BREAKING: Scozzafava suspends NY 23 campaign

[evansvillethompsongunner]

Originally Posted by BloodEclipse

Just saw this on the news. THIS is the message the Republican party needs to get. You run a RINO, we the people will find a true Conservative to run against them.
The GOP needs to start running Conservatives or risk the humiliation of having their candidates lose.

They'll do precisely that where it makes sense... but they'll refuse to do so where there's not a chance of Conservatives winning. They'll send a Moderate into a Moderate or Liberal district and fund the hell out of that candidate, perhaps - but they're not going to waste any campaign dollars except where they think they can win - while it's not a strategy that is going to please their political "base" of hardcore Conservatives, it might garner them some new ground and more seats. Ideologically, you might want every district to be Conservative or Liberal, depending on your seat in the crowd, but neither political party, Dems nor GOP, is going to toss good money after bad. It's just not going to happen, unfortunately or otherwise. Politic in America is not so much about ideology save how well a candidate adheres to party platform but rather, their respective odds of beating the other candidate(s).

Olympia Snowe might not act very much like a Republican a vast minority of the time, but she still gets elected - and still tows the party line on a substantial number of issues...and the GOP isn't about to spank another party member like they did with Jim Jeffords, because any defectors at all after the last Congressionals would be an even worse (read:humiliating) blow to party morale right now, which is why their whip isn't whipping anyone with sticks right now, but rather dangling the carrots in front of them, and Dems know this... whereas Dems just might be ridden even harder by their whip to do PRECISELY as Reid/Pelosi are demanding (which isn't even agreed upon with each other, which, as a former Democrat, I can tell you - they LOATHE one another).

Healthcare is really the biggest wedge (divisive) issue for the Democratic Party since so-called "gun-control" was brought up in the '90s. Clinton pushed the Dems to ban, and they acceded only after major concessions by Clinton in not vetoing what they wanted. If Republicans can keep shoving this wedge into the Democratic Party, they might just splinter this juggernaut... and I don't think the economy is reason enough, as bad as it is right now... I firmly believe it will take some seriously entrenched opposition to really bring the Dems out of their powerblock... because as disaffected as a vast plurality of Americans are - and there can be no denying, there are a LOT of upset countrymen of ours - they're not in one place. You might be green to the gills with rage about the direction of our nation - I know I am - but without a majority of people in your district who feel the same way to vote in someone else, this might well continue on for another Congressional or two. However, I can guarantee this much: after year's end, don't look to the Dems to be nearly as supportive of Obama's Great Leaps Backward as they have been this year, as soon they'll be focused on saving their own necks and covering their own records before the 2010 mid-term Congressional.

As for any possible upcoming bans on firearms, I don't think the Congress will even want to touch it until after Nov. 2010, when they've got another two solid years to defend their records. No one is going to stick their neck out for Obama on that even if he does want it, because they're not about to wait to get politically-guillotined in 11/2010. Pragmatism, for better or worse, tends to prevail on the Hill.

I just wish more common sense resided there, too.