http://cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/01/29/HP/R/29045/President+Speaks+at+GOP+Retreat.aspx

let me know next November how that works out for them!

While a new contract is probably a good idea for delivering a single message regarding all proposed ideas if you fail to follow through, engage in too much reaching across the aisle, fall under the sway of “moderates”, and engage in reckless spending you will lose in 2012 and 2014. We conservatives are not only demanding conservative solutions to our problems, we are also demanding a roll back of decades of failed statist policies. Be bold, be honest, and make the case for strict fiscal discipline. Contra Newsweek, we are NOT all socialists now.

“One told me that the pollsters stressed the importance of winning independent voters, rather than turning out the base. They said that a critical reason for the GOP landslide in 1994 was that independents favored the GOP by a 14 point margin.”

Yes, but they also had the base as they were viewed as being conservative. I don’t know if that is all the case this go around. Focusing on the Indies and ignoring the base is what McCain attempted. I don’t think that’s an example that they should model after.

I’m sorry. That was idiotic advice, to play to the I’s and not the base.

First of all, a conservative message does BOTH.

Second of all, see first of all.

I don’t agree with the pollsters. McCain failed miserably using this tact. What about the win in Virginia?

McDonnell ran a clean, conservative campaign and the base and the indies turned out for him.

You cannot ignore the base, it doesn’t work.

Given the later political pronouncements that Democrats no plan to;
1- Blame Bush and Republicans for the current economy as an election strategy.
2- Blame Republicans the past year was their fault because they didn’t prostrate themselves before the stimulus and health care Gods.
3-Blame Republicans for the Democrats one-party rule that tripled the national debt and gave us 17% real unemployment
4- The Presidents own pronouncement later in the afternoon that if Republicans don’t get in line with his agenda- it’s all their fault

- I suppose it was a very collegial afternoon.

By the way, I assume Republicans handed the President a copy of their collective goals and suggested agenda for the next year? After all, that was the perfect opportunity if we are serious about truthfully winning back Americans instead of playing political games and hoping the Democrats failure will let the GOP pick up where they left off before our electorate told them to pound salt? Whew.

Just asking, being you were there and all that.

Yes…Lame Cherry’s piece has this capitulation to I’s down to a T.

http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2010/01/rhicon-republicans.html

If the Tea Party movement, 9-12 Project movement and other independent Democrats and Independent Conservatives put their heads together and pool their resources (financial and volunteering) all for the same cause, back to our Constitution and principles of the founding of the USA, then we won’t have to worry about the base or the “I”s. They will all be ONE. The local groups in each congressional district must evaluate their current representative (be he/she a DEM or a GOP) and if they don’t measure up to those founding values and not willing to stand up and represent us, then we recruit and find a candidate that will. That means a criminal background check, a political vetting and a group “grilling” to evaluate the “truthfulness” of such candidate. Then, if the candidate measures up to committment, endurance and willingness to go through the gauntlet of the MSM, we should collectively support each candidate with money, time and committment without the RNC, RNCC, RNSC, etc. That way the candidate will be independent of the national party and not behollding to the PROGRESSIVE RINOS WHO INFECT THE NATIONAL PARTY INFRASTRUCTURE.

Hope the GOP remembers (I think many still don’t realize) that the cloud of Independents surrounds the GOP cloud. Many are as conservative as the average GOP voter, many are MORE conservative, and fewer (still significant) exist slightly to the left of the GOP, between the GOP and the ‘line of demarcation’ between left and right (the ‘center’ line). Others to left of center can be drawn in, if done right, but not at the sacrifice of an even greater number on the right. This is the knowledge that will win elections.

I was always a big fan of the British QandA sessions with the prime minister, mostly because they tended to get a little rowdy. I thought this was good for both sides today. Everyone behaved themselves while making sure to get their points across. If you only watch cable news, you get the impression that the Reps and Dems are basically frothing at the mouth. It was cool to see them both act like grown-ups. I’d like to see them do this once a month, honestly. Mix it up, have Reid/McConnell answering questions one week, then Pelosi/Boehner the next. Might help keep em all honest (lol, yeah, i know, good luck with that. Make for good TV, though.)

…although I am clear Obama personally deserves equal and MORE of the attack…BIG TIME. Side note: KellyAnne Conway is a gift from God:))

I ABSOLUTELY do NOT agree with having the Republican pitch to independents be MODERATE…. It should absolutley be 100% conservative and then some. MAGNET NOT TENT.

Newt is one of the good people to SPEAK the message/contract but NOT the one who should DEVELOPE it. My vote for DEVELOPING the message…even if GOP won’t listen….is REDSTATE.

Great post Brian.

We just have not to forget ourselves and keep up the good fight.

I saw most of it and can recall a few instances of the above….

At one point he pointed out Frank Luntz and implied that the GOP gets its talking points from his focus groups. GMAB – this is the most focus-group administration ever. Latest example: Focus groups puked on the idea of a second stimulus package, but liked the sound of spending freeze. Voila! Call the second stimulus a spending freeze. Magic!

He blew off that he broke the no earmarks promise by saying it didn’t count when there was an emergency. EVERYTHING is an emergency to him, so that’s about as good an example of sophistry as you’re ever likely to see.

He blew off that he broke the HCR C-SPAN promise by saying most of the committee hearings were televised. Well since those bills were then trashed and the REAL bills developed behind closed doors, that’s about as disingenuous of an argument one could make.

Where?

n/t

It will save us the trouble of drawing him out of his district next year, and put a conservative Republican in that seat 2 years sooner than we expected.

pollsters stressed the importance of winning independent voters, rather than turning out the base.

It would appear that the House is indeed retreating from it’s base.
This is an outage, and identifies one of the largest problems that the GOP and RNC have now, pandering to the middle at the expense of the home troops on the front lines.
If they want to represent the independents, they can do so somewheres else.
Just McCain and Hoffman should be enough proof of that idiocy.

Screw the independents. Who cares.
This will divide and destroy the party if it continues.

I believe the trouble lies in the blurring of the lines between states’ duties to society and Federal duties. Whether liberals want to believe this or not, the constitution is compatible with the kinds of things they may want, it just precludes the Federal government from being involved. It is completely unnecessary and unwarranted to have debates for social programs going on in congress when states can deliver these programs or choose to abstain based on their own needs and wants.

With that said, I do not understand why it is neccessary to rip up the Constituiton and create this Federal behomoth with untold power for good or evil that threatens us when we least expect and spends us all into the poorhouse. It isn’t a matter of ideology or preferred political beliefs, but the bending and twisting of the Constiution and political opportunism has made it that way. Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founders were not ideologues. If they had been, we would still be stuck with the Articles of Confederation and all the chaos it created.

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “ all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition….as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.

It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.

It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. “

— Thomas Jefferson

where the GOP “advisors” hanging about the periphery begin the whisper campaign to blunt the conservative momentum pouring in from the “base” out there in the house member’s districts. “Oh, yes, THOSE people…well, they are a bit of a phenomena but remember, playing it safe and lukewarm always is a better long-term strategy…” The same people among who were handlers during the 08 campaign, muzzling Palin and then denouncing her afterwards. The same people who hang all over the pollsters (and are pollsters) and who hold their finger in the air all year long to feel the wind’s direction.

These people are the cancer.

Nobody likes to be called stupid or foolish or worse and Obama has said all of them. Voters no longer think he is a Messiah, or even that bright as he stumbles along with his elitists head tilt ala Mussolini.

It would be worse if any average citizen under fifty had received a decent education in the public system (this is NOT by accident mind you). If people understood history, understood Wilson, Eugenics, progressive politics and the outcome of the last failed attempts by people like Obama and his supporters Obama would have never been elected and if he had he would be a pariah by now. Pelosi and Reid would be run out on a rail.

But things are the way they are. Obama will run his string out. If the recession doubles down, as some predict (the most recent Amer. Spectator article suggests 2011 will be twice as bad) there will be nothing he can do except push his agenda forward against a growing resistance.

Look at Reagan, 1994, Brown, McDonnell, Christie – conservatism wins “independents.” If the House members see this obvious fact, we will be in good shape. If they listen to some ignorant consultant & think that independents are won by being wishy-washy, we won’t.

He was looking down at his speech for literally half his speech! It was a recap of his SOTU speech (nothing wrong with this.) But several times he said, “My proposal for x will y. This is good because z.” *All* while looking down at the lectern.

It was evident he didn’t know what he believed or why. He did not know the subject matter at all.

It reminded me of when he read one of his first Executive Orders. Thing was, it was the first time he had read it himself.

Remember Bill Clinton? Lost the entire House & Senate in 1994, won easily in 1996.

The electorate is fickle and forgets quickly. Last year OBama had 70% opinion ratings.

I smell overconfidence.

“No, no, no, no, no.”
“Hold on. Hold on. No.”

Very rude and disrespectful.

He says these same things when answering questions from any reporter who asks a follow-up question challenging his policies.

by the excessive vividness fallacy of calling health care reform a “Bolshevik plot”?

It’s the typical Obama trick of calling your opponent’s position absurd by implying that of course no one could be _that_. And yet, there it is.

In a sense, his saying that some people who thought it was a Bolshevik plot thought it was a “Bolshevik plot” was a Bolshevik plot.

They are too smart to actually say on camera what they are feeling,
unlike the socialists. That is where they lose the edge….
instead of saying that you might work with the President to pass some parts of the healthcare bill that you could both agree with????
Huh??

Why say that? Don’t say it….Because you cannot help this Marxist AT ALL – PERIOD END OF DISCUSSION BOYS…..

Throw you DC attitudes & platitudes out the window. This is the wild west. The slow guns will get killed. I know, I know – easy for me to say.
But many people are looking at these videos. The leftys are analyzing them. Pulling soundbites into their lefty blogs.

START saying stuff like –

“I am glad the President came by but I don’t think he understands the people’s anger.”

Or how about –

“We cannot support ANY legislation that puts the federal government in control of the people’s own decisions.”

STOP acting like Obama is going to come around. He just wants to get behind you to stab you in the backs………………

When your opposition is committing suicide you don’t want to interrupt.

And I find that moderate stuff crazy. Conservative ideas appeal to everybody except the lefties. The problem is getting the right people for the job. You can’t hope to retain trust of citizens with politicians that are more interested in self preservation. So ensure that we win with right candidates. And then keep them honest.

It’s NOT A RETREAT! It’s a CONFERENCE.

ATTACK!
ATTACK!
ATTACK!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/02/obama-accuses-republicans-flip-flopping-nh-speech/?test=latestnews

Obama made a play for bipartisanship, urging Congress’ minority Republicans to cooperate with him and Democratic leadership on overhauling the nation’s education, energy and health care policies and on tackling record and crippling federal budget deficits.

“Democrats can’t do this alone nor should we,” Obama said.

Yet as he reached out with one hand, he slapped with the other. Obama took Republicans to task for two instances of switching positions.

He said that those who opposed last year’s massive stimulus package, and have argued since that it isn’t helping to save or create jobs, have also claimed credit in their districts for projects that were funded by the bill. “They’ve found a way to have their cake and vote against it too,” Obama said, without naming any lawmakers specifically.

Obama also criticized Republicans for opposing a bill to create a bipartisan commission on reducing the deficit, saying that seven GOP senators who once co-sponsored the bill then voted against it.

“It’s one thing to have an honest difference of opinion on something,” Obama said. “It’s another to walk away from your responsibilities to confront the challenges facing this country because you think it’s good short-term politics.”

He added: “You’re out of patience for this kind of business as usual.”

All I can say is: Obama cannot be trusted. This is why you cannot work with this man. He must be shut-down and tossed to the curb.