I have some, but not major, disagreements with the post except for the self-congratulatory “As I predicted, the best thing for conservatives was to let Obama win in 2008.” This may be a bad time to take issue with the writer of that sentence – the day before Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts – but I can’t let it go unchallenged. As my father used to say, “What’s the use of being Irish if you can’t be thick?”
Political parties exist for one reason only – to win elections.
Political parties do not win by losing.
Getting one’s clock cleaned in an election seldom leads to rituals of purification. Two other developments are far more likely in the wake of electoral defeat: dissolution, as happens with most third-party efforts; and convergence, as the losers take the rational step of imitating the winners, the party which seems to know what the majority of the voters want. That second development can best be illustrated by the Republican Party from the New Deal to 1980.
Yes, this time Obama over-reached and that spurred a conservative reaction. And, luckily for conservatives and for the country, the economy did not collapse into a Second Great Depression, which would have given the Democrats a virtual blank check to appeal to a bewildered nation.
But even without that collapse and with that conservative reaction, one-sixth of the US economy almost passed into the hands of the central government and the largest and most pervasive entitlement program in history was almost enacted, save for one chance event
Ted Kennedy’s death.
Somehow I don’t think the writer was counting on that when he pumped for an Obama victory as just the tonic for the GOP.
Keep that lucky aspect in mind when you look to the future with a head full of purity tests and one-size-fits-all conservatism.
The utility of variety in politics as in everything else is that you have more weapons to fight with when Plan A goes awry.
And Plan A always goes awry.

That’s why it’s incredibly important for conservatives to re-engage with the GOP at the grass roots level.

The Precinct Project, about which ColdWarrior has posted rather a lot, is clearly the way for conservatives to take control of the party, and that’s what it’ll take to get a GOP that can see what’s going on and can react appropriately.

At this point, what the Brown vs. Croakley campaign shows is that conservatives are not going to put up with voting for garbage candidates, and are willing to support candidates who are right for their districts and states.

This can not be 1994 all over again. This time, conservatives have to stay engaged. It is not enough to stop liberalism, we need to roll it back to pre-Reagan levels. A new GOP is required for this, therefore we will have to build a new GOP.

Mew

We do that by getting conservatives to flood into the voting ranks of the Party — by becoming precinct committeemen (it’s called different names in different states).

Half these slots were, on average, nationwide, vacant in each state GOP apparatus.

Here are some numbers that show how grass roots involvement at the precinct level can quickly change a political party. On Election Day, 2008, out of 6,231 precinct committeemen slots available to represent, within the Party itself, the approximately 694,000 registered Republicans residing in Maricopa County, only 1,989 slots were filled. Thus, the Party was at 31.9 per cent strength in the voting ranks. Those who have volunteered since Election Day, 2008 to be appointed as a PC, and who had their appointments approved 45 days before the Jan. 16, 2010 annual meeting (more on that in a minute), numbered 3,030 — meaning 48.6 per cent of the slots were filled. At last count, our total number of precinct committeemen in Maricopa County is 3,326 — that means the Party is now over half-strength — at 53.3 per cent strength.

Because we conservative Republican precinct committeemen in Maricopa County have recruited many conservatives to come into the Party as voting members of it, on Saturday, at our annual meeting, we had some success. At the Maricopa County Republican Party annual meeting on Saturday, Jan. 16, the “Conservative Slate” of five candidates for the five at-large positions on the MCRP Executive Guidance Committee, to serve alongside the Legislative District chairman and the MCRP officers, overwhelming won all five positions. The five at-large members serve a two-year term. So, conservative Republicans added five “hard corps” conservatives to the county leadership. Those five conservatives had been endorsed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Don Goldwater of the Pachyderm Coalition, and several grass roots “Tea Party” organizations. Each of the five candidates on the Conservative Slate garnered vote margins in the 80 per cent range.

Also, all the “conservative” changes to the bylaws, and all the “conservative” resolutions, passed overwhelmingly. We had a total turnout of 1,699 precinct committeemen in person or by proxy, and about 1,200 in person. A lot of “Tea Partiers” were in attendance.

And, based on Saturday’s overwhelming votes in favor of the Conservative Slate, the conservative changes to the bylaws and the conservative resolutions, and based on the tenor of the crowd, I think it’s safe to say we now have a solidly conservative Maricopa County Republican Party.

Change the party ranks, change the outcome of the primary elections, change the outcome of the general elections.

You can read more here:

http://renewliberty.org/2010/01/16/maricopa-county-republican-committee-mandatory-meeting-held-on-january-16-2010/

Thank you.
ColdWarrior
No More Scozzafavas!

The “liberal moderacy mindset and operating parameters” will pervade until they are either removed or slam dunked. You can hear it in the GOP when most any of them speak. They are staying Huffington moderate…..don’t ask me why….all the answers I’ve heard hit home…..and all answers are bad.

The problem is that Nov will be too long of a time to wait to get started. There is too much to do NOW. The fight to support good new conservative candidates, and to speak up against the radical initiatives of the Dems…MUST START NOW. Does anyone think that a year will actually be enough time to correct the mess that Obama is creating and generate a presidential candidate? That’s what will have to happen if everything has to wait to start in November IE 2011. It will take that entire second year 2012 to ensure a presidential win and do a 360 on Obama’s mess.

To prove my point I offer the overly simplistic reference that I have given before:
http://bit.ly/R77sq
I rest my case.

I’ve become active in Tampa and St Petersburg Florida. I had no idea what was really going on. Cold Warrior outlined it well. Precinct GOP positions need to get filled. Also ..SEIU and ACORN need to get thrown the %^&* out.

and sell us all down the river like the Bush, Frist, Hastert kabal did.

We’re going to get one more shot at this…and if the Republican Party screws it up this time…we’ll be right back where we started from last year.

He need to be the party of not just no…but hell no where the Obama agenda is concerned….but the Party of yes to American exceptionalism and putting America back on the ascendancy!

Great to have you back BC….it’s been too long

Tough Break with Colt aye….but his backup showed some promise and I look forward to seeing him next year!

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

That would be nice, yes.

However, I would be happy to have a GOP majority filled with real Republicans instead of lip service Rinos.

Based on our platform, real abiding reform would occur if this were so.

he is not conservative.

The mantra has to be support the most conservative candidate who can win, and we need to do that while not confusing or dumbing down what conservatism means.

Brown has some conservative instincts and policies, but he is not a conservative.

Ditto for Cox, although we have more conservative candidates who could win in Michigan.

Obama never would have won in 2008 if the GOP would have put up an attractive Consevative candidate that could articulate alternatives to leftist proposals. It just still irks me when I think how wrong McCain was to challange Barack.

All the polls show, and these recent elections confirm, that America is a Center/Right country and that people are fed up with the Federal government. I don’t think that just happened in the last 10 months. We have to fight the lefties on principles, not buy into paradigms like “Healthcare is a right”(it’s not).

Over-reaction goes both ways.

Yes, America is a center-right country.

But there is very little evidence that the people of America are fed up with the Federal government.

What they are fed up with today with the Democrats is the same thing they were dissatisfied with in 2006 and 2008 with the Republicans – poor performance.

The Democrats are showing themselves through their arrogance, programs, and shoddy dealings to be poor stewards of the machine of governing.

But a protest movement that featured tens of thousands yelling “Keep your hands off my Medicare!” is hardly one ready to return to laissez faire.

That is why while it is necessary to be grounded in the principles of limited government and to support self-reliance, those precepts must find their expression in smaller, incremental policies centered around kitchen-table issues.

A great man put it best and I recommend his words to you.

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”

Ronald Reagan, The Farewell Address to the Nation.

You should be writing stump speeches for somebody. I really liked your litany of “Yes-es.”

…yes to cutting taxes. Yes to charter schools. Let us stand up and say yes to disarming terrorist and rogue nations around the world. Yes to smaller government, and disabling a crippling bureaucracy that will not allow for the unleashing of the free market and reviving the economy. Yes to the sanctity of life, with no exceptions. Yes to the ordinary, freedom loving people who make up the Tea Party Patriots. Yes to saving our family and providing a safe and secure environment for our children to grow up.

Good one, Michael.

“No”

But be patient

One of the best conservative candidates I have seen nationwide has been SC Rep. Jeff Duncan. Rep. Duncan has proven his conservatism in the General Assembly of SC and is the kind of candidate we need to provide a stark contrast to Pelosi and her liberal cronies. One great way to find out about him is through his website www.jeffduncan.com.

Let’s be honest. Brown is not a social conservative from what I’ve seen.

What people are voting for are people who are STRONG on national defense and STRONG on small government.

You are still not going to get everything in a blue state candidate and that is fine with me.

In a blue state, you want votes for the majority so you can control the agenda.

In a purple state, you want conservatives when the wind is blowing with us (like 2010) and moderates when it’s not.

And in red states, you should get conservatives … no ifs ands or buts.