Keep ‘em coming …

If not “haves and have mores” then it's either “Haves and have nots” as in a plutocracy, or a society where no one is allowed to own anything at all.

Which one do you advocate?

Yes, you need both unions and companies– who is arguing that point? Reagan and his Republican successors worked to break the backs of the unions and give corporations free reign. Massive deregulation also was geared towards greater freedom for corporations and their highly-paid executives.
And yes- Hollywood is made up of union employees- so what? There are successful right wingers in Hollywood- not many- but they manage.

My point was not about haters but about concrete results of the two parties' policies. After 8 years of W, we have most wealth concentrated at the top- while the poor and middle class have either stagnated or slipped further down. I'm sure this was the actual intent of the president whose base was the “haves and the have mores” (his own words)!

If your talking about hollywood they actually have a very fascist union which severely penalizes your career if you do not toe the far left party line. Its about as close to communism as one can get.

While its true that the Democrats have many rich donors from Hollywood, their policies actually attempt to correct inequities in pay, opportunity and resources between the classes, while the GOP gives them tokenism with symbols like Joe the Plumber. That's a huge difference.

Then enters Sarah Palin, What a rookie and uniformed choice she turned out to be.
When I saw the exclusive Sean Hannity interview with Mr. Palin, the accolades extended to her and the obvious pampering, right then and there I realized how fake
e my republican party has become.
Oh Dear Ronald Reagan, Where are you?

It has become so obvious to most Americans that these talking heads and the tabloid cable networks they represent that they are commercializing American patriotism in order to get better ratings and book sales. That is too selfish, What a bunch clowns they are!

I thought the republican party would have learned their lesson, at least realize that Americans can not be fooled, But after Georgia Congressman Phil Gingrey called into Rush Limbaugh's radio show to apologize and I watched the newest republican rookie Bobby Jindal sound like a High School dropped out I realized that my party is in big trouble.

The Right should capitalize on themes that come with hard times: personal responsibility, meritocracy, and thrift without framing it into a small/big government debate or taxes/cut spending debate. Those horses have run their course. Hell, if you want to get young people and minorities on your side, try attacking the police state and the Drug War. As governments get starved for funding, you'd better believe there will be cameras at every red light and thermal imagers focused on every house. Attack political cronyism and the upcoming waste and corruption. Attack the white collar criminals who've looted their clients for a whole new “tough on crime” stance. I could go on all day.

Another thing that hobbles the Right is few new faces. Many on the Right have been quoted on the record at one point or another defending or advocating Bush, the new Jimmy Carter. Bush is still radioactive and likely will remain so as long as Carter has for 30 years.

Read this by Patrick Ruffini. Read his link to Newt's 80/20 concept. Listen to Eric Cantor giving a great interview about principled opposition to Obama's economic policy. Check out Breitbart's Big Hollywood blog.

I know you'll find plenty of evidence to counter my argument, because I realize we haven't turned the corner yet, but conservatism is resting, not comatose.

You know, the more I think about it, this speaks to a way that the GOP can and should sell its message to young people. We should be telling the younger generation that just because their elders screwed up doesn't mean that they shouldn't be trusted to do better. They should resist being put into a permanent guardianship by the government as a result of an irresponsible generation who abused the economic freedoms that they had. Unfortunately the younger generation is already going to be saddled with the debt burden that the older generation laid at their feet, but they should be empowered to break that cycle.

You might just be right. It might actually take 12 years to emerge from the wilderness. Just as the Democrats finally learned that being far left was not going to get them back into power the GOP might have to learn that being far right wont get them back either.

A deeper problem as I see it for the GOP is not being too conservative. The democrats emerged from the wilderness just as far left as they always are. The deeper problem for GOP is in an ever increasing resentment of what the Liberals keep pushing as class warfare. While it is true that the Conservatives tend to coddle the rich it is mainly for pragmatic reasons. Its the rich that provide jobs. Not the poor. This is then pointed out by democrats as a bad thing implying the GOP only cares about the rich and lifted up as a class warfare thing when the reality is that their is most likely as many filthy rich democrats as their are republicans. Just look at hollywood.

For the longest time the GOP convinced the masses that lower taxes was a way to stimulate the economy and help everyone achieve. The American public bought it. The last 4 or so years has seen an explosion in the faces of those Republicans and hence we have the backlash against them perpetuated by the fallacy that the GOP hates anyone who makes less then 5 million a year.

I reiterate that the Democrats did not change their liberalness and after 12 years they are back in power. So to it will hold for the GOP. They do not have to be less conservative, they simply need to be the ones reframing the debate.

But that will change, just as it did for liberals after many cycles of loss. It took three Presidential humiliations for Democrats like Clinton to adjust to the post-1980 conservative era. If there were something like liberal talk radio before Clinton came along, you can bet that all the DJs would have insisted that Mondale lost because he wasn't liberal enough.

What makes it harder is the descent into mocking ideas themselves. As Ruffini calls it – the “Joe the Plumberization of the GOP” – where you fetishize ignorance as a core virture. In that climate, any serious engagement with ides is met with scorn and mockery…from the right. Look at the descent of the National Review, from William Buckley's groundbreaking conservatism to amen corner for Limbaugh.