At what point in Bush’s reign did you decide he was not qualified, assuming you do think that way now?

As far as Everhart’s role, I’d be dismayed to find that the chairman’s role is to back the re-election of an incumbent more than 18 months before an election, helping him pad his war chest and secure key support before others have a chance to announce their intentions to run. If that is the chairman’s role, we’re hurting ourselves, as evidenced in this election.

Why didn’t I run? Several reasons, one being that I clearly wouldn’t have seen any support from the party chairman.

I’ve seen your arguments on the pro-life issue for a long time on this blog. That’s pretty much ingrained in your frontal lobe.

she was already shilling for Saxby. I knew right then that we had almost no chance of seeing any opposition to him in the primary. In my eyes, that is a failure of the state party.

THAT shows you don’t know what the role of the state party is. Her role is to support elected Republicans and see that they get reelected.

Had there been a primary opponent, she would have stayed out of it. Why didn’t you run?

You’re full of crap, Bill. You can’t back up one thing you have just said about how I judge a candidate. Not one thing.

It’s very hard for me to see how her other accomplishments could overcome this lapse of good judgment. She and the state party leadership should have left the door open to a possible challenger.

While Doug has stated that he believes the “pro-life-at-all-cost faction” of the GOP makes it “irrelevant,” I believe it’s clear that our elected leaders’ unbridled economic misconduct from 2000-2006 is what, in fact, has made us irrelevant.

Doug is actually correct. You know why? Because there was NO other litmus test for candidates other than your “pro-life” issue. As long as someone told you “I’m pro-life” you didn’t bother considering whether or not they were actually competent in their job.

You were blinded by that one issue in deciding who should receive your support. I knew Saxby was incompetent back in 2002. But, folks like you sucked-up his essence because all you gave a sh*t about was your abortion issue.

When you can demonstrate you have competence in analyzing someone’s qualifications beyond their religion or life choices, JSM, maybe those of us who can see the forest will start listening to your big ideas.

The people of our party need to have an honest pow-wow with the party leadership and throw some people out. I think we can start with tossing Sue Everhart from the GA GOP because of her staunch support of Saxby long before the primary.

You and Erick can join forces and bring it the f*** on. Neither of you know shi*t about anything with regards to the job Everhart has done, but you THINK you know. Let’s see you lift more than your jaw when it comes to working within the party.

Please tell me the exact moment at which a “fetus” becomes alive and can be called human. Is it the moment that air touches skin? Is it the moment of the first breath of air? Since you folks seem to pound this subject so often with such disdain, why don’t we define some things?

Policy should be about principles. We get all wrapped up in our emotions about our most important issues rather than applying principles and facts to them. The Constitution guarantees the protection of life. No one has yet definitively established the moment at which life begins, and it is clear that unborn babies (aka “fetuses”) can live outside the womb long before their full-term birth date. I agree with Chris that all human life has purpose and should not be destroyed, even while yet in the mother’s womb. This view is based on principle and fact and has a Constitutional basis.

While Doug has stated that he believes the “pro-life-at-all-cost faction” of the GOP makes it “irrelevant,” I believe it’s clear that our elected leaders’ unbridled economic misconduct from 2000-2006 is what, in fact, has made us irrelevant.

The people don’t trust our party to do what they say they will, because those who carried our banner did exactly the opposite. Elected Republicans have taken us down the road toward socialism, but yet we cried against it in our opposition to Barack Obama. George Will put it best in his Sunday column:
“Conservatism’s current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket’s end-of-campaign crescendo of surreal warnings that big government — verily, “socialism” — would impend were Democrats elected. John McCain and Sarah Palin experienced this epiphany when Barack Obama told a Toledo plumber that he would ‘spread the wealth around.’

“America can’t have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans — whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm — and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called ‘the private sector’ has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout from the $1 trillion or so that is to be ‘spread around.’”
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2008/11/16/the_hyperbole_of_a_conservative

The people of our party need to have an honest pow-wow with the party leadership and throw some people out. I think we can start with tossing Sue Everhart from the GA GOP because of her staunch support of Saxby long before the primary. Shedding the unprincipled at state and national levels is going to require people at the grassroots level to get past their infatuation with anyone who gets on stage and says conservative-sounding things. Instead, we need to go to conventions with our message and beliefs on our lips and not be fearful of telling the “big shots” what we think (like those who had the fortitude to boo Saxby at the state convention when he mentioned support of the immigration bill).

I feel that the GOP is devoid of a strong, credible voice for our core beliefs right now. We’re still reeling from the mess created by Delay, Frist, Hastert, Bush, Craig, Stevens, Newt, etc., etc. Yes, I did say Newt, because his hypocrisy in attacking Clinton while not having his own personal morality in order destroyed his credibility with the American people.

I’m looking for a fresh face–maybe someone we don’t know yet nationally. We need someone to step out and articulate our message who can hold our leaders to that message once we regain influence. Too many of our politicians saw the opportunity to make themselves rich and walked away from conservative policy. We’re going to have to identify those people going forward and challenge them in primaries, no matter how much money they have. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck with bloated government micromanaging our lives forever.

Maybe Michael Steele can start that process, maybe not. We had better find someone who can.

Well said Farris for 10!

Completely agree. We all said Obama shouldn’t be supported just for the clear social accomplishment of electing an African-American to office. We all said we shouldn’t support Hillary just for being a woman. We all said we shouldn’t elect Obama simply for his rhetorical talent. Or because his wife dresses well.

Steele is no different. Our party was once one of innovation and ideas. The Democrats used to be more “conservative” than the Republicans, consistently clinging to failed economic systems — first slavery, then socialism. It was Lincoln and other Republicans who had the moral courage to yell STOP to slavery, and even more significant, do something about it. It was Goldwater, Reagan, and other Republicans who had the intellectual courage to yell STOP to government stifling our economy and do something about it.

Nobody should have voted for McCain because a woman was on the ticket. I don’t even like Palin’s rhetoric — I don’t want a hockey mom running the most powerful country in the world. She has *much* to prove before I would ever consider voting for her.

Erick, you are right that social conservatism is crucial to being conservative, and to the success of our party. So is fiscal conservatism.

But note this: the successful are BOTH. Erick, we both know that the intellectual foundation of conservatism predicates God, and God is both moral truth and intellectual truth. Forget one, and we are leaving something critical out.

That all to say that I too am not convinced Michael Steel is the real deal for what we need as RNC Chair. We need a workhorse and an ideas (wo)man.

Since abortion is legal, killing a fetus isn’t “murder” anymore than killing a cow is “murder” to the PETA folks.

Yes, I know. Harsh, cruel words. But, reality.

That said, the issue is about #478 in the top 400 issues this country has to deal with. And to disqualify someone because the associate with those who believe that the destruction of a fetus is not murder is absurd. The only issue sillier than abortion is gay marriage.

As for the C4G, I suspect that the best fiscal conservatives have a internal moral compass that tells them that taking money from a worker in Alabama to name a post office after some guy who died in Idaho is wrong, just like murdering a fetus.

Frankly I think those who oppose abortion yet don’t see an issue with the ridiculous spending habits of congress are the ones who don’t give a flip about the unborn, but decide to use their plight to be able to stick the plunder in their pockets. And _those_ people are the ones who will make sure fetuses are dying to keep the issue alive and stoke the flames of division for their political purposes.

You voted for and supported the out of control spending that I warned about years ago. And when I warned about the mortgage crisis you laughed thought and thought I was “CHICKEN LITTLE” It was awful easy for you to take a popular position at the time and take blind eye approach to real issues.

When I ran for office I made it clear when asked numerous times, my family, community and COUNTRY comes way before any PARTY!Call me whatever you want but I am an AMERICAN FIRST!

If you had stood up than instead of promote this irrational policy maybe we would still have a real conservative movement!

The last I heard he is going to run for governor of Ohio in 2010.

John,

In retrospect, opposition to Sandra Day O’Connor is well justified. Her brand of “what makes me feel good today” juris prudence is one of the things that is wrong with our country.