The following is Bill Asbell’s (Dover, NH) take on the election, and the recipe for reconstructing the Republican Party following its decimation in the election. Sometimes you have to wipe a slate clean and start anew. The opportunities are endless at this point. Bill’s letter is in response to an email from a friend obviously sending his sympathy over the election’s outcome…
Condolences accepted, but the glass is half-full, and this political Katrina can be an excellent brief opportunity to learn from our mistakes so as to come back stronger two years from now.
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What this election showed is that the Northeast is getting more liberal as the south is getting more conservative. (Another GOP House seat was picked up in GA). We in NH have been under siege by liberals coming from all sides for some time now, and the Republicans that remain in New England with the exception of John E. Sununu are all moderate to liberal. Olympia Snowe, a Whitman clone is a typical example. In Maine, they prefer their Republicans neutered. But, Lincoln Chafee who voted against John Roberts, and publicly announced he was voting for John Kerry in ’04 lost, thank God, as did some other RINOs. Too bad Arlen Specter wasn’t running. Anyway…
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Purgation is often the beginning of a cure. Rhode Island liberals figured, why vote for a pretend Socialist when you can have the real thing, which combined with a general feeling of "throw the bums out", anti-incumbency animus that was everywhere. Maine will eventually replace Snowe and Collins as Vermont replaced RINO Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords with avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders. Still, the turnover number was average for a 6th year in a two-term presidency. This was nothing like ’94. NH may remain a live-free-or-die state for a while yet, simply by being able to point to the surrounding states and say, "Do you really want to look like THAT?!" which is a powerful tincture against self-induced lunacy most of the time.
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As I worked for Chuck, Jeb, and the local Dover candidates last Saturday, I spoke to Republican voters who told me point blank that they were going to "send a message", so I saw this coming. The message was two-fold, 1. Bush needed to WIN the war quickly or get out, instead of bleeding us to death by a thousand cuts, and 2. Republicans were going to be punished for their anti-conservative, decadent behavior over the past 6 years: Namely, "a bridge to nowhere", runaway spending, new entitlements, Abramoff-like influence peddling, Foley-page porn, failure to want to stem the flow of illegal immigration etc. The drive-by media’s considerable bias doesn’t help us either.
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In those other states where Republicans acted conservative and fulfilled their promises, they got re-elected, by and large despite the perfect storm. Where they pretended to be Democrats lite, they got removed. And, the Democrats who removed them in red states and swing states were pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and pro-gun. Here’s one of the best articles diagnosing the problem. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrassel/?id=110009100 The gay marriage bans passed in 7 of 8 states. In NH, the two conservative ballot measures passed, despite the Democrat sweep.
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As NH Republicans begin to take stock of the why and wherefores, and begin to form a strategy to elect new leaders of the NHGOP to begin the process of renovation, we desperately need to inculcate the lesson that was dished out yesterday; namely, that when Republicans follow the lead of Reagan and Gingrich’s ’94 campaign as a reform party and follow through in policy, they will win. When they try to out-liberal the Democrats they have no where to go but down. Bush will be gone in ’08, but Hillary won’t be. I guess also that nation building is not our destiny.
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The party of ideas needs to rediscover and articulate those ideas effectively and often, and stop seeking power for power’s sake. Pride goeth before a fall, and yesterday showed that hubris leads to the people’s rejection. We have two years to make a strong case for small, muscular government, strong security, an effective clamp down on illegal immigration, low taxes, school choice, traditional family values and the re-establishment of a separation of powers to restrain a usurpist judiciary. Let’s not be confused on our diagnosis of the problem and the reasons behind the comeuppance, or we’ll choose the wrong "strategery" going forward.
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Bill Asbell
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Hear! Hear! I am strongly opposed to the picking of ANY of the current "leaders" of the GOP both at the state and national levels to leadership positions of any sort in their next sessions. What they’ve done has obviously not worked. New Blood!