CPAC does not want a GOP gov with a 74% approval rating but does want a failed presidential candidate, a failed VP candidate, a failed primary candidate and a douche bag……..sounds like the “stupid” movement to me…….
Chris Christie not invited to CPAC – Maggie Haberman – POLITICO.com.
College of Political Knowledge
If you we around and interested in the recent meeting of the GOP, the CPAC, you got an hear full of “Obama Sucks” rhetoric….but there was one speech that caught my attention…..it was from the “frontrunner” he made a 26 minute speech and used the word “conservative” 26 times….to me it was a bit over kill but there is a precedent for this type of speech……
Mitt was employing an old logic technique….ad argumentum populum……
In Logic, a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges, “If many believe so, it is so.“
The argumentum ad populum is a “Red herring (fallacy)”. It appeals on probabilistic terms; given that 75% of a population answer A to a question where the answer is unknown, the argument states that it is reasonable to assume that the answer is indeed A. In cases where the answer can be known but is not known by a questioned entity, the appeal to majority provides a possible answer with a relatively high probability of correctness.
It is logically fallacious because the mere fact that a belief is widely held is not necessarily a guarantee that the belief is correct; if the belief of any individual can be wrong, then the belief held by multiple persons can also be wrong. The argument that because 75% of people polled think the answer is A implies that the answer is A fails, for if opinion did determine truth, there be no way to deal with the discrepancy between the 75% of the sample population that believe the answer is A and 25% who are of the opinion that the answer is not A. However small the percentage of those polled is distributed among any remaining answers, this discrepancy by definition disproves any guarantee of the correctness of the majority. In addition, this would be true even if the answer given by those polled were unanimous, as the sample size may be insufficient, or some fact may be unknown to those polled that, if known, would result in a different distribution of answers.
Thanx to wiki for the above definition.
The Mitt-ster seems to believe that if he calls himself a conservative that the base will sooner or later believe he is on of them….I think after looking at the most recent polls…..that he has got to try harder…..NO one is buy the crap he is shoveling.
But he does have one thing going in his favor…….the American people……they have fallen pray to bullsh*t in the past…..
Last week the annual meeting of the best and brightest minds in the conservative movement met in Washington, the Conservative Political Action Conference…it was billed as a meeting of the students, campaigns, activists and us mere mortals…..for the reason to strengthen the conserv movement….if that is truly their aim……then they failed miserably! (I told you I was a political junkie)……..
As usual the participants were a list of the “usual suspects”….we had Rubio, the Pauls, Perry, Newt, Mitt, Cain and the newest darling of the movement, Santorum…..and they all took a shot at being the center of the conservative universe, at least or 10 or 5 minutes…..there was such forums and classes as….conservative dating…..and a class on the failure of multiculturalism given by a racist…..then there is the felon Ralph Reed, a proven fraud with media ties and the most powerful man in Washington that NEVER had to face an election……if the conserv movement wants to be taken more seriously then maybe find some more reputable people to lead the movement…..
I watched, whenever I could, the doings going on and let me say first…..I looked for that outstanding person that would be the savior of the party and all I saw was a “one note charlie”…..if this was a meeting of the best and brightest minds, why then is the one issue that was heard is “Obama sucks”…though thinly veiled all speeches basically said the same thing…..”Obama Sucks”………and the inevitable attacks on liberals as somehow a treasonous movement…..but the most prominent idea coming out of CPAC 2012 was…..OBAMA SUCKS!
There was a wealth of attempted humor….a wealth of criticism…….a bunch of one liners….and a mess of attempts t creating bumper stickers…..but there was NOTHING as far as ideas go….I regret to say to my friends that are conservatives……if this is the best that the conserv movement has then you guys are so screwed!
Without any truly new ideas or policies…the conserv movement will become an even bigger joke than they are today……..
Inkwell Institute
2010/12 Election Series
Lots has been said by many in the media of a possible revolution in politics…..it began in New York with the failed attempt of a political outsider and continued on to Mass where Brown won in a landslide over a traditional Dem and now we come to the latest CPAC and their straw vote on a presidential candidate and for the last three years everyone has been enamored with Mitt Romney…but this year he had to settle for the “also ran” category for the winner was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas a Libertarian in the GOP…….the GOP was surprised at the vote, but they are NOT paying attention….anyone that is watching politics was not caught off guard…..at least we see the anger, even if the Repubs do not…..
Looks like a culture war is brewing….maybe even as pronounced as the one during the Nixon years…..Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has a few observations of the battle brewing:
1. The Tea Partiers are a movement within the Republican Party; it is increasing the energy density inside the GOP; very few Tea Partiers are true independents. It remains to be determined how many of them are not registered to vote, or how many of them are unreliable Republican voters.2. There are different Tea Party movements; some parts seem more influenced by different issue sets than others; it is mostly a shared sensibility; a few common strands run between them: outrage and anger at Washington, and a diffuse but palpable sense that the Elites and the Obama administration are changing the way American works — and looks and acts — for the worse.3. The Republican primary base is different than the Ron Paul revolutionaries, many of whom are not registered Republican. They’ll be more influential in open primaries than closed primaries.4. Ron Paul is really the only libertarian with street cred. (Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor? He gets the issues but doesn’t speak the language well.)5. The Tea Partiers and Ron Paul’s libertarians overlap to some degree, but they differ strongly on national security, and the Tea Partiers are, generally, more ready to identify as Republicans than Paulites are. They’re also older.6. Sarah Palin seems like a natural candidate for the Tea Party crowd; from a very un-elite state, anti-technocrat; anti-shades of gray; she’s taken on the elites and lost, and has a cross to bear; their embrace of her, for the most part, reveals how orthodox the TP movement actually is. Problem for Palin: if she’s seen as part of the establishment, she won’t play as well with the Tea Partiers. She really will have to run as an outsider and forcibly reject, for example, the Weekly Standard types who are rooting for her.7. Uniting the Paulites and the Tea Parties is a view about the the role of government, expressed in the familiar cliches: low taxes, creeping socialism, lay off. And, I would argue, a geo-racial-ethnic anxiety about the emerging majority-minority nation and its attendent economic effects. When the immigration debate flares up, watch out.8. Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have no chance whatsover to share the sensibility of the Tea Partiers and the Paulites, certainly not in their current incarnations. They don’t speak the language; and because the movement is not about particular issues, their resumes don’t particularly matter. Romney and Pawlenty have a much better chance with that portion of the GOP base which does not identify with the Tea Party movement — which is, by definition, more establishmentarian and hierarchical. The Tea Partiers, at least, have a vehicle for advancing a candidate; Libertarians (the Paulites) really don’t, because they are…libertarians and don’t like to be all collective-y.
9. Romney could not be positioned more poorly to harness the Tea Partiers, the Paulites, and the social conservatives right now: protestant evangelicals still think he’s a Mormon of the suspect kind (unlike, say, John Huntsman Jr., who comes off as a real guy); he is a national security hawk at a time when there is a growing “get us out of there” movement within the base of the GOP; he is unlikely to embrace libertarianism (gambling, marijuana, civil unions) that would transform his political image and attract some of the Paulites; his immigration positioning is solid enough, but his association with the GOP establishment — he’s seen as the establishment candidate — will make anything he says suspect. A deft candidate, which Romney can be, can find a way to articulate a muscular vision for national security (pro “enhanced interrogation,” anti-Gitmo closing) but simultaneously argue that American strength ought not be projected, lest it be diluted.
There seems to be a mounting opposition to the standards set by the GOP…the Tea Partyers, Libertarians, and others are preparing for a run at the 2010 and 2012 elections…..the young voters are tired of the crap in Washington and they showed their disappointment with the GOP at the CPAC……
But with all their anger, the Tea Partyers seem to be shying away from traditional conservative planks like family, faith, especially the meat of GOP politics gay marriage and abortion……The motto of the Tea Party Patriots, a large coalition of groups, is “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.” The Independence Caucus questionnaire, which many Tea Party groups use to evaluate candidates, poses 80 questions, most on the proper role of government, tax policy and the federal budgeting process, and virtually none on social issues. (Reported in the NY Times)…..
I found a very interesting thought on Republicans United (go to blogroll it is a very good and informative site) one of their writers, Travis Johnson, when writing about Dick Armey and the Tea Party, had some excellent points that I feel would be a winner if the GOP would just put aside the BS and concentrate on good governance…….
Republicans can counter the Democrats promises of hand-outs with a hand-up. We need to be actively encourage English-language and GED classes for legal immigrants. We should work with poor minorities to get them trained to do the jobs we are currently importing. We should target extremely low-interest government loans and grants to poor people to start their own businesses (then, keep the tax burden extremely low for them, to give them room to thrive). We should sponsor community-run childcare facilities to ensure the people who would be working or going to school so that they can feed their families don’t leave their children home to fend for themselves and can have adult supervision top help them with homework and teach them how to stay out of trouble.
These ideas are winners…..this is why it is time for moderate even liberal Republicans to take back the party of Lincoln from the hijackers that are now in control.
There is NO political revolution approaching. but there is what I believe a cultural war coming…….old farts will remember the one from the Nixon years….and with all that said….with the “new” mode of thought could also attract old farts like me……
To Be Continued……….
Not as sinister as the plot of 7 Days in May….but just as entertaining……
It is happening as we speak…..the much anticipated Conservative Political Action Conference….a meeting of the minds on the Right….the richness of the political thought is just astounding (that is called sarcasm)…….any way they are there in Washington to plan out the next year in conservative politics…..
I have been watching and listening, FOX News is very helpful in keeping the meeting on air….the first thing that I noticed was the statement from a group….it is called the “Mount Vernon Statement” and here is the NEW ideas that are coming out of the conference:
- It applies the principle of limited government based on the
rule of law to every proposal.- It honors the central place of individual liberty in American
politics and life.- It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and
economic reforms grounded in market solutions.- It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom
and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that
end.- It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood,
community, and faith.
If this is the new direction for the GOP then they are backing up…..nothing new in those principles…
Then there are the speakers at the conference:
Cheney, who served as vice president to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, said this year would be “phenomenal” for conservatives and flatly declared Obama would not win re-election in 2012, calling him a “one-term president.”
“After all the finger-pointing is finished, it has become clear who is responsible for President Obama’s lost year, the 10 percent unemployment year — President Obama and his fellow Democrats. So when it comes to pinning blame, pin the tail on the donkeys,” Romney said.
“You’re intellectually shallow; you’re a romantic; you’re self-indulgent,” former House majority leader Dick Armey said of Obama, calling him “the most incompetent president perhaps in our lifetime.”
President Obama and congressional Democrats “are using this downturn as cover, not to fix America but to try to change America, to fundamentally re-define the role of government in our lives and the role of America in the world,” Marco Rubio said
Just a few of the quotes from the vast array of speakers…..but what does it show? Nothing had changed….they still do NOT have an answer for problems so they resort back to hatred as weapon…..sorry but a person that does not agree with me politically is just wrong…..but to Repubs they are evil….May I suggest that they, the GOP, put anger aside and start acting like adults and give the American people REAL alternatives to the problems that they say are killing the country….but NOOOOOOOO!…….the Repubs have to have someone to hate and apparently so does the American people and once the USSR collapsed that hatred had to find a new hook….and that is your political opposition……
Three days of accusing the Prez of everything that is bad is a bit excessive…..it could have been boiled down to the caveman mentality that they are playing to…..”Liberals-Bad, Conservatives-Good”……how hard is that?
Cool! A battle has begun between the RNC’s Steele and The Mouth Of Radio, Rush.
Rush Limbaugh’s barn-burner at CPAC this weekend drew a line in the sand, once again, for Republicans: either they want President Obama to fail, or they don’t. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, subsequently, walked a tightrope on the issue last night in an interview with D.L. Hughley on CNN.
“Let’s put it in the context here,” Steele said. “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. His whole thing is entertainment…yes, it’s incendiary, yes, it’s ugly.” And that’s the line that has gotten the idea of Steele vs. Rush so much play in the blogosphere today.
Steele has put forth a vision for a more inclusive GOP–not necessarily inclusive to the idea of working with Democrats, but inclusive to new voting demographics–and “incendiary” rhetoric like Limbaugh’s may seem to threaten his chance at bringing in new votes. Then again, nothing generates campaign donations like passionate support, and nothing generates passionate support like “incendiary” opposition to Democrats.
Then The Rush fires back with both barrels…….tee hee….
“I hope the RNC chairman will realize he’s not a talking head pundit, that he is supposed to be working on the grassroots and rebuilding it and maybe doing something about our open primary system and fixing it so that Democrats don’t nominate our candidates,” Limbaugh said, his voice rising. “It’s time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of trying to be some talking head media star, which you’re having a tough time pulling off.”
“I’m not in charge of the Republican Party, and I don’t want to be,” he said. ” I would be embarrassed to say that I’m in charge of the Republican Party in the sad-sack state that it’s in. If I were chairman of the Republican Party, given the state that it’s in, I would quit. I might get out the hari-kari knife because I would have presided over a failure that is embarrassing to the Republicans and conservatives who have supported it and invested in it all these years.”
Two days after calling Rush Limbaugh a mere “entertainer” with an “incendiary” talk show, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele apologized and acknowledged the radio commentator as a “national conservative leader.”
“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
Steele to Rush…..My bad…you be da man! GOD! I love this stuff!
Trouble within the ranks of conservatism….will the GOP destroy itself from the inside? Hey Dumbasses! You do know that you morons are playing into the political hands of the Dems, right? The more you idiots keep slapping each other around…the more the people see just how flippin’ out of touch you are.
But personally I think he is deluded or maybe just plain dumb.
This is a piece of his recent speech of CPAC:
…..”We don’t want to tell anybody how to live. That’s up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we’ll try to stop it, but it’s a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that’s been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. [Applause] We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we’re all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we’re all the same, that we’re no different than anybody else. We’re all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That’s up to them. They are created equal, given the chance – -[Applause] We don’t hate anybody. We don’t — I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience — let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year.”
Just that small part of his endless speech just goes to show how wrong the GOP is on so many levels. To make his brand of BS a keynote speech, just shows how close the GOP is to wearing a death mask.