nt.

as we’ve had these discussions in the past (Contract with America (original, a part 2?), for one) we have to have Republicans demonstrating it is more than a gimmick they’ll discard…. How about we FINISH THE FIRST CONTRACT?!?! By resurrecting it and finishing the job by getting Republicans doing what should have been done after the Line Item Veto and Term Limits lost steam and were challenged — CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ground-work started and NOT LET UP ON…. then people will know it is just words again! (by again, of course, that is the SPIN – and it is hard to counter when too many walked away from it — there was NO EXCUSE to not have brought back up SPENDING CUTS A TO Z when we had the Power in 2001 — and we cannot use 9/11 as an excuse, because it could have and should have been in the works before that happened!

SO ALL I’M SAYING — We must have positive steps and actions before additional words are thrown out there!

With all due respect to you and Laura those are all, with the exception of (2), hackneyed platitudes. I care in 2010 about only one thing: spending cuts; real, meaningful, specific spending cuts. Unless the party coalesces around reducing spending, I’ll be voting as close to a straight Libertarian ticket as the ballot allows me. My conscious doesn’t allow me to do anything else.

-exits

These are 10 inside the Beltway wonky ideas generated by wonky political types to whom they are interesting and important. While some of them touch on important things to the American voters they are being presented in typical government/politicians speak As a marketing program to retake Congress they suck.

Every good salesperson knows that you sell by conveying no more than 3-5 value propositions to your customer. Find out what the 3-5 most important needs of your customers are and present the 3-5 aspects of your product that meet those needs.

What is the one thing that we know about the mood of the American voter in general? They hate Congress. Why do they hate Congress? Because they think that Congress spends their money while lining their own pockets. So, point one should be: we’re going to throw the elite bums out, lobbyists, bureaucrats and put rules in place to punish the crooks. Deny Obama power to do any further damage.

What does the American voter want government to do? Defend the country from without and within. We are going to have a strong military, we are going to secure the borders from illegal immigration and we are going to deny benefits to those here illegally. We don’t care what France thinks. Toss in English only for good measure.

What does the American voter want? A job and economic security. We are going to give tax breaks to companies who create jobs. We are going to cut back on foreign aid and invest that money here. We are going to get out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of the United States. We are going to put America and Americans first.

What does the American voter believe in? Fairness. We are going to do away with preferences. We will make sure that everybody has an equal chance to succeed but no one will get a better chance to succeed. We’re going to make the tax code fair so that you pay for your share not your share and some bums’ share.

The last thing we need is to present a typical political laundry list of “features”. If you think the American voter is going to believe that the Republicans are serious if they wave this namby-pamby list around you need to get out and talk to people. Make that, real people. The real people want some butts kicked. This list sounds like it was written by someone working at Hallmark cards.

He has a very good list, and is marketing it as he seeks the Republican nomination for MN governor. I think his list is put together in a much more saleable fashion than the one above. Granted, it is MN specific in some ways, but it is a very good blueprint. It is the reason I plan on supporting him for Governor at the upcoming state convention.

The plan entails:

1). Job growth legislation that cuts regulations, licensing, bureaucracy, and permits, plus reforms and downsizes the tax code to make Minnesota competitive in the 21st century job environment. Seifert will also balance our budget by ensuring that government lives within its means, just like families and businesses do.

2). A Health Care Reform bill that lowers health insurance premiums by enacting sweeping tort reform, market choices, insurance reform, and tax incentives so that middle class families can afford health insurance.

3). A K-12 bill that respects parental choices, ensures fair and equitable funding for all students and respects local control.

4). End pork-barrel spending and earmarks, which bloat the state budget and bonding bill.

5). Repeal sanctuary city ordinances for illegal aliens, empower law enforcement to enforce our laws and ensure accountability for law breakers.

6). Reform welfare in Minnesota to bring about accountability, work, and responsibility. This will include welfare benefits being no higher for out of state residents than the state they are coming from; ending EBT welfare debit card abuses; increasing waiting periods and enrollment standards for out of state residents.

7). Pass a sweeping ethics reform proposal that holds office-holders to higher standards.

Much of the Ten for 10 is too vague to run on. They needs to run on concrete ideas such as tax cuts, term limits for Congress, etc

Really it is just a generically watered down Contract with America.

Dr. Laura Feelgood.

1.A taxpayer bill of rights (how about abolish the IRS and income tax)
2.End taxpayer funded abortions (You can do it as long as I don’t have to pay for it? Have we fallen this far?)
3.Secure and defend the border (How in the world did we survive for 150 years without a fence or an immigration problem? How about stop giving illegal aliens free citizenship and welfare)
4.Support a strong dollar (End the Fed. The GOLD backed dollar WAS always strong before the FED screwed it up)
5.Empower American businesses (See 1)
6.Defend America (Seriously?! Do you think we oughta?)
7.End Statism (Liars and Czars and Bailouts oh my. )
8.End generational theft (How about end federal involvement in retirement planning. Yes, we have to do it right but what happened to that conversation?)
9.Restore justice (And leap tall buildings? What about truth and all that other stuff?)
10.Make America energy independent (Doesn’t end statism cover this? Oh ya that’s only for czars and bailouts. Well I propose an end to statism that leaves energy production to the free market experts.)

Seriously, there is nothing in here to exactly disagree with.
Is this supposed to be a rallying cry?
Is there anything in here that would last past the first Democratic majority? If we pass this are we assuming the Dems won’t be back in control?

How about something real with teeth.
1. Abolish the income tax.
2. End the FED that caused the Great Depression, the 70′s and the “whatever history will call this current mess.”
3 A Term Limits Amendment.
4. An state centered independent Court of Public Integrity with the power to remove elected or appointed federal officials from office to stop all of this ridiculous corruption in DC.
5. Require congress to post bills online for a month before voting on them and to literally read every bill from the house floor.
6. Real Immigration reform that denies citizenship to any illegal alien.
7. Limit Treaty making powers to international relations so they cannot impinge on our God given rights. Like the Treaty on the Rights of the child will.
8. Quit funding and kick out the dictators club in NYC.
9 Require every regulation to be ratified by congress. No more passing the buck and the power to the unelected bureaucracy.
10. Right to work.

These may not all be exactly the right things but they are real things.
The kind of things that people who thought both parties were the same might look at and say, “Heck Yeah” or “That’s Different.”

Really what Laura is saying is we are not them. Vote for us.

Which is what the left did in the last election. It also means slowing but not stopping the march of socialism. Stay the course.

“American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition.” R.L. Dabney

Santorum did a conference call this AM and is on his way to Iowa, per a site called RadioIowa.com. He feels it’s time to step in, thanks Rush Limbaugh and others on talk radio, but sees them as too ‘shrill’ and leaning to ‘hyperbole.’ Santorum’s presence can only help re-elect Obama.

All good platitudes, but how does it play outside of Washington and active conservatives. Needs to be refined and pared down to play in “Peoria” and the rest of the country.

Suggestions:
1) Balance Budget – acknowledge it’s our money not the governments, period end of story.
2) No Pork – see above.
3) Defend personal freedoms outlined in the Constitution and support freedom around the world.
4) A nation of laws makes us better than others – enforce all laws including immigration laws.
5) Never apologize for our foriegn policy and defend our allies with a strong defense.
6) Energy Independence – through drilling, exploration, nuclear, and GREEN technology. (don’t ignore peoples desire to keep the world clean, not because of the global warming hooey, but the desire to leave it cleaner for their children)

Nice try but it has to be able to be felt in our everyday lives. The fear facing America today is that instead of our children inheriting an America that will allow them to live better lives than we are (as in generations past), they will inherit an in-debt, weak, dependent nation.

The rest are either overly vague (6, 7, 9, 10) or potentially bad (1 and 5). Also, most of them sound untenable: the “strong dollar” one, for instance, isn’t possible, given that control of the money supply is under the control of the Federal Reserve.

No more vague platitudes. No more half measures.

Liberty begins and ends with TERM LIMITS.

Sit in an outhouse for six years and you’ll stop noticing the smell, too.

We don’t need vague lists that mean nothing to most Americans.

We need leadership. We need ideas. We need solutions.

Look at the polls. The Dems have been sinking but Republicans go nowhere. The Dem loss in the polls is not translating into gains for the GOP.

Voters will ask where is the GOP’s solution for healthcare? There’s a few half-hearted ideas from some in Congress, but the GOP needs to have a solution. They need to speak with one voice. But the GOP has largely been silent.

And then we have Limbaugh telling folks they are lazy slobs if they cannot afford the $15,000 per year to properly insure their family.. or that they are whiners to complain about 25% insurance premium increases each year. Yeah.. that sure spells “winner” at the polls.

I hate what the Dems are doing to this country. But I hate even more watching my party being led by out of touch old white guys who haven’t had an original idea in decades.

That’s all I want.

Mire the federal government in gridlock so they can’t do anything.

These are reasonable things to say, but most of them are so broad as to mean almost nothing. End generational theft? We’ve been pushing bills into the future for decades.

No matter how bad a job the Democrats are doing right now, there isn’t much hope for a change in 2010 because the GOP is leaderless.

Who can people rally around?

Sarah Palin? Huckabee? Limbaugh?

How about this?

“It’s the Constitution, Liberals!”

Idea:

The Republican Party offers to the American people the enforcement of the original “Contract with the American People” — the Contract that starts with the three words, “We the People” — the Constitution.

We need to change the debate and engage in a national Civics re-education effort. Most Americans, I suspect, haven’t actually read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution in years. In the age of the Internet, that’s “inconceivable” (I’m harking back to Susannah’s diary including the great clip from the movie “The Princess Bride” involving that word). Go here (and read the whole thing and all the links — it’s GOOD):

http://www.redstate.com/susannah/2009/08/29/barack-obama-is-not-articulate-inconceivable/

Specifically, my suggestion is that we get the Republican Party candidates to pledge to vigorously fight on behalf of the American people to ensure that the Congress of the United States will stay within the strictures of the few limited, enumerated powers outlined in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;–And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section8

That’s it. This strategy does two things — it FORCES our candidates to take the Constitution seriously and educates the American people about our “supreme law of the land.”

A novel concept. Hmmm. My recollection is that Ronald Reagan sort of talked about the Constitution and the concepts of limited government and enumerated powers “and so and, and so forth,” as he used to say. And, as I recall, he won in landslides. REAL landslides. Because most Americans really do believe this stuff. The latest Rasmussen poll says 56 per cent of the American people polled, likely voters, DO NOT WANT socialized medicine and 61 per cent of Arizona Republicans believe John McCain is out of touch with their desires and thinking.

Desperate times require desperate measures, they say. That’s a feeble attempt at humor. Relying on a document that people take an oath to support and defend (I’ve taken that oath at least seven times) is not a “desperate measure.” And demanding that people who take that oath, who get elected to public office, is not a “desperate measure” — it is common sense.

This soldier can make the case, why can’t our Party’s candidates?

Each of us can demand the Party incumbents and leadership embrace the Constitution — by becoming a precinct committeeman.

Go here:

http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2009/09/02/434-new-conservative-precinct-committeemen-and-counting/

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

I would support this as a good start, but not as the final list of positions to run on and win. I do think it’s worth supporting these principles but each candidate and voter needs to dig deeper to better define how these broad general things translate into real actionable items.

One thing I definitely think needs to be added is a federal sunset law. No more entitlement programs that are exempt from regular review, either. EVERY program that is not directly related to national defense should be subject to federal sunset every 4 years (I could even go for 2 years) and should require affirmative approval by Congress and the President to continue them.

Would I kill Medicare? Congress should have to defend it every few years, and take that opportunity to refine it as they go. If they can’t fit the unfunded mandates into the budget, then it has to go. Stop borrowing for it and pay it off, but no new spending. Like cutting up the credit card, then paying off the bill, and not getting another one.

Yes, I know there’s not enough time for Congress to do that for every program out there. That’s the idea. You decide what really matters and the government focuses on those things. The rest get sunset. Too many people are making a career out of running bureaucracy instead of working in the real world, and they are so far removed from reality the only solution is to begin killing off their programs.

Great list by Laura. All self explanitory except seven and eight. The question being how to end statism and how to end generational theft. I my mind the best way to do this is to repeal the 16th amendment. Get all the big money out of Washington. Make them have to come to the states for funding. This would limit their funding, re-federalize the system and put more power in the people’s hands. It’s hard to march on Washington for people who live in the west, but it’s easy to march on Austin for Texans, Baton Rouge for Louisianians, Boise for Idahoans, etc. This would end statism and stop generational theft.

As to point 2, end taxpayer funded abortions, I’d say give the unborn the rights that all men are created equal. Until the 1920′s women did not have the right to vote and were not percieved equal to men. There struggles continued into the 1990′s with the Equal Rights Amendment. Some people of color were considered property until the emancipation proclaimation. Now it is time to afford all human life the same rights to life, liberty and the persuit of Happiness. The unborn are after all a unique human life from the time of conception.

We have all made our wish lists of policies and we have all been disappointed in the lack of politicians espousing our views.

But in order for anyone to win any election at whatever level, it is best to pick about four main topics, you have to have a concrete plan for all four of them. Three should be doable, and one can be ambitious.

Then you run on those things, You shout them high and low and try to point out how much your opponent is opposed to them.

That is the way people win elections. Not with large or vague wish lists.

…the beginnings of a platform that will allow “business as usual” to happen in a R controlled Congress. I was there on 9/12 – nobody wants business as usual, be it R or D…

I would replace 2 of the points with:

a) End all earmarks and require congressperson sign-offs that they have read the bill “and are ready to proceed” before being allowed on the floor to vote.

b) A first priority to establish new laws rooting out and punishing corruption and fraud associated with any member of the 3 branches of Govt and their staff.

There is already a grassroots effort (better than a party effort) underway at www.NewContractForAmerica.org

Hmmm…. it also has 10 points…. hmmmm…

They launched the website on 9/12 (coincidence?) and many congressional candidates from all over the nation have already signed.