Ensign: GOP shouldn’t focus on abortion or gay rights.
By on Nov 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Ensign: GOP shouldn’t focus on abortion or gay rights.
With Democrats expanding their control of the Senate to a solid majority, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign (R-NV) is arguing that Senate Republicans need to “re-establish what the Republican Party is all about.” Calling for a return to a “big tent Republican Party,” Ensign says that issues like abortion and gay rights “should not be at the core of the party“:
Although Ensign was not ready to call for a break from socially conservative ideologies, he said issues such as abortion or gay rights should not be at the core of the party.
“I think we lost our way on our fundamentals” in recent years, Ensign said, adding that “those are the issue that we can disagree on as a party.”
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And so it begins….
true conservatives attempting to retake the Republican Party from the Neo-cons
November 5th, 2008 at 9:48 amIt’s great to see that they’ve already started to blow up the republican party in their attempt to rebuild it. The wreckage created by BushCo and the far right wingnuts in the party of Lincoln could take a decade to undo.
Get yer popcorn ready, fellow progs — while we get to work with President Obama rebuilding this country from the ashes of the last 8 years, the republicans will be undergoing an internal civil war the likes of which haven’t been seen in a long, long time…
November 5th, 2008 at 9:48 amMaybe they could try focusing on things like honesty, integrity and ethical behavior.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:49 amThat won’t sit well with Ruptured Already…
Poor guy…spare some love for an out-of-work-false-prophet?
November 5th, 2008 at 9:51 amThe decision by Log cabin republicans to support “their candidate,” even though McCain was against gay rights, now seems shrewdly played.
Well done. You guys are now in a position to counter the breatings of the religious right, who have just been shown the door, by party moderates.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:54 amCan they be serious about Sarah the Impaler taking the Republican Party into the new centiry? All she has is fealty to the base, those anti-gay, anti-intellectual, anti-multicultural old farts who think if McCain had been elected, it would have been morning in America again.
If a blow-out like this election doesn’t send them a clear message, what will?
On the other hand, I say “Go Sarah!!” You’re currently the best bet for another Obama administration on 2012.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:55 amNevar Says:
Maybe they could try focusing on things like honesty, integrity and ethical behavior.
That.would.be.a.good.start..Then.move.on.to.take.the.inherent.greed.out.of.their.party!
Sorry.for.the.funky.typing..keyboard.messed.up!
November 5th, 2008 at 9:55 amPoor Daryll.
That hair-shirt must be especially itchy today.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:56 amnaldo Says:
On the other hand, I say “Go Sarah!!” You’re currently the best bet for another Obama administration on 2012.
Please.no!..The.thought.of.having.to.listen.to.that.bimbo.again.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:57 ammakes.my.teeth.hurt. One of the best things about the Obama win is NO MORE SARAH!
Ensign says that issues like abortion and gay rights “should not be at the core of the party“
Well, if not, say goodbye to the bigoted, redneck, ignoramus wing of the party.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:00 amNO MORE SARAH!
I wonder if Joe’s publicist is taking his calls today.
Sorry Joe. You missed it by this much.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:00 amWhat would be absolutely lovely is if the (civil) libertarian wing of the GOP began to cannibalize the rest of the rotting elephant corpse. Then we can be on the way to getting our civil liberties back.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:07 amJoe was seen in the early hours of the morning, loading up his plumbing tools and heading for Home Depot, where he bought several cases of propane for his Bernz-O-Matic torch.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:07 amHe was overheard asking at the checkout how to get to Alaska.
Joe the who?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:09 ambarfly Says:
The decision by Log cabin republicans to support “their candidate,” even though McCain was against gay rights, now seems shrewdly played.
Well done. You guys are now in a position to counter the breatings of the religious right, who have just been shown the door, by party moderates.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
http://citizenlinkelectioncentral.com/
Hope TP didn’t cover these elsewhere. That would be so redundant.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:09 amNo more Sarah.
No more “Joe” the “plumber” or Frito the Builder.
No more McSame (Sin-dy and John).
No more First Dude.
And now, to finish things up, can we please kick Joe Lieber-traitor to the curb once and for all?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:09 amTAX
November 5th, 2008 at 10:09 amTHE
CHURCH
ORGANIZATIONS
THAT
FUND
THESE
ISSUES!
SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!
The GOP should go to a corner, die quietly, and try not to stink. Just a suggestion.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:12 amKEVKEV IN APACHE JUNCTION Says:
TAX
THE
CHURCH
ORGANIZATIONS
THAT
FUND
THESE
ISSUES!
SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:09 am
You might want to reconsider taxing churches. If they are taxed they’re going to say whatever they want. If they’re not taxed they at least give a passing node to the notion that churches should be apolitical.
Many believe churches should be political and that since there is no establishment of a national religion because of the First Amendment, the churches should be allowed to say whatever they want. There was a small test of this belief in September when some churches went into a very political mode.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:14 amI think Sarah would be great to lead the republicans further into the woods. Nothing could serve us better. Even though we’d have to listen to here. She does make for good SNL.
J. T. Plumber needs to take over Rush’s job. They are on the same intellectual level.
Gloat…Gloat…well, you know.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:15 amI was a little disturbed by the number of churches used as polling places, most notably where McCain voted…
November 5th, 2008 at 10:16 amSomewhere, Barry Goldwater is smiling at Ensign’s remarks. Goldwater was the one who bemoaned the hijacking of his party by the evangelical right, and it was his position that true conservatives had no business getting into people’s private lives, bedrooms, and uteruses. True conservatism stood for personal freedom and less government, and the issues of gays and abortions went against those principles.
It’s refreshing to see that this idea hasn’t died. The GOP would be doing itself a service if they kick all the Dobsons, the Wildmons, and the Schlaflys out of the party.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:16 amPerry logan Says:
The GOP should go to a corner, die quietly, and try not to stink. Just a suggestion.
_____________
Way too late on the “not to stink” part, Perry… it’s gonna take a while to get that smell outta the the drapes.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:19 ambitblt seems to be under the misapprehension that the popularity of anti-civil rights populism can still be translated into meaningful votes for Republican candidates.
Sen. Ensign seems to believe otherwise, and is trying to peer through the smoke rising from the ash heap to see the future of the Republican Party. bitblt is just warming his hands on the embers of said ash heap.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:19 amOh god I hope they keep this up. They will only continue to dwindle.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:21 amGiven that the one prominent example of a church having its tax-exempt status threatened under the Bush administration was All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, a liberal congregation that drew fire for its anti-war preaching, it appears that the Bush administration doesn’t want to let churches say anything they want. Unless it’s supporting a right-wing agenda, that is.
IOKIYAR.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:23 ambitblt Says:
Many believe churches should be political and that since there is no establishment of a national religion because of the First Amendment, the churches should be allowed to say whatever they want.
______________
As usual, bitblt speaks out of bitblt’s Cheney. Bitblt’s ‘conservative’ brethren got their collective Cheneys handed to them on platters all over the country last night, and bitblt is here to gloat over the one small, mean-spirited, HATEFUL bit of bigotry the pointy, little heads managed to insitutionalize in some places, however temporarily, until saner minds prevail.
Had a hard time sleepy last night. Kept hearing these popping noises for hours. At first I thought it was fire works, to go along w/ all the horn honking and general rowdiness following OBAMA’S WIN. Turns out it was actually the sounds of pointy little heads ’sploding, one after another.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:25 amThe party that brought us Dobson, Clear Channel, Fox, Sinclair, Delay, Rush, Hannity, Barns, Foley, Haggard, Gannon, Malkin, Doocy, Kelly, Falwell, Gingrich, Coulter, Liddy, Craig, Palin, Cheney, O’Reily, Abramoff, Cunningham, Rove, BUSH and so many many more will never go away.
Despite the indisputable fact that the Christian right Republican jack-booted thugs got their asses kicked last night.
Will they learn from their defeat? Yes. If you consider “learn” to mean that they will find a new champion for their theocratic vision of America and another gimmick like “Contract with America” by which to bamboozle the uneducated and corral the hateful among us. Vigilance!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:28 amralph the wonder llama Says:
Sen. Ensign seems to believe otherwise, and is trying to peer through the smoke rising from the ash heap…
__________
Is that really “smoke rising from the ash heap”, or is it steam billowing from the Big Stinky Sh*t Pile, Ralph? At any rate, w/ bitblt gibbering around the place this fine morning like a 5 yr old on a sugar binge, Whack-A-Troll is on™!!! Yer shot, Ralphie.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:33 amNo matter how much the right-whiners try to pull the country to the right, and no matter how many laws and state constitutions they ammend, they will lose in the long-run to American values of equal rights for all.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:36 amPotay-to, potah-to, TRos.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:44 am“misshusseinmolly Says:
Somewhere, Barry Goldwater is smiling at Ensign’s remarks. Goldwater was the one who bemoaned the hijacking of his party by the evangelical right, and it was his position that true conservatives had no business getting into people’s private lives, bedrooms, and uteruses. True conservatism stood for personal freedom and less government, and the issues of gays and abortions went against those principles.
It’s refreshing to see that this idea hasn’t died. The GOP would be doing itself a service if they kick all the Dobsons, the Wildmons, and the Schlaflys out of the party.”
I repeated that Molly, and I hope you don’t mind. As a disenfranchised republican turned libertarian, I have to say that you’ve articulated what I was thinking so eloquently that it bares repeating. I’m hoping some major house cleaning goes on in the conservative movement, and PNAC and the Neocons go the way of the Dodo bird (hunted to extinction).
While us libertarians are mucking the conservative stalls (and there’s a huge pile of sh!t to move) my hope is that progressives will work to restore civil liberties, and that we libertarians can help make that happen. I can tolerate 4 years of liberal economics if it means I get my essential liberties back.
It’s a hell of a lot harder to get back lost money than it is to get back loss liberties.
Congratulations President elect Barack Obama, you’ve earned this.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:45 amHey Ensign, one great way to accomplish what you seek is to, uhh…, have the actual arguments about abortion and gay rights. The right wing has long known that treating both issues with stealth and dog-whistle tactics was the only way to turn them into money-makers, without costing them too much at the polls. Finally you had McCain mocking the woman’s health exception in debate with Obama, and one result was a drubbing across the country.
So go ahead Republicans. Have the disagreements, make the arguments, reach the logical conclusions that result from those arguments, and we can all shitcan the fundamentalist attitudes for the next few decades or so…or don’t and continue your losing ways. You’d think the Schiavo affair would have sunk in with these people. What the hell is wrong with them?
November 5th, 2008 at 10:46 amThere really should be a third party for the evangelicals, abortion opponents, anti-gays, gun-nuts and any other fringe ideologues out there. They hijacked the Republican party and came extremely close to destroying it. I know many old-school conservatives who want their party back and they’ll probably get their way after what’s happened over the past years ending in yesterday. Let all these folks get together and maybe they’ll have enough weight to run for mayor of Wasilla again.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:47 amThey can argue it all they want. It is still illegal and should be persued. If they want to engage in politics they should be taxed. If they engage in politics they are not religious, they are political, period.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:49 amThe original “conservative values” do not resemble the theocratic “values” supposed by the modern republicans. If the republicans went back to the original values, strictly, then they would actually be more progressive than the current democratic party. Of course, that would piss of “the base” completely. We will see what they do.
And any church that used it’s pulpit to preach politics, BY LAW, needs to have its tax-free status removed. Your PERSONAL spiritual welfare has nothing at all to do with politics. You can preach politics on the street corner (well, the republican drive “free speech zones” may affect that). And a church IS free to preach politics in their service, but the price they pay for doing so is the loss of the tax exempt status. No one says they get shut down for that, just that that excludes them from exemption from taxes. Deal with it. THAT is part of our america, and if you don’t like it, leave.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:51 ambitblt Says:
You might want to reconsider taxing churches. If they are taxed they’re going to say whatever they want. If they’re not taxed they at least give a passing node to the notion that churches should be apolitical.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:14 am
______
These Evangelical freaks are already saying whatever they want, and threw apoliticality out with all those other values like charity and compassion and all that Jesusy stuff.
Nope, we might as well let the rest of the country benefit from the billions of dollars in “first fruits” currently keeping the Evangelical Industry in their Lear Jets.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:52 amAnd, Bitbit, the comments are not that ALL churches be taxed: ONLY those who choose to confuse theology with politics.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:54 amOh, so running the Republicans as the party of small minded bigots was a mistake?!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:58 amEnsign says that issues like abortion and gay rights “should not be at the core of the party“:
November 5th, 2008 at 10:59 amThats right you should stay focused on torture , endless war ,domestic spying , and the destruction of the US constitution .
Ensign: GOP shouldn’t focus on abortion or gay rights.»
Then they can focus on warmonging, torture, spying on Americans, McCarthyism, cronyism, race baiting, creating off-shore tax havens, environmental destruction, tax cuts for the wealthy, bad trade agreements, and taking bribes.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:30 amDarn freeman, you beat me to it. But, as you can see, you missed a few things that are very important to Republicans.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:32 amYeah, good luck with that Ensign. Your side went the deep sleezy route and now you won’t be able to clean it up. Enjoy your base and I hope you wallow in it for years to come.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:58 amEnsign: GOP shouldn’t focus on abortion or gay rights.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pmWell, I have to agree with that sentiment… It seems to me the only thing the Republican Party should be focusing on is how to be humane human beings.
CageyCretin:
The original “conservative values” do not resemble the theocratic “values” supposed by the modern republicans. If the republicans went back to the original values, strictly, then they would actually be more progressive than the current democratic party. Of course, that would piss of “the base” completely. We will see what they do.
You nailed it buddy. There’s a lot of debris to clean up, and I’m pessimistic about the capacity for so called “conservatives” to actually do it.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:49 pmThe repugs are not just out of time…but out of step with what is going on in the world..never mind the United States.
The citizens of this nation are not blind to what is happening in this world. Other nations provide the essentials in life..universal health care, subsidized education and regulated capitalism that is fair for all.
If the Repugs want to change for the 21st centery, start looking within and clear out the mentality that has set the party back 50 years.
There is a saying…small town , small minds…look to the masses to get direction if you care. The battle is not about idoligy but who is behind the idoligy??? However in the Repugs case both have to change if it is going to be a party of the future.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm