Republicans Abandoned Values & Voters

Dr. James Dobson: Republicans Abandoned Values Voters

WASHINGTON -- Conservative Christian leader James Dobson accused the Republican Party of abandoning values voters in the midterm elections - and paying the price by losing control of Congress. "What did they do with their power?" Dobson said in a statement. "Very little that values voters care about."
Finger-pointing abounded in the days after Democrats seized control of Congress after 12 years in the minority. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, issued a statement railing against the Republicans for letting their majorities slip away.
"They consistently ignored the constituency that put them in power until it was late in the game, and then frantically tried to catch up at the last minute," said Dobson, who argued that religious conservatives ensured GOP wins in 2004.
Dobson also criticized other conservatives, including former Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas - an architect of the 1994 GOP House takeover - for complaining recently that the religious right was "too involved" with the party.
"Without the support of that specific constituency, John Kerry would be president and the Republicans would have fallen into a black hole in '04," Dobson said. "In fact, that is where they are headed if they continue to abandon their pro-moral, pro-family and pro-life base. The big tent will turn into a three-ring circus."
Dobson said he had predicted in 2004 that Republicans might squander their opportunity and pay the price in future elections.
"Sadly for conservatives, that in large measure explains what happened on Tuesday night," he said. "Many of the values voters of '04 simply stayed at home this year."
The cybersex scandal involving former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida and the fall of Ted Haggard, the evangelical pastor who was fired amid allegations of gay sex and drug use, left some values voters dispirited.
More than four in 10 evangelicals said corruption and scandals were extremely important, and those who felt that way were more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than other evangelicals. About a third who were most concerned about corruption cast their votes for Democrats, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the networks.
About four in 10 white evangelicals voted for the Republican candidate, slightly less than the eight in 10 who voted for Bush in 2004.
The relationship between religious conservatives and the GOP has frayed quite a bit.
Author David Kuo, a former aide in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, wrote in his book, "Tempting Faith, An Inside Story of Political Seduction," that Bush aides privately called conservative Christians "nuts," "ridiculous" and "goofy."

Then again, maybe this was the GOP's problem ... :D

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Drapes of Wrath

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 11, 2006
Washington

The new Democratic sweep conjures up an ancient image: Furies swooping down to punish bullies.
Angry winged goddesses with dog heads, serpent hair and blood eyes, unmoved by tears, prayer, sacrifice or nasty campaign ads, avenging offenses by insolent transgressors.
This will be known as the year macho politics failed — mainly because it was macho politics by marshmallow men. Voters were sick of phony swaggering, blustering and bellicosity, absent competency and accountability. They were ready to trade in the deadbeat Daddy party for the sheltering Mommy party.
All the conservative sneering about a fem-lib from San Francisco who was measuring the drapes for the speaker’s office didn’t work. Americans wanted new drapes, and an Armani granny with a whip in charge.
A recent study found that the testosterone of American men has been dropping for 20 years, but in Republican Washington, it was running amok, and not in a good way. Men who had refused to go to an untenable war themselves were now refusing to find an end to another untenable war that they had recklessly started.
Republicans were oddly oblivious to the fact that they had turned into a Thomas Nast cartoon: an unappetizing tableau of bloated, corrupt, dissembling, feckless white hacks who were leaving kids unprotected. Tom DeLay and Bob Ney sneaking out of Congress with dollar bills flying out of their pockets. Denny Hastert playing Cardinal Bernard Law, shielding Mark Foley. Rummy, cocky and obtuse as he presided over an imploding Iraq, while failing to give young men and women in the military the armor, support and strategy they needed to come home safely. Dick Cheney, vowing bullheadedly to move "full speed ahead" on Iraq no matter what the voters decided. W. frantically yelling about how Democrats would let the terrorists win, when his lame-brained policies had spawned more terrorists.
After 9/11, Americans had responded to bellicosity, drawn to the image, as old as the Western frontier myth, of the strong father protecting the home from invaders. But this time, many voters, especially women, rejected the rough Rovian scare and divide tactics.
The macho poses and tough talk of the cowboy president were undercut when he seemed flaccid in the face of the vicious Katrina and the vicious Iraq insurgency.
Even former members of the administration conceded they were tired of the muscle-bound style, longing for a more maternal approach to the globe. "We were exporting our anger and our fear, hatred for what had happened," Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, said in a speech in Australia, referring to the 9/11 attacks. He said America needed "to turn another face to the world and get back to more traditional things, such as the export of hope and opportunity and inspiration."
Talking about hope and opportunity and inspiration has propelled Barack Obama into the presidential arena. His approach seems downright feminine when compared with the Bushies, or even Hillary Clinton. He languidly poses in fashion magazines, shares feelings with Oprah and dishes with the ladies on "The View." After six years of chest-puffing, Senator Obama seems very soothing.
Because of the power of female consumers, some marketing experts predict we will end up a matriarchy. This year, women also flexed their muscle at the polls, transformed into electoral Furies by the administration’s stubborn course in Iraq.
On Tuesday, 51 percent of the voters were women, and 55 percent of women voted for the Democratic candidate. It was a revival of the style of Bill Clinton, dubbed our first female president, who knitted together a winning coalition of independents, moderates and suburbanites.
According to The Times’s exit polls, women were more likely than men to want some or all of the troops to be withdrawn from Iraq now, and 64 percent of women said that the war in Iraq has not improved U.S. security.
The Senate has a new high of 16 women and the House has a new high of at least 70, with a few races outstanding. Hillary’s big win will strengthen her presidential tentacles.
Nancy Pelosi, who will be the first female speaker, softened her voice and look as she cracked the whip on her undisciplined party, taking care not to sound shrill. When she needs to, though, she says she can use her "mother-of-five voice."
At least for the moment, W. isn’t blustering and Cheney has lost his tubby swagger. The president is trying to ride the Mommy vibe. He even offered Madame Speaker help with those new drapes.

Note that the conservative poster is introspective.

The liberal, attack the enemy.

It will be difficult for admirers of Dr. Dobson (often mis-identified in liberal literature as a minister) to recognize the never-ending thirst for fighting that is posessed by liberals.

The only group that fully recognized how tenacious the liberals/socialists were and how to defeat them, were the Communists.

They simply killed them, And killed them quickly in every country they took over after WWII.

That is not an alternative most would support and certainly not a "family values" leading figure such as Dr. Dobson.

This penchant for continued fighting will separate the conservatives from the liberals. Conservatives often have private sources of employment/income.

For most liberals, the best job they will ever have is working for the government or in some entity supported by government funds.

The impetus for liberals/leftists to keep pushing their agenda is, therefore, stronger and more continuous than that for those with a conservative agenda.

Women = Good. Men = Bad. White Men = Real Bad. You could have saved a lot of words there.

Linda--thanks for the Drapes of Wrath! I missed that one but after these last years I'm so happy and relieved to have someone put my wrath into words.

Quote:

Originally Posted by biker

Note that the conservative poster is introspective.

The liberal, attack the enemy.

It will be difficult for admirers of Dr. Dobson (often mis-identified in liberal literature as a minister) to recognize the never-ending thirst for fightingthat is posessed by liberals.

The only group that fully recognized how tenacious the liberals/socialists were and how to defeat them, were theCommunists.

They simply killed them, And killed them quickly in every country they took over after WWII.

That is not an alternative most would support and certainly not a "family values" leading figure such as Dr. Dobson.

This penchant for continued fighting will separate the conservatives from the liberals. Conservatives often have private sources of employment/income.

For most liberals, the best job they will ever have is working for the government or in some entity supported by government funds.

The impetus for liberals/leftists to keep pushing their agenda is, therefore, stronger and more continuous than that for those with a conservative agenda.

Ah, one of our very own resident chicken hawks serves up his own version of RW testosterone-laced bull manure!

"... attack the enemy ... never-ending thirst for fighting ... Communists ... simply killed them, And killed them quickly ... continued fighting ... "

ROFLMAO!