Tag: GOP

7/365


7/365
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

When I graduated high school a friend said there were three P’s you needed as a business man in Dallas – a phone, a pager and a pistol.

Monday, six candidates for the Republican National Party Chairmanship took part in a “debate.” Two (three) of the questions posed to candidates where, “How many guns do you own?” and “Do you use Twitter and how many followers do you have?”

I guess that means that owning guns and using Twitter makes you qualified to be the GOP leader? I’ll let you decide.

*notice – no photographers or politicians were hurt in the shooting of this photo.

A party I could/maybe/possibly/sometimes believe in…

The Texas Republican Party released their final platform for 2008… there’s a lot of things I think I could really get on board with. And yet there are still many things I think I could do without.

I could list lots of highlights on both sides of the line… but my cousins and Laurie have probably stopped reading already.

I think it’s amusing that the party seems to applaud the freedom of speech for pastors (see ending IRS restrictions on clergy) – yet wants to limit the freedom of speech of those who may want to “desecrate the American flag” (see section on honoring the symbols of American heritage).

“Yes. We’re for freedom of speech. Well as long as you don’t offend me with what you’re saying.”

I wonder if they’d be happy giving full freedom of speech to Dr. Jeremiah Wright or Louis Farrakhan…

So, I’ll let you read the platform for yourself and then share what you think is great/grand/wonderful/horrible in the comments. Let’s see if we can top the site record of 24!

Related ::

The Texas GOP 2008 party platform
The Texas GOP

So what now?

As I wake up this morning my predictions were about right. Romney went on and won Colorado and Alaska which means Mike Huckabee is about 80 delegates behind him. As Huckabee pointed out though – it’s interesting to see that the southern states seemingly like Huckabee more than Romney. And as EVERYONE is pointing out, that’s where the “real conservative base is.” So I think it would be correct to say, conservatives are much more favorable of Huckabee than Romney – unless you’re Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (and I stopped listening to them a long time ago anyways).

But now that Super Tuesday is over, what do we do now? Especially now that Texas is in play. I posed the question to a couple friends who have been involved in the Huckabee campaign at various stages.

I would go to meet-up and volunteer… they need phone callers, better web presence (youtube, myspace, blogs, etc.), letter stuffers, yard sign placers… i’ll ask mike as soon as he wakes up – i’m letting him sleep in today 😉

from another friend:

Good question. The stronger H does in Texas, the better chance he has of being on the ticket. Also, be sure to show up at the pct convention, county conv and state convention. That will be very important…

Winning isn’t the key. Keeping McCain under 50 percent is. Not just statewide… in congressional districts too. Do the texasgop.org and look at the part rules. Start about rule 32 or so. Winning congressional dists is more important than winning the entire state.

So there you have it. What are you doing? What are you going to do?

Huckabee looks to Super Tuesday

John McCain picked up another primary win last night in Florida and many are expecting Rudy Guiliani to drop out of the race today or tomorrow. Things are getting tighter and tighter as Super Tuesday approaches next week.

Here’s the latests from Mike Huckabee via e-mail:

Our focus turns now to Super Tuesday. Recent polling shows us in first or tied for first place in Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Voters in these states will have a chance to reclaim the nominating process for conservatives by casting their votes in support of our campaign. And in the states where poll after poll has shown us in second or third, please spread the word that we are still standing and we have what it takes to win.

Because if I am a Republican voter in a state casting votes next week on Super Tuesday, I am asking two fundamental questions:

Which candidate best reflects my views on the issues?

And does that candidate have what it takes to defeat the Democrat nominee in the fall?

If I am a voter in Tennessee and I care about education, I want a President that has executive experience reforming a state’s education system and has a substantive plan to reform education at the national level.

If I am a voter in Georgia and I care deeply about the issues of abortion and marriage, I want a President that will fight tirelessly for life and the family at the federal level, someone with a real record of achievement on these issues not just a politician paying election year lip service on those issues.

If I am a voter in Missouri and I am worried about the economy, I want a President that understands what its like to walk in my shoes and has a plan to stimulate the economy and real world, governing experience to strengthen and help grow our economy.

If I am a voter in California and I am concerned about national security, especially border security, I want a President that has a plan to secure our borders, end amnesty and end the practice of sanctuary cities.

If I am a voter in Alabama and I care passionately about the second amendment, I want a President that understands the 2nd amendment is primarily about tyranny and the right to self-defense not hunting.

If the Republican nominee cannot relate to Republican voters on these important and fundamental issues, we will not defeat the Democrats in the fall.

If the Republican nominee appears out of touch with regular voters or has cast votes that were an anathema to his Party, that candidate will fail to unite the Republican Party against the Democrat nominee, no matter who that nominee is.

I have what it takes, our campaign is still standing and drawing new support everyday and I am prepared to lead America forward. Spread the word. I am fighting for you and will continue to do so every step of the way.

With deep gratitude,
Mike Huckabee

The GOP in 2008

Moby has some interesting thoughts on the current Republican Party in America.
Granted he’s definitely not a Republican…

sitting in my hotel room in london and i just finished watching bush’s final
state of the union address.
eh. to be honest it was kind of a non-event.
no nutty comments about steroids or trips to mars.
no new members in the axis-of-e-vil.
he just seemed sort of out of touch and a bit lost and sort of
desperate in a ‘uh oh, i don’t want to leave
office with a 25% approval rating’ kind of way.
it got me thinking about the state of the republican right in 2008.
and how fractured it is.
to make a big sweeping generalization, there are 4 big components
to the republican right(let’s use simpsons examples)-
1-the flanderses(aka-cultural evangelical conservatives)
2-mr burns and kent brockman(rich guys who don’t like taxes)
3-cletus and brandene(ignorant hicks who believe that barack obama lives in baghdad with wmd’s)
4-grampa simpson(scared and angry people over 70)

Moby suggests that the “flanderses like mike huckabee, mr burns likes mitt romney, cletus and brandene don’t know who they like but they know they don’t like hillary cos she wants to kill christmas, and grampa simpson likes john mccain cos he’s over 70 and doesn’t take sass from the young people.”

Wonder which Simpson character is a fan of Ron Paul?

A fairly broad paint brush of the GOP but probably not too far off. Thoughts?

DNC denies Drudge item came from them

Drudge plastered, “DEMS HOLD FIRE ON HUCKABEE; SEE ‘EASY KILL’ IN GENERAL ELECTION” on the top of his front page today.

Not that it matters in my opinion, whether they do or don’t, but according to the Mike Huckabee campaign, DNC Communications Director Karen Finney said:

“We always appreciate having our hard work noticed, and we know Mitt Romney likes to feel special, but the truth is we’ve been tracking Huckabee for over a year. The Romney campaign should take heart in the fact that the Drudge Report is buying their spin hook, line and sinker because nothing in that story came from us.”

The Huckabee campaign added in an e-mail today: Romney’s camp keeps a close watch on who the Dems are hitting and have boasted in the past about how they are the most popular target.

Personally, I don’t think it really matters who the Dems are attacking at this point – most of the GOP have done a fine job attacking each other on their own.