THE 2006 ELECTION: WHAT HAPPENED, WHY DID IT HAPPEN, AND WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND AMERICA?

THE 2006 ELECTION: WHAT HAPPENED, WHY DID IT HAPPEN, AND WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND AMERICA?

by

Ken Eliasberg

(for San Bernardino Republican Women — 2/22/07)

A. The 2006 Election — What Happened?

We lost, and we deserved to lose? Why? Because

our people betrayed and abandoned conservative

principles!! We were not beaten by the Democrats;

we beat ourselves!

We won in 1994 on 2 issues: Limited government

and better ethics. We failed miserably to deliver

on either.

B. State of the Republican Party and What to Do About it?

Battered but not beaten- unless we continue to stay home, rather than reform our party. How? By kicking out the weak and the weary and electing more capable people who will stand up to the Democrats and stand up

for conservative principles. Note, however, that com-

plaining and/or staying home does not get the job done.

We don’t hold our people’s fight to the fire by electing

Democrats; the world situation is just too dangerous

to take this approach. How then? By letting our people

know what we expect of them, and following up to

make sure that they get it and deliver.

C. Some of the Specifics of What Went Wrong

1. Conservative Big Government — an oxymoron:

There’s no such thing as conservative big government!

2. Immigration — amnesty under any other name is

still amnesty. There’s just no way — no honest way,

at least — to put lipstick on that pig. Congress did

nothing, and what the Senate and George Bush

wanted (and apparently still want) to do is amnesty, no

matter what name you use to try to disguise it.

3. Earmarks — our people joined right in in larding on the

pork. When they weren’t joining them, they sure as

heck weren’t fighting them (not at least so as anyone

would notice). Also in this regard, our Congressional

leadership was weak: Hastert and Frisk may be nice

guys, but no one is going to remember them when the

list of powerful Congressional leaders is made up.

Also related to this point is the attitude of many of

our representatives (and very possibly us) — don’t

make waves — just get along to go along. One almost

gets the feeling that our people are just happy to

be invited to the party; we don’t have to participate

in choreographing the event.

4. Bad Legislation — the Congress was too co-operative.

a. McCain/Feingold. Possibly the worst piece of

legislation to ever come out of Washington — and

Democrats (true to form) were violating it

before it was even hatched.

b. Prescription Drugs — a piece of Kennedy legisla-

tion that will end up costing more — much more —

than a trillion dollars

c. No Child Left Behind — another piece of Kennedy

legislation, which, while possessed of some good

features, still puts the Federal government into

the educational arena — a place that I do not

believe that it should be.

d. Other

5. Corruption

a. Abramoffc. Ney

b. Cunninghamd. Foley

D. What About George Bush? A Good Man, a Good Leader —

But Not a Conservative

Problems —

a. Those of a procedural nature - 2 big ones

The President has really only 2 powerful tools when it comes to pressing his will on either the Congress or the public — the bully pulpit and the veto. George Bush used both as if they were electrically charged. He vetoed a piece of stem cell legislation and nothing else (since this outline was first prepared, Bush also vetoed Congress’s cut-and-run legislation, calling for our surrender in Iraq). He should have, at the very least, vetoed McCain/Feingold.

He used the bully pulpit sparingly and not always

effectively to make his case to the public. While he

always comes across as a decent honest man, his communication skills are not going to make any one forget Ronald Reagan, or, for that matter, Slick Willie. To compound the communication problem, he picked Scott McClellan for his public relations representative — someone who doesn’t have the vaguest idea of what public relations is all about. Fortunately, McClellan was sandwiched between 2 excellent P.R. types — Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow — but in between these 2 a lot of P.R. damage was done.

b. Substantive

Simple — Bush is just not a conservative!

Achievements-

a. The War on Terror (although it is time to change

tactics - i.e. take off the gloves - and stop fighting

a politically correct war). War is messy, violent,

and painful, and there is no way to make it

pleasant. There is only one way to fight it —

to win it! How? By destroying the enemy’s

ill to fight and clearly demonstrating to him

that there is no hope for his cause. The problem

today is, thanks to the anti-war left in this coun-

try, our enemies are not afraid of us. We must

convince them that it is unwise to mess with the U.S.

Appointment of Judges (although here too, we

seem a bit timid, e.g. Harriet Miers +)

The economy — possibly the best in 20 years, and

due directly to George Bush’s efforts (unlike

the boom of the ‘90s which Clinton had nothing

to do with, but for which he took credit).

Integrity! Perhaps, more than anything else,

we owe George Bush a debt of gratitude for bringing

decency back to the White House. After Clinton I feltwe needed a fumigator more than we needed a leader — in “W” we got both.

E. THE WORLD SITUATION

We are at war — a war that is an existential threat to

Western civilization. In short, this is not one of those

weekend wars in Grenada or Haiti or a 30,000 foot

war, as in Bosnia. This is a war that could destroy the U.S. if we are not appropriately responsive to the peril.

And the real enemy is not Radical Islam; rather it is

our radical left-wing that empowers these crazies. If

we were united, I have only modest concerns about

the threat from a lot of backward barbarians running

around with towels on their heads, living in the 8th

century, screaming convert or die. But we are not

united, and one cannot help but get the impression

that the left is more concerned with political power

than national security.

The stakes are just too high for this sort of divisiveness;

Western civilization is imperiled, and all the Democrats

can think of is power politics; what’s this business

about politics stopping at the water’s edge?

F. DOMESTIC PROBLEMS — OUR CULTURAL

EROSION

The specifics of deterioration are all around you (to those

of you who grew up in the ‘50s, does any of this look the

least bit familiar?) Three of the more pronounced aspects

of our deterioration — i.e. the PRODUCTS - are:

- MULTICULTURISM

- DIVERSITY (QUOTAS), AND

- POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

How are these products created and what provides the

soilin which they can grow and flourish, i.e. who produces them and who creates the conditions for them to flourish? This brings me to what I call the TRIPLE TRIFECTA-

1. THE MANUFACTURER

a. Universities

b. Liberal Think Tanks, e.g. Brookings Institute

2. THE DISTRIBUTOR

a. ACLU (and other such far left organizations)

b. The internet — e.g. moveon.org

3. THE RETAILER

a. Liberal Courts

b. Universities — They manufacture the productsfor

the Dems, and then they sell itto our kids to

assure the next generation of lefties

WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS THAT ALLOW IT

TO FLOURISH? There are but three, but they are

powerful. Indeed, they are the cause of our cultural

decay

a. IGNORANCE

(1) Russell Kirk — The American Cause(2) Jay Leno — Man in the street interviews

b. APATHY

c. ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER

The need for instant gratification, and an

impatience in dealing with conflict and

difficult circumstances

G. SOME POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS — WHO’S

MEANER, WHO’S RICHER — REMEMBER, WE’RE

THE GOOD GUYS, WHATEVER PICTURE THE

MAINSTREAM MEDIA TRIES TO PAINT

H. WHAT REPUBLICANS DO WRONG

We do not like messy conditions; thus we seem to have little stomach for conflict, let alone confrontation

We specialize in being pleasant, polite, passive, and, not

infrequently, pusillanimous, justifying all of this with

the bromide that we are above ugliness. I sometimes get the impression that the Dems have no shame, and we

have no guts. I have even seen some of our pundits —

conservative pundits — go so far as to say that our timidity

is due to the fact that in our guts we think they’re right —

God, I hope that that’s not the case!

I. WHAT REPUBLICANS NEED TO DO — WAKE UP!!

Before it’s too late. What do we need specifically?

The four “A’s”

- AWAKE

- AWARENESS

- ATTITUDE — Get angry; they’re stealing

your country

- ACTION —Don’t complain — engage — get

involved!!

If you do nothing to stop what’s happening, then, in my opinion, you forfeit the right to complain about it when it

happens.

J. THE 2006 ELECTION — AS NOTED, THE DEMOCRATS

DID NOT WIN, WE LOST, AND TO DO SO AGAIN

WOULD BE CATASTROPHIC

K. CONCLUSION

THE ELECTION

THE REPUBLICANS

THE STAKES — SURVIVAL!!

War is about will. We must win this war, and we need

the will to do it. If we lose it, we could lose everything,

and we need the support of the entire country; unfor-

tunately, the Democrats are not on board. I could be

wrong, but, then again,I can afford to be wrong; indeed, I hope that I am. Nothing would please me more than to have peace break out; we could all go down to the park and have a kumbiya moment. However, while I can afford to be wrong,can the left, who is advancing no solution whatsoever to our problem?

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