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GOP Civil War Heads to Utah
Three-term Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah is facing one of the toughest reelection campaigns next year, even though no political or personal scandal has sullied his reputation. Bennett is certainly no liberal—he’s a successful Salt Lake City businessman whose grandfather was president of the Mormon Church—but some fellow Republicans now find him not sufficiently conservative to reelect. In fact, it’s his long résumé that’s also hurting him at a time when the country is in an anti-incumbent mood: In a national Pew Research poll, only 52 percent of registered voters said they would like to see their representative reelected next year. Bennett laments, “There’s not a place on the ballot to mark, ‘I hate what’s going on Washington.’”
politicalpam
Gotta love the new Conservative Party.
hfb1053
No Mormons in government or we'll all be wearing prairie dresses and having way too many children.
Carole65
Well, then Harry Reid should be voted out. Haven't seen mormaroos on him yet......
hfb1053
He wears them at home with the shades drawn down.
Progressive2
"GOP Civil War Heads to Utah."
Dems win.
Johnnyappleseed
Not to worry!
He will win in a land slide.
easton
appleseed, you are absolutely right. This is Utah, not NY, the Club for growth doesn't hold any sway among Mormons.
AlanD2
Bennett's being Scozzafava-tized!
This user is no longer registered.
n--Y--squareyellowpapernewz4i
The GOP civil war against Americans - during selecting stops on Palin's "first" presidential campaign: "It's nice to be amongst REAL Americans."
RockyMissouri
newz4i-Thank you for your post! Palin is an insult to REAL Americans, and I am hugely sad that ANY in her base do not see her for the fraud she is- but oh,
nevermind- they are republicans; and even if Jesus himself knocked at the door- THEY WOULD NOT ANSWER!!
MaliciousDisorder
Theirs no civil war in the GOP. It's called dumping the RINOS.
jaydeekay
Thereby seriously dwindling the GOP membership.
gak001
So much for Reagan Republicanism. It's more than a little ironic that the RINO Hunters consider themselves Reagan Republicans while repudiating the major positions he stood for.
DocHumboldt
Ketchup is a vegetable.
gak001
Tomato is a fruit.
AlanD2
By the time you finish dumping all RINOs, Mal, you will be the only person left in the Republican Party.
I hope you don't mind being lonely...
easton
"theirs" no civil war? For crying out loud, can't you learn to write above a 5th grade level. It should be: There's (a contraction for there is) no civil war...
You are an embarrassment to Conservatives everywhere. Bennett is no Rino, he is a decent, thoughtful gentleman, who is pro-life, supports the Iraq war, etc. You keep up such idiocy of turning the Republican party into clones of Palin, and you can forget about ever regaining power. But of course, anyone who confuses their and there is should not really be expressing their opionion about anything besides: Dat truck am pretty, lettuce go shooot some rabbits.
gak001
Thank you.
chiefbuffalo
There is no threat to form a third party, but there is a push for the RINOS to come out of the closet and show who they really are, unless they do a lot will not be reelected. The Democrats have the same problem with the very far left nut cases that have overtaken the party. The Dems of today are not the Kennedys of JFK or Truman years. They are the the Saul Alinsky's,ect of the Marxists world which is a failure over and over but they are slow learners, but the power grab overrides the good of the people.
jaydeekay
So who his the official 'McCarthy' of this flushing out of those who will not conform?
Aslanleon
So wanting to vote for candidates who reflect the values of the majority of the party is a purge and McCarthyism? I thought it was called freedom and democracy. Of course, I am not a liberal.
AlanD2
Feel free do dump all the RINOs you want, Aslanleon.
But don't come complaining to me when Republicans find that they can't win elections any more.
easton
fine, the Democrats can elect the Jim Webb types (former Reagan Sec. of the Navy) or Joe Sestak (former Admiral) or Jim Tester, or Bob Nelson, people who would all be considered conservative in California or NY. If Republicans were tolerant, all of these people could easily have been Republicans. America needs two thoughtful and serious parties. The Republicans won in NJ because they elected someone who was called a RINO by the Club for Growth. (check out the primary if you want, it is all in the public record)
Aslanleon
I have no trouble with moderates in the party and will defend them against all comers. What I have trouble with is liberals who run as Republicans and then vote as Democrats. Given the choice between a good conservative candidate and a good liberal one, I will choose the conservative. When I actually have to vote, even a RINO is better for the country than a Democratic liberal. Remember, we lose when we alienate our conservative base, not when we cater to liberal voters we aren't going to get anyway.
AlanD2
Aslanleon said: "Remember, we lose when we alienate our conservative base, not when we cater to liberal voters we aren't going to get anyway."
The reason you lose liberal voters (most of whom are actually moderates) is because you are catering to your conservative base. If Republicans had center-right policies, they would get a lot of these voters - more of them, I suspect, than they would lose from their conservative base.
Your conservative base is getting pretty small, Aslanleon. If the Republican Party hopes to leave its minority status, it is going to have to abandon Christian conservatives.
gak001
Actually, the Democratic party is experiencing no such problem. Sure, there are some who want to imitate the RINO hunting movement, but they're marginal. Most Democrats are encouraging the Big Tent. We have a strong Blue Dog caucus that rounds out the party quite nicely. As long as the GOP insists on this RINO hunting nonsense, the Democratic party can only benefit.
AlanD2
All the DINOs went extinct 64 million years ago, Gak.
gak001
Touche.
Tmikes
Right, and it was the Nazis who put Reagan in office.
winston1
Don't you libbies wish you can dump your blue dogs.
RockyMissouri
Winston1-What is a 'libbie'??
Honchos
A kind of scooter/scapegoat combo.
Johnnyappleseed
I thought it was canned food.....Libby's, but more than one...libbies, yah that's it.
gak001
No - I want them there because I want control of Congress. We have Whips for a reason.
jaydeekay
Used to be... one in America dreamed of a bipartisan government working for the people.
Now, one party can't even get along amongst themselves, let alone be bipartisan.
Hippievet
The difference between the rift between conservatives and republicans vs. democrats and liberals is that liberals ARE democrats. Conservatives have exposed wing nuts and that view is only appealing to those inclined to teabag.
Aslanleon
Do you want me to post the polls again that show that 40% of Americans are conservative? Republicans do not lose elections for being too conservative as often as they lose them for not being conservative enough. You can't continually offend your base and expect to win elections. Liberals are around 20% of the population. They need to attract more than three quarters of the independent vote to have their candidates elected. Republicans have to attract 25% of the moderate vote (11% of the total) to be elected.
Obama's immoderate leftism is now doing the Republican Party's work for it-- identifying the Democrats with the liberals and the left. The more people see this clearly, the more seats we will pick up in 2010 and the more likely we are to win in 2012.
Hippievet
When people are faced with a poll asking whether they lean liberal or conservative, conservative always wins. This is due to the non-stop bastardization of the word "liberal". Democrats even tend to choose the word conservative over liberal. Vast majorities of republicans also choose conservative over liberal. The distinction is meaningless though when the candidates on the ballot are democrat and republican. Democrats embrace a wide array of candidates. Republicans embrace an array of candidates. Conservatives embrace themselves.
nachi1
Yup. As tho the raping & destruction of the nation under the 2 BushDrunks hasn't been enough for you Little People. The ignorance of voting against your own self-interests.
People of low birth - pretending to "identify" with the few ultra-wealthy. Repunk Party has always been that way. Crazed canaries - in search of a cage! Yup.
Aslanleon
Actually, Republicans are more educated than Democrats on the average. They're happier, too. Here's just a little proof. You can google-- look up some more. http://chroniclecareers.com/blogPost/Pew-Research-Republicans/8589/ And here's another www.joefried.net/id8.html . Need any more?
gak001
Ironically enough, they're also more likely to have abortions and get divorced.
Aslanleon
gak - Do you have a verifiable nonpartisan source for that? I doubt it. I do know they are far more likely to get married than liberals. They are also more likely to have children and be happy. That must annoy you a great deal.
AlanD2
Aslanleon: Your Pew Research article shows Republicans got 5.7 questions right out of 12, while Democrats got 5.0 right. I wonder if this difference is statistically significant?
Regardless, neither Republicans nor Democrats are shining examples of an educated citizenry.
By the way, I took the same test and got all 12 right - although I did have to guess on one question. I guess being a Daily Beast reader is really an education!
Honchos
Aslan, that's a seriously silly poll to base your claim that Republicans are more educated than Democrats on. It's a 12 question multiple choice telephone poll with questions like "Glenn Beck is a ___________".
According to CNN's 2006 election exit polls, Democrats and Republicans had more or less equal numbers of college graduates and of those with post-graduate degrees, there were 17% more Democrats than Republicans. Then again, there were also far more Democrats without a high school diploma than Republicans so there are outliers on both ends.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.h tml
If you go the Red State/Blue State route, Blue States tend to have a higher level of education than Blue States.
http://techskeptic.blogspot.com/2006/04/red-state-blue-state-potentially .html
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/6/1/1/6/p3 61164_index.html
And there's always this classic poll in which Daily Show/Colbert Report viewers come out as the most informed and FOX news watchers come in near the bottom.
http://tinyurl.com/yhv386a
Do I think any of this means anything? Not really- I take it with a grain of salt. I just followed Aslan's link and thought it was a weak argument to stake a claim on and I took up his challenge to do some googling.
Aslanleon
Honchos and AlanD2 -- You're quite right. Republicans have an edge, but only a very small one. The point I was making was that the trolls who claim all (fill in blank) are stupid and uneducated are probably stupid and uneducated-- I confess that I fill in the blank with 'troll.' You are quite wise in refusing to engage in the same type of absurd generalization. It is like posting the poll that indicated that people who listened to Rush were better informed than people who listened to NPR. It was true if you considered the few questions they asked indicative of being informed. Since I got 12 in the knowledge poll I quoted, I can only assume that it is proven that conservative doctors of theology are the best informed. Of course, we all agree on that. The truth of the matter is that both sides have educated rational people who are informed on the issues and have different opinions. We also each have uneducated fanatics who don't have any obvious education whatsoever.
Tmikes
I know 12 answers for Glenn Beck is a --------.
rustywheeler
Aslan tends to lead with something unequivocal and declarative, like "Actually, Republicans are more educated than Democrats on the average. They're happier, too. Here's just a little proof." >insert silly poll<
Only AFTER someone takes up the google challenge does he dial back the rhetoric to say something more temperate, like "Republicans have an edge, but only a very small one," and "You are quite wise in refusing to engage in the same type of absurd generalization." Which is what he really MEANT the first time, I guess.
Just a pattern I've noticed.
AlanD2
By all means, Aslanleon. But to save you the trouble, I'll post the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey [10/25/09]:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjnbc-10272009.pdf
43% Democrat or lean Democrat
17% Independent
31% Republican or lean Republican
Not quite 40%, Aslanleon! And notice how Democrats lead Republicans. Too bad!
By the way, the Wall Street Journal is not exactly a liberal outfit.
Aslanleon
Are you saying that all Democrats are liberals and all Republicans are conservatives? I would think you are not. A lot of conservatives are either moderates or Democrats. We would like to change that. I stick by the original poll, and if you think about it, so do you if you claim that the Democratic party is now the big tent group.
EducatedRants
Aslanleon -- did you really just say that "a lot of conservatives are moderates"??
Aslanleon
Educated Rants-- Oops! I meant a lot of Republicans are moderates.
Tmikes
Please, sell me what you're smoking
RockyMissouri
Thankyou hippievet!-Excellent observation!
briansays
The neo cons and Club for Growth are fascists
From Wiki
Fascism, pronounced /%u02C8fæ%u0283%u026Az%u0259m/, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system, and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.
In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state communism. This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state").
Aslanleon
"This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour" Sounds like Obama's program to a T.
nachi1
Not surprising. A few years back I was home-based at SLC for a major airlines. 2 years. Underneath the smiling faces of the populace was enormous hatred, intolerance, bigotry, and much more. It was everywhere. From the CEO's office to the flower shop to the gas station & beyond. Whenever you "test" them in the slightest, that inner anger surfaces.
Pretty country - mentally-twisted people. John Birch is still there & alive. Morman androids.
Aslanleon
Sounds like you watched that pod people movie too many times, nacho.
AlanD2
Aslanleon, you sound like a rather unpleasant person. Have you considered taking an anger management class?
Aslanleon
I'm actually a very cheerful person who is always delighted to point out the logical inconsistencies in what people posit as a logical argument. If I do have a problem, it's not that I get angry, but that I make the self-assured and arrogant angry. I'm here on the leftist blog surrounded by people who loathe my ideas, so being Little Mary Sunshine is pretty much out of the question. Just curious-- why do you generally go for the name calling rather than reply to the actual content of the post?
AlanD2
Mostly because people like you rarely respond to rational discussions, Aslanleon.
And "Sounds like you watched that pod people movie too many times, nacho." is nothing but name calling. You make lots of personal attacks here. Pots and kettles, Aslanleon?
For the most part, you behave like a troll. And you know how we deal with trolls here. If you don't like it, go away.
Thank you.
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