Don't get side tracked. You wish to believe Cantor is sincere, but know that Obama is being duplicitous. There's that absolutism again. Cantor is just trying to be a good legislator while Obama has the audacity to question the sincerity of a party that had already prejudged a bill before talking to the President about compromise. No one is buying that, and you shouldn't either.

The Republican position has devolved into “What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable.” Your party has become bereft of ideas and statesmanship.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

And No CS, underlings are not Republicans.

Good on you for at least considering it. I hope you do go.

I don't think that part is hard to understand. Instead, the question is, what did the fiscal conservatives do to attempt to right the situation? Did you, or most fiscal conservatives speak up, or did you watch it unfold that way and then when it reached a tipping point, leave?

To me it's a bit like a marriage- if the parties involved don't keep working at it, sooner or later the two grow apart and then it's easy for one person at some point to say, “You've changed, and unfortunately this isn't going to work anymore.” But people who get to that point need to realize that there was a time when they could have changed things and if they failed to see what was happening and try to make the partnership work, it's not the other person's fault.

I realize your view of it is probably that the marriage just isn't worth saving anymore, and that it's no longer important who was at fault. Fine, but is it really in anyone's best interest to dissolve the 'marriage'? If your talking new party, then what coalitions could be brought in, since the remaining fiscal conservative coaltion isn't large enough on its own to win elections? And as we briefly talked about once before, where would the funding come from for such a party? Any party who's platform is for small government is fighting a severely uphill battle to win any sponsorship from monied interests who are in bed with the current two parties.

I don't really have any knowledge on the matter but if Romney did change his stance on abortion after he was in office the people of Massachusetts have every right to be upset with Romney for changing his position. The people of Mass wanted a pro-choice governor, a leader who reflected their beliefs and they ended up with just another run of the mill politician who lied about his beliefs to get elected.

If Romney had any integrity he would actually stand up for his beliefs from day one. Not when it's politically convenient.

It's one thing for a party to demand fealty (and why would the GOP want to support far left candidates or the Dems support far right candidates?) but it's another thing for politicians to lie about their own BASIC VALUES to get elected.

Well I think the broader intent is to remind Cantor that “election have consequences.” Cantor just can't expect Obama to bend his way when the people voted for change (and against the Republicans). If Americans wanted McCain's (and Cantor's vision) in the WH, then we would have elected MacCain.

Obama was willing to compromise (and I'll point out that he did select Republicans for his cabinet and the Dems in the House gave in to the demands the Republicans had about the stimulus, but the GOP still voted against it). This to me was Obama's way of letting Cantor know he would get nothing if Cantor didn't compromise. Obaam by the way, met with GOP leaders before the inauguration, met with the GOP members of Congress after the inauguration and the GOP just throws up roadblocks and wants Obama to fail.

It's too bad your party's leaders loused up the last eight years turning budget surpluses into huge deficits, a plummeting stock market, support of torture, trashing the US Constitution, spying on US citizens, etc. But the American people are tired of the GOP and the polls prove it. Face it the GOP is on a downward spiral and it will continue to do so as long as it has a limited platform that appeal to fewer and fewer people.

So why would Cantor even believe that he is in a position to demand that Obama give him what he (Cantor) wanted? The GOP should be happy that Obama was open to compromise and negotiation. Something Bush NEVER was as prez.

The moderate-liberal Republican blogger writes: “The fact is, people have been saying that Republicans needs to be more tolerant and open minded at least since the the 1992 GOP Convention in Houston when Pat Buchanan and others presented a very right….

You've said this repeatedly and I just can't follow your reasoning. The GOP stopped being fiscally conservative and decided to switch to a big government approach, so a lot of us left. What part of that can socons not understand? As I've said before I'm not even necessarily blaming socons, I think it was the leadership that let us down. Right now in my view the party deserves to fail and either start over or be replaced by a third party. The GOP can be saved but is it worth saving? I would change my mind if it looks like the party was heading back to what it used to be but there is little sign of that. You mention finding politically tenable responses to socon concerns, but I'm just not seeing a whole lot of receptiveness there. what would yopu consider politically tenable responses.

To me it looks likes you are mad at fiscons for leaving and upset because they will not come back and fix things. From a social standpoint fiscons really never were at odds with Democrats, the problem was with the Democrats lack of fiscal responsibility. Once the GOP turned fiscally irresponsible and started abusing government power, what was there left to turn to? Yes the Democrats are even worse than the GOP at controlling spending (the one exception being Bill Clinton but there's no one like him around any more) but is that a reason to stay with the GOP?

Anyway your comments did inspire me to check out the local County GOP organization which looks to be in disarray. Maybe I'll go to their next meeting.

Obama called Cantor for his BS, Republicans already had been told to vote no BEFORE they came to talk to the President about that bill. Wiggle any way you wish, but lock-step hypocrisy does not draw a lot of moderates to your cause.

You want to make this Obama's fault instead of seeing the fatal flaw that absolutism contains.

BTW

A Poll today found that more people believe in ghosts(34%) than want to call themselves Republicans(21%). Keep denying the problem, keep blaming everybody else.

From what I can see, social conservatives feel that fiscal conservatives have been completely dismissive of the social conservatives' concerns even though the fiscons have been perfectly happy to expand the base of the party by going after their votes. That's why they've become more polarized and unwilling to compromise on their core issues- and if the fiscons would recognize that and find the politically teneble responses to those concerns, then the two coalitions could coexist and each group would benefit.

The kind of dialogue I'm talking about would have your mother asking why those people feel it's so important to keep the focus on those issues. If she did so, she might hear people expressing their concerns about progressive agendas, and the need to slow down social change in order to avoid unintended consequences. She may still disagree with that need, but at least she could perhaps see where there was room for compromise (on gay unions, for instance, she might get some people to see that the govt shouldn't be endorsing anyone's ideas about the morality of marriage one way or another, and thus we could consider granting civil unions to everyone and get the government out of the marriage business.)

I realize you, and perhaps she, probably don't believe that the socons are capable of that kind of discussion but I've engaged plenty of people myself that I didn't expect to embrace the idea, who came to understand the rationale for it.

So what I'm saying is that instead of making assumptions that stubborn (or non-intellectual) people can't be persuaded to change these kinds of opinions, the moderates who are part of the larger group that contains those kinds of conservatives ought to see themselves as a force which needs to fight for moderation instead of walking out and empowering the extremists even more.

My hope is that evangelical leaders will emerge who can also help moderate the more extreme social conservatives, but I find it absurd that grown people think that other people fighting you on something means that you can no longer be part of the same group. You have other options- fight back, not in a divisive or bitter type of fighting, but just firmly asserting your opinions which counter those of the other coalition. But allowing the numbers of your own coalition within that party to thin out only makes that eventually impossible because the momentum shifts.

I don't care how many you chase away. But she was as active in the party locally as one could be, and was ostracized from the no-longer-a-big-tent party. She didn't leave the party. It kicked her out.

From your cited meeting.

“Cantor suggested that if he were to view the stimulus negotiations through a partisan lens, he would argue Democrats started the “party of no” name-calling about the same time that Obama was meeting with House Republicans to discuss the stimulus plan.

In response, the president reminded Cantor that Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had urged House Republicans to unite in opposition to his stimulus plans even before they had met with him to discuss it.”

Nothing quite as absolute as saying no to a bill before you meet with the President to discuss that bill.

Disagreement with Cantor doesn't mean there is no room for compromise. You're proving my point, if Obama disagrees with our ideas, that means there is no bi-partisanship on his part. Again, negotiations and compromise has no place in the Republican party. Either you take what we want piecemeal, or you're not bargaining.

And please remember context, Cantor ideas were what exactly?

Yes, that attitude always prevents compromise. Just like here, in the conversation between Obama and GOP Whip Eric Cantor regarding the need for bipartisan budget cutting tactics:

Obama pointedly reminded Cantor that he was the president — and that he reserves the right to disagree with whatever cuts the Republican whip recommends.

While we took a more moderate and tolerant position, the GOP was subsumed by “Political Dominionists”, and it is time for the moderate/secular republicans to PLEASE take your party BACK! Please…I want to get back to arguing about how much $$$ to spend on potholes!

The most current estimates that we have at this time as to the shear numbers in mega-church congregations in the US alone is approximately 60-70 million. That is a formidable group.

These extreme conservatives in the GOP are really ideologues of the “Constitution Party” who know their only chance of success is to hide behind the credibility cloak of the Republican Party…time to turn the spotlight on them and send them packing!

Leah Burton
http://www.theopalinism.com/blog/