The Republican dilemma: appealing to the base and the middle at the same time
It occurs to me that some of the disagreement we had in this thread reflects the fact that there are actually two populations to which the Republican Party could appeal.
The first is the base, the “preaching to the choir” group. The conservative base needs to be motivated to get out and vote, and must be kept energetic and enthusiastic in order to do that.
The second is the people who aren’t already on board, and who need to be convinced or “swung.” They tend to be more moderate and are the so-called “Independents” and also the low information voters or “LIVs.”
The two groups have a tendency to respond to very different and possibly contradictory approaches. This accounts for quite a bit of the turmoil in the Republican Party. The base is angry (often very angry) at anything that smacks of appeals to the center, the LIVs, the moderates, the undecideds. In fact, members of the base tend to be turned off by such appeals—and rightly so, I think, when a candidate ventures so close to the center in enough areas that he/she becomes nearly indistinguishable from an actual centrist or even a Democrat. That’s where the insult “RINO”—Republican In Name Only—comes from.
But as I see it, the base can sometimes confuse appealing somewhat to the center with being from the center or of the center. You can do the first without being the second. However, although it’s not easy.
So, how could a candidate reconcile the two approaches?
Of course, if the first group (the base) is large enough and motivated enough (and especially if the party is in the majority among voters to begin with), wooing the middle is much less important and can even be more or less dispensed with. All you have to do is turn out the base in enough numbers.
I believe that was why Obama won in 2012; he was still successful at doing so. It’s not that he didn’t appeal somewhat to the middle, most especially in the 2008 election, where he did it by pretending to be far more moderate than he actually was. The left was going to vote for him anyway, particularly because of his race, so I doubt he had to worry much about losing them and could afford to present himself as much as possible as a centrist. (I think almost anyone should have seen through his charade, which wasn’t very good, but apparently they did not.) It also didn’t hurt that Democrats were in the majority anyway, and that Bush had gotten such a bad rep by 2008 that people were eager for a change of party.
Republican candidates face a different task. First of all, during the last decade the GOP has not had the majority of voters who affiliate with a party or lean towards a party. So the GOP base is not enough, unless turnout is absolutely extraordinary for them and low for Democrats. That can’t be counted on; even in 2012, when Republicans seemed very motivated to vote, it didn’t come to pass that turnout was extraordinary (although there was no “missing 2 million Republican voters; that is a persistent myth I’ve written about before).
In any election under such conditions, the GOP must do those two contradictory things I’ve already mentioned: highly motivate its somewhat-perfectionistic base, and appeal to the middle. Some people think the best way to do this is to have a candidate who actually is from the middle, but I think that’s a poor solution. Some might say Romney fit that description, but I supported Romney because (1) he was the nominee, and I would have supported any Republican against Obama; and (2) I was and still am of the opinion he was more conservative than conservatives thought, and I devoted a fair amount of verbiage to trying to prove that.
But I think a conservative candidate can appeal to the middle as well as the base, if he/she is smart about it. That’s what Reagan was able to do so well. Reagan, of course, was sui generis. But in a different way, I think Scott Walker has the potential to do it, and that’s one of the main reasons he’s been my favored 2016 candidate for a long time. He has a proven ability to win as a conservative in a mostly-blue state, which involves appealing to the middle and even liberals, and to do it again and again while sticking to his conservative principles. He doesn’t do it by being an attack dog, although he does it by being dogged in keeping on message and delivering results. He doesn’t pander to the middle even in his rhetoric, but he also performs as a conservative who delivers the goods. That’s why I like governors as Republican candidates: they have a record to point to, and if successful at performing effectively as conservatives, it can be a very strong argument, even to the middle.
Reagan’s strategy was to persuade the middle with the message of the right. That’s different than positioning. If you look upon the left, middle, and right as fixed groups, you’re limited to the options you discuss in the article. But if you treat the middle as persuadable, you can get the best of both worlds.
Nick:
That’s what Walker does, too, just with a different style that focuses more on action and results as the form of the persuasion. He uses words, too, and Reagan also used action–but although the balance is somewhat different and the personal style is quite different, I don’t see the gap that you seem to see
Well, at least we satisfy the women in our lives, unlike democrats:
A woman who had been married three times walked into a bridal shop one day and told the sales clerk that she was looking for a wedding gown for her fourth wedding.
“Of course, madam,” replied the sales clerk, “exactly what type and color dress are you looking for?”
The bride-to-be said, “A long frilly white dress with a veil.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, madam, but such dresses are usually more fitting for the first time bride who is more innocent in the ways of life, if you get my meaning.”
“WELL!,” replied the customer, a little peeved at the clerk’s directness,
“I can assure you that a white gown would be quite appropriate. Believe it or not, despite all my marriages, I remain as innocent as a first-time bride.
You see, my first husband was so excited about our wedding, he died as we were checking into our honeymoon hotel.
My second husband and I got into such a terrible fight in the limo on our way to our honeymoon hotel that we had that wedding annulled immediately and never spoke to each other again.”
“What about your third husband?”
“That one was a DEMOCRAT”, said the woman, “and every night for four years, he just sat on the edge of the bed and told me how good it was going to be, but nothing ever happened.”
Neo-neocon – I wasn’t trying to contrast Walker and Reagan. You seemed to be saying that there are two strategies, appeal to the center or appeal to the right; I’m saying that Reagan followed a Plan C, pulling the center rightward.
A large part of the problem is that the conservative base has grown so skeptical. Far too often we’ve heard candidates pay lip service to conservative values. And then when elected with the support of conservative contributions and votes they immediately abandon even a pretense of believing those values they’ve paid lip service to during the primary.
“the GOP must do those two contradictory things …: highly motivate its somewhat-perfectionistic base, and appeal to the middle”
“Reagan”
Reagan coopted the middle, the middle class, the blue-collar union stiff, who’d been the stalwart of the Democratic Party while the Democratic Party was their champion, Scoop Jackson, H Humphrey, et al. The comeuppance for the Dems was that they no longer had this constituency reliably in hand. They went looking elsewhere for someone reliable and set upon the immigrant.
Another point, Republicans have been on the defensive for over a decade. They have not made a sufficient argument of what they were for, for they either could not or would not do so. Lowering taxes is a non-starter, tactically speaking, for a middle class that greatly benefits from those receipts. That’s all they had — taxes.
The tactic of appealing to the middle should continue along that line – coopting what’s left of the middle – the middle-middle, and the upper middle, the white middle. The Republican should tack to the populist, to tradition, to culture. Surely the argument can be made that would put the Dems on the defensive. Have them hemming and hawing and explaining why they had abandoned the American — native and naturalized – for alien cultures with baggage hostile to American beliefs, traditions, law. Surely the argument can be made but, likely as not, won’t be, because… stupid… frightened… treacherous.
One of the main things the base fears is “establishment Republicans”, who seem to be too much like Democrats to be trusted.
I mostly agree with the blogger who said that “We don’t need a third party, we need a second one.”
Obama’s appeal was that he reached out to the middle.
The Republican problem is one of math. In 2014 Gallup compiled the following results:
1. Conservatives – 38%
2. Liberals – 28%
3. Moderates – 34%
The Republican task is to convince 13% of the moderates to vote for a Republican Presidential candidate. It seems it should be a doable task. Yet they failed in both 2008 and 2012. And with candidates that most conservatives consider to be RINOs.
IMO, part of the problem is that Gallup’s polls do not adequately reflect the true ideologies of those polled. I know many liberals who consider themselves to be unbiased moderates. The old, “I don’t vote for the party, but for the man,” slogan. It never enters their minds that they are really saying, “I vote for the candidate that makes me feel good.” They are loathe to say, “I actually like the policies of the Left better,” because that would mark them as biased and would knock them off their high horse.
Conservatives are generally all about practical, left brain thinking and acting. Liberals are mostly about right brain feelings and lack of real action. Don’t believe me? Who has been promising to eliminate poverty, homelessness, joblessness, and provide better education for the last 50 years? The Democrats, that’s who. And how much real progress has been made? Precious little. They’re all talk and no action.
The Republican candidate must be able to appeal to the feeling side of moderates and to the practical side of conservative to bring enough voters out for him/her. I agree with neo, that Scott Walker has demonstrated this ability at the state level in a left leaning state. He may not get the nomination, but I, too, am pulling for him at this point.
There are differences between “the base” (sounds lahk al kayder …) (I’m in the base) and the mushy mod GOP but these are due to lack of education and understanding in the middle (too much msm). Nothing that can’t be handled by a well-spoken candidate. The real fight in the GOP is between the constitutionalists and the cronies. Amnesty, Common Core, Obamacare – these are a few of the GOP cronies’ favorite things.
For a while, leading up to 2012, I was saying, to anyone I thought was listening, that I’d happily vote for one of two categories of candidates —
1. Sarah Palin
or
2. someone who supported her when it mattered.
(Perhaps I’ve forgotten, but politicians in the #2 category are hard to find.)
I should have added a third category:
3. someone who has been through the wringer as she has.
Gov. Walker definitely fits that third category.
Let me add: 2008 saw us entering a new phase of vicious political infighting. I thought the Bush-bashing was bad… but I’d NEVER seen a politician vilified the way Gov. Palin was. Unfortunately, it was seen to work, so it has been used ever since. It will not stop until it is shown to be counterproductive. That means that, someday, a Republican candidate will need to stand up to the worst the Left can throw, remain standing, and win.
So far, Gov. Walker fits that description too.
Another problem is that conservatives have been so disappointed for so long that they want it all now. That means that a candidate who agrees with them most of the time will suddenly be attacked on a single issue, which he may even agree on but puts lower on his priority scale. We also have the extreme libertarian divide.
There are many people who love Cruz, although he doesn’t have much experience in actually accomplishing the ends he talks about. Still he satisfies their demand to be heard. Somehow our candidate will have to satisfy that demand in a non-scary way.
We haven’t done a good job of dealing with Walker’s lack of a college degree. I haven’t heard anyone say that while Walker dropped out in his last semester, he did attend college for 3 and 1/2 years. It’s not like he flunked out after 2 years of remedial reading classes. He must have had SATs good enough to get him accepted and must have done well enough to proceed in the direction of his BA. Why hasn’t anyone on the right murdered Howard Dean on these issues? We really have to learn to defend our own. The MSM uses gottchas and we criticize the candidates for a less than perfect response but otherwise don’t take on the attackers.
Walker is the next Reagan. He has the dnc-msm foaming at the mouth. He refuses to take the bait of their gotcha questions and its driving them into wds. The way to defeat the left is to make them reveal their inner most vicious, anti American souls. Walker is the real deal, I am ready to put my time and money to support his Iowa campaign just as I did for Joni. Get off the sofa and lend your shoulder to what you believe in. Rino ain’t the way to reclaiming Ronny’s legacy.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work stated on Tuesday that if Congress doesn’t negotiate with the Pentagon to come to a reasonable solution, budget cuts from sequestration stand to kill the United States’ military technological advantage
When he fight starts from what we are being distracted from, all the points being made will be moot and irrelevant..
Btw, a majority of ‘folks’ do not have a college degree, let alone a degree from the ivy league, so Walker is securely at home in middle America. Its flyover country’s time to lead. 😉
AMartel Says: There are differences between “the base”
Mehgan Trainor Says: Its all about that bass!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PCkvCPvDXk
sheesh.
I guess this stuff all falls under the umbrella of “political science.”
I’m just going to listen to Rush. All this poly sci stuff about the Middle, the Moderates, and how to play them, how to appeal to them is more than I can stand. How about just telling them the truth? How about getting in the enemy’s face? Oh, I see, that would turn some “moderates” off. Fine, then go Alinsky on them.
Don Carlos Says:
February 23rd, 2015 at 3:59 pm
sheesh.
I guess this stuff all falls under the umbrella of “political science.”
Yup! People in the end will vote for the real thing, not some watered down brew.
Reaganus Maximus was the real thing.
Remains, the current constituency did it TWICE.
That, is unsettling ….
most important of all is the “political preparation of the morale of the people.” This preparation is considered decisive (see pp. 458-459 of the Rand translation of Soviet Military Strategy by Marshal Sokolovskii). Preparation of the population for war translates as ideological indoctrination. A spirit of patriotism must be inculcated, “love of Motherland and … instilling in them the readiness to bear any of the hardships of war in the name of victory.” Strict indoctrination regarding the enemy’s wickedness is indispensable. “Hatred of the enemy should arouse the desire to destroy the armed forces and military-industrial potential of the aggressor and achieve complete victory in a just war.”
i discussed this a long time ago (and before as well. note, that WE, the USA paid for the upgrade)
Artfldgr Says:
March 28th, 2014 at 1:07 pm
http://neoneocon.com/2014/03/27/alinskys-rule-4-is-a-one-way-street/#comment-752999
the post is about how The Russian “Woodpecker” Returns – “over-the-horizon radar signals originating from Russia on the 20, 15 and 10-meter bands.”
“The political preparation of the morale of the people for war is directed … by every governmental and public organization in the country, and by the whole system of education and public information. For this purpose all of the instruments of propaganda and agitation are used….” –Soviet Military Strategy
the point of noting this is that Russia has not abandoned soviet ideas, methods, etc…
its also to point out that we are not preparing for anything, in fact the opposite is true as we prevent and diminish our military till theirs exceeds ours
we have not put any of our industries underground, in fact we shipped them out to china, and destroyed the supporting infrastructure and skill set of the people who would work
our rhetoric is the opposite, so we will nto want to fight
the potential people who would serve are physically, mentally, and wholly ideologically unfit (with many examples of defecting with informaiton to the opposition)
we no longer teach about nuclear civil defense
we do not teach that Russia is the enemy the way russia IS teaching that we are the enemy and has ratcheted up the rhetoric on that nationally
NATO Gen. Frederick Hodges recently said in a Wall Street Journal Interview: “I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years.”
i would say probably less… given tweedle dumb and tweedle dee… unless what comes next is even less competent or more complicit…
there is so much more that is not part of anyones dialogue, not even neo’s
Both Walker and Rubio can appeal to Republicans across all boards. Love it.
maybe complaining about the orchestra, and ignoring the conductor is not a very wise thing to do..
What to do about the very real differences between conservative Republicans and independents on abortion and same-sex marriage? I believe independents are far closer to the Democrats on those two things. That seems a major problem.
The biggest problem the Republicans have is convincing people they won’t govern the same way they’ve governed for the last 10 years.
The GOP cannot motivate its base with a ‘moderate’ candidate. The GOP leadership will do all they can to engineer the nomination of a moderate, i.e. RINO candidate. They will do so because it is in their personal short term interest to keep happy their big donors who want a moderate (controllable) candidate.
If the base manages to nominate a conservative, they will do all they can to control that person. They will ensnare that person in a web of obligations, expectations and quid pro quo(s).
The 2012 election proved that independents and the low information voters or “LIVs” cannot be ‘convinced’, the effect of the mass media’s lies both of omission and commission is too strong. Only painful events can dissuade them from voting for the ‘progressive’ candidate who ‘cares’ about them and promises them a disproportionate ‘piece of the pie’.
Those painful events loom on a not so distant horizon.
Unpatriotic voters elect unpatriotic leaders
TWICE is enemy action …
I am a conservative who dislikes the Republican Party slightly less than the Democrats. Probably for the rest of my life I will vote against any Democrat any time I have a chance so my vote is a lock.
If the Republicans want to win the next national election they will have to connect with the moderates with a message the younger moderates can relate to a feel good about. (Feelings are important in elections!)
Conservatives might do well to understand that voters under 40 don’t think gays are an issue. Abortion would be be avoided as a topic since so many fall into the undecided on the issue. And most of all, we need some way to assimilate most all of the undocumented folks since we will never deport millions and it would be good to turn them into conservative voters.
I have no idea how to do the stuff above but there should be some people much younger than I who could form some positive coherent talking points and as said above avoid pitfalls and reach out past the base.
Most of us old S.O.B.s will vote for anyone who runs on the ticket so please take us for granted and bring in some fresh new people with the idea that their future can be improved.
OldTexan,
First paragraph; I’m in the same boat.
The only message that younger moderates can relate to and feel good about is a ‘democrat lite’ message and that is a formula for a ‘long walk, off a short pier’.
Avoidance of social issues is ‘smart politics’ but fraught with long term consequences.
Most undocumented folks do not want to assimilate and that is why most will never become conservative voters. To assimilate, one must embrace the values and virtues of the country emigrated to but the great majority of “undocumented” ‘folks’ come from cultures that do not embrace American values (the importance of education, acceptance of personal responsibility, respect for the rule of law, delayed gratification). They wish to live here, make money and have America change into a multicultural, socialistic society. They wish us to be a salad with the dressing on the side not a melting pot.
No one else has any idea how to do what you wish because the aims and the motivations are in fundamental conflict.
Bring in some fresh new people like Marco Rubio? Who BTW is a major supporter of amnesty and who, knowing that the dems will not secure the borders, still pretends otherwise? Who either doesn’t care or is too shallow to realize that amnesty for 11-34 MILLION “undocumented democrats” means permanent one party rule in America and the end of individual liberties.
“This is about whether we as a society, expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good. And that is exactly the fight that we have been having for a couple hundred years.” MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris-Perry elaborating on her comment that, “we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to their communities.”
We should take lessons from Obama. Not the blackness, since it is not a personal make-it-or-not issue. But dissembling, misrepresenting, and flat-out lying in order to get elected. Once in office, the gloves come off; let the exec. orders fly. Start defunding the leftist bureaucratic bastions. Dissembling can continue.Never fail to blame Obama as budgets are cut: “He has ruined the USA. We have to do this. We have no choice. Ruin is dead ahead.”
The object is ends, not means.
So call me a Franco, a fascist, whatever…After office-holding is achieved. Adopt taqqiya.
We have been dancing around this issue forever, and forever surrendering ground. Let’s get to it.
Walker is a moderate sounding man who takes heat for the decisions he makes and he is pissing off all the right people (unions).
Romney? Nothing burger.
Cruz? He’s a live wire. Probably better as VP.
Perry? Former dem. Moderate sounding. Probably a good bet.
Walker’s main virtue (other than being a Marquette man) is that he has WON in a big Dem stronghold. No other candidate other than CC can make that claim. That is gold as far as I am concerned as Hillary must be defeated.
Don Carlos Says:
February 23rd, 2015 at 9:57 pm
We have been dancing around this issue forever, and forever surrendering ground. Let’s get to it.
Daniel Greenfield gets to it!
The fact is we’ve never had a president like what the Republican base wants and has always wanted. Republican presidents always govern to the left of the Republican base. Including Reagan, the only one who came anywhere close. Spending and the deficit increased significantly under Reagan, despite his supposed fiscal conservatism. And he is the original amnesty guy. We tend to forget these things when we admire his toughness towards the Soviet Union, breaking them. And all his other conservatism, making us proud to be Americans again. But he nevertheless governed to the left of the base. Compromises were made. I think there always will be.
Rush is making a good point today: that Repubs have always made the mistake of accepting whatever flawed premise the media Lefties present, and argue from that, instead of rejecting the premise.
“Joe Biden: he’s insulting Indians, he’s insulting Pakistanis, he’s insulting somebody every time he opens his mouth — and not once does anybody in the media go to any Democrat and say, “Well, what do you have to say about what Joe Biden said?” The reaction is, “Ah, that’s just old Joe,” and it gets passed off and forgotten as though it isn’t any big deal.
“But you have a Todd Akin, for example, say what he said, every Republican has to comment on it, everybody Republican has to condemn it. Every Republican, by the same token, whenever Obama is attacked by any other Republican, other Republicans have to condemn the attack and then have to validate that Obama’s not what the Republican said.
But it never works the other way. This is something that has bugged me, those of you who have listened to this program from the beginning know, this has bugged me from the beginning of all this. And finally there’s some people now pointing out the right way to do this.
Don’t answer the question and turn it back on ’em. For example, Scott Walker, this is just an example. He had his own answer to it. He was asked about Obama’s Christianity.
He said: ‘I don’t know. I don’t know whether Obama’s a Christian. Why are you asking me? Go ask him. It doesn’t matter to me whether Obama’s a Christian. That’s not what I’m doing here. I don’t know. I don’t know the man. You go ask him if you care about whether he’s a Christian or not.’
That’s the way to handle it. Somebody will ask a Republican, “Well, what do you think about Rudy, Rudy insulting Obama, Rudy saying that Obama doesn’t love America?”
The response is, “You know, I don’t remember the last time you guys went around and started asking Hillary if she’s very worried about her husband flying all over the world with a pedophile and showing up at the pedophile’s homes in New York and Florida. When are you gonna ask Bill Clinton what it’s like, when are you gonna ask people in the Democrat Party to defend Bill Clinton for doing this kind of stuff?”
That’s starting to happen now. And when it does, it changes the story, the narrative. It turns it around on ’em and the media is not happy with this. This is part of their monopoly that didn’t change for a while. They were always able to get away with this.
Any Republican, like me, will say something about somebody that’s controversial, and they’ll go to all these Republicans, “What do you think about what Limbaugh said?” and for the most part they’ve played it right and not commented, but some will either defend me or condemn me, and that’s what the media wants. The right answer is, “I don’t speak for Rush Limbaugh.”
Beverly,
That is why the commie shit-bags are going after the net. It’s not about net neutrality, it’s about silencing the opposition. And personally I think after the coming civil war there won’t be much of the left left.
Left is made up of vampires. The lying king has no soul.
Patty Griffin “Cold as it Gets”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Cq2kMB7_Y
“What to do about the very real differences between conservative Republicans and independents on abortion and same-sex marriage? I believe independents are far closer to the Democrats on those two things. That seems a major problem.”
This IS the problem of the GOP. It is 2015. Gone are the days – forever – when these topics are winners. The world is in flames, literally spinning around the drain, and the GOP cares more about abortion and gay marriage. Gen X is not motivated on these and Gen Y – who is about to become the largest voting bloc in history – thinks you’re all medieval nutjobs. I’m not arguing those topics here because it’s pointless – I am simply saying that these are done deals. The far right has the option of throwing the world away over these losing battles, or partnering with us moderates on a platform that has a chance.
We need a party to champion the Constitution and our traditional ideals of governement-as-servant-of-the-people, free enterprise, and the rule of law. The Democrat party is trampling these everywhere it can, and trying to make those of us who believe in these things look like pathetic fools. It does not help when the only viable opposition party literally drops everything to obsess about gay marriage or abortion the second it gets any kind of power or momentum. These are not the battles that need to be fought. We have existential issues at hand.
Beverly Says:
February 24th, 2015 at 12:56 am
“Repubs have always made the mistake of accepting whatever flawed premise the media Lefties present, and argue from that, instead of rejecting the premise..”.
It is all dialectics and Gramscian methods, not an Aristotelian well meaning debate for the purpose of eliciting the right course of action. The purpose is to grind you into the ground.
As such Societal Consensus has left the room and she is not coming back till the tree of Liberty has been watered …
Dalrymple on the purposes of lies in totalitarian societies:
In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control…
at this piece by Steyn
and, they don’t bother hiding it:
Twit Tweets:
Elias Isquith @eliasisquith · Feb 14
Memes, my boy. That’s how we’ll beat back these insurrectionist scum – with memes
fiery death of Michael Hastings, an investigative journalist…. etailed the trade of top Taliban terrorists for the “exchange” of deserter Bergdahl / was prepping for the release of an EXPLOSIVE exposé re HUSSEIN Obama and his (well hidden) bonafides / Hastings was in the midst of building a case against CIA’s John Brennan
Andrew Breitbart, an investigative journalist and a conservative powerhouse, was about to expose some of HUSSEIN Obama’s hidden secrets, and he too suddenly collapsed! his coroner wound up dead, and from arsenic poisoning / the timing of actual passing actually came within hours of the release of the preliminary autopsy report of Breitbart / Authorities have yet to confirm how they believe arsenic entered his system – or if the coroner was deliberately poisoned
Best-selling author of techno-military thrillers Tom Clancy died last week on Oct. 2 at the age of 66. Under “cause of death” on Clancy’s autopsy is “cause of death unknown.”
Ned Colt of (NBC) dropped dead of a stroke…
Bob Simon of (CBS) died in a car crash…
David Carr (NY Times) died suddenly after interviewing Edward Snowden // he also called out williams for lying as to the iraq war
Bob Hager the NBC aviation expert now had head on crash (he survived)
Donald Young was murdered on the eve of Democratic primary season /47-year-old choir master at former Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ
Larry Bland and Nate Spencer–were also murdered execution style with bullets to the backs of their heads
Mama Lois” Anderson: 79, and her 52 year old daughter Zelda White // suspected killers of the US women, who were travelling in a car with diplomatic license plates, allegedly shot dead by police later.
Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell: Died in the Camp Bastion attack
Chicago activist Jeff Joe Black: Found dead on a hiking trail from “blunt force trauma to the head”:
Steve Bridges Dies At 48 – Impersonator Who Offended 0bama // the website now claims it was not an accident he died of anaphalaxis
Robin Copeland, 46, 11/4/2011: former Energy Department official who took part in several significant disarmament programs
Michael Cormier – respected forensic technician for the Los Angeles County Coroner died under suspicious circumstances at his North Hollywood home April 20, the same day Andrew Breitbart’s cause of death was finally made public.
Dominic Di-Natale; Veteran Fox News correspondant in the middle east, committed suicide; covered the Arab Spring, Egypt, fall of Libya and Benghazi
Madelyn Payne Dunham: Obama’s grandmother, died 2 days before the general election. / cremated immediately before autopsy
Loretta Fuddy: -Hawaii Health Director Loretta Fuddy dies in small plane crash ; ‘Fuddy was at the center of controversy in the birth certificate controversy as she was the person who reportedly granted “an exception” to Barack Obama, allegedly witnessing the copying of Obama’s birth certificate and attested to its authenticity’
Army General Harold Greene; American General Killed in Shooting at Afghan Military Academy
Bill Gwatney, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and a Clinton super delegate at an upcoming convention in Denver and was fatally shot in 2008.
Lieutenant Quarles Harris Jr.- A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church.
Andy P. Hart: Guantanamo attorney dead in apparent suicide….Hart was assigned to defend Mohammed Rahim al-Afghani, one of 16 detainees at Guantanamo which the US government has designated as “high-value.”
Barnaby Jack: Hacker found dead days before he was to demonstrate how to hack a pacemaker
Stephanie Tubbs Jones: found brain dead in 2008. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, a super delegate and one of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, was found in her car unconscious
Christopher Kelly – Committed suicide, under pressure to testify against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich ;
David Koschman, Mudered in a Chicago Rush Street brawl by Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko, a nephew of Mayor Daley and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley
Kam Kuwata – was found dead inside his Venice home after friend – concerned that they had not heard from him for a few days – alerted police. Political consultant in California. Democratic insider. Possibly the Obama consultant referred to in the Ulsterman Report
Robert McKeon: founder of private-equity firm Veritas Capital, dies Sept. 10, 2012 of suicide; General Dynamics bought company in August 2011 to expand influence into Obamacare IT
Marco McMillian: Mississippi’s first gay mayoral candidate, 34, ‘was beaten and burned’ before his body was found dumped on a riverbank. [the fourth gay associate of OBama to be murdered]
John Noveske; the owner of Noveske Rifleworks. Vehicle run off the road – Two gun makers killed in two days
Renee L Abena Obama: baby girl Born on October 31, 2004. records whiped, no news covered it
Alex Okrent: -Apparently found deat at Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago. Witnesses say he collapsed, found dead after. Okrent had long been a staffer back the Obama 2004 U.S. senate campaign, on staff for eight years.
Donald A. Perry: Chick-fil-A’s public relations director dead of heart attack
Albert Peterson: Wealthy Defense Contractor commits suicide, kills family
Rafael Prieto: Secret service apparent suicide under investigation
Keith Ratliff; ..was well known for a series of videos he produced on Youtube, known as “FPSRussia,” in which various high-powered firearms were demonstrated. Found with a single shot in the head
Eva Rausing: Found dead with no cause of death yet established. Rausing’s family says she was at Occidental College at the same time as Obama
Michael Scott – Although Chicago school board president Michael Scott’s death had been ruled a suicide by the Cook County medical examiner’s office, Chicago police characterized the case as a death investigation, and have not concluded that Scott’s death was a suicide
Navy Death: U.S. Navy Commander Alphonso Doss: Pensacola Navy Commander Homicide Victim
Navy SEAL Commander Job Price, 42: US Navy SEAL commander dies in Afghanistan: suicide
Navy SEALs Jeffrey Reynolds and Mark Kennedy, found dead on the Maersk Alabama; Official: Drugs, needles found with dead officers on Maersk
Malcolm Shabazz: Malcolm X’s Grandson dies in Mexico. Was ‘thrown off a building’, or ‘shot’.
Matt Simmons, an investment banker and whistle blower in the British Petroleum oil spill. Died suddenly at home of a heart attack at the age of 67. An autopsy by the state medical examiner’s office concludes that Simmons died from accidental drowning “with heart disease as a contributing factor.”
Holiyah Soetoro Sobah, aka Lia Soetoro, Obama’s adopted sister: died under mysterious, sudden, and unusual circumstances just as she was getting ready to be reunited with her childhood companion and adopted brother. She spoke of many specific incidences in the household, where she grew up with “Barry” in Indonesia. She saved many items that Barry used during childhood. She was looking forward to seeing him, because she’d seen him on TV and was told that was “Barry”, her little brother; however, Lia had reservations about it and so was anticipating seeing the scars he had from falling out of the mango tree and the limp she said he walked with
Ambassador Chris Stevens: Killed by a mob in Libya. The Obama administration ignored warnings two days prior to the attacks. Hillary Clinton made the decision not to post Marines. New now comes out that Stevens was gay: meaning that Obama sent a publicly gay man to be an ambassador in a Muslim country.
Aaron Swartz: 26-year-old genius, computer prodigy, co-creator of RSS and Reddit, commits suicide after Obama DOJ harassment; ‘kill list’ critic
Shane Todd : found dead in his Singapore apartment last summer; he apparently hanged himself, but his family claims he was murdered
Ashley Turton, wife of the Obama administration’s House of Representatives liaison, Dan Turton, was found dead in a burning car Monday morning
Jessica Upshaw: Mississipi State Rep. found dead Sunday of an apparent suicide . Ardent opponant of Agenda 21
John Wheeler- former presidential and Pentagon aide John Wheeler III was found in a Delaware garbage dump. Wheeler’s cell phone discovered – Cause of death released in Wheeler case, blunt force trauma — Wheeler’s cell phone found in a taxi
Victoria Windsor: Blogger, researcher into ancestry: .. .reported that.she had “found evidence that the records of Madelyn Payne Dunham and Stanley Armour Dunham had been “tampered with.” Cause of death not yet revealed.
Jaime Zapata – Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent who was murdered in an ambush. Revelation that I.C.E. Report of Investigation on seizure of Fast & Furious weapons in Texas in August 2010 was signed by Zapata.
Ilya Zhitomirskiy: 22-year old a co-founder of the start-up social network Diaspora, which has been described as the “anti-Facebook” for its emphasis on personal privacy and decentralized data collection. Friends and associates of Mr. Zhitomirskiy said there were indications of suicide.
Mark Mayfield Sources: Miss. tea party leader Mayfield dead of apparent suicide
The V.A. Dead Pool – Seventh VA office finds secret wait list – with over 200 veterans on it ;
FBI Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw: 2 FBI Agents Involved in Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s Arrest “FALL” Out of Helicopter and Die
Ibragim Todashev: Feds: Man shot after attacking agent was being questioned about Boston bombing suspects and 2011 triple murder
Jenny Gallagher, a nurse who treated victims of the “Batman” shooting in Aurora, Colorado is dead at age 46. The reported cause of death: drowning
Stephen Ivens FBI special agent : Body Found. / Two Hikers happened to find Ivens’ body, but over 100 FBI agents could not.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Grain of salt… but only putin has more associates die of suicides, random murders, drownings, actions that went awry, etc.
before you say a heart attack is a heart attack, read about Bohdan Stashynsky / In 1957, the KGB trained the 25-year-old Stashynsky to use a spray gun that fired a jet of poison gas from a crushed cyanide capsule. The gas was designed to induce cardiac arrest, making the victim’s death look like a heart attack.
Nicholas George Shadrin / He disappeared on assignment in Vienna, Austria in December 1975, apparently kidnapped by KGB agents. Later, another Soviet defector reported that Shadrin had died an accidental death during the kidnapping, apparently of a heart attack
interesting trivia…
which is all one can credit it with unless someone steps forwards and says they did it and has proof…
Yeah, we know Artfldgr, we know, but why don’t people care? Well, most do, but some can’t.
They don’t have anything except their vote which won’t change with new information because their world view directs their vote, not new information.
They’ll just make some overarching statement such as “yeah, we do the same to them,” and dismiss reality.
But that doesn’t mean you should stop putting out that great information. Don’t stop. It does make some impact. And that impact may make the difference. Fighting for that exceptional 1%. Kind of crazy isn’t it? How democracy works?
Is it any better than tyranny? I guess I can’t ask that with a straight face having never lived under true tyranny. I do have access to people who have and they are distraught and furious with Obama’s America. They think Obama is Eastern Europe (Soviet), and I pretty much agree.
Still, I think the breathless alarm of the alarmed is greatly exaggerated. There is strength of centuries and cultures and a constitution which are cherished. We are not gone and we are not going anywhere. It is them who are anxious and weak, not we. We are strong.
The Repubics dilemma …
they’re a little bit too much in cahoot with the dark side …
Think early 1930’s them National SOCIALISTS had “deserving” Jews elevated to “Honorary Arians”:
… By contrast, some Americans displayed remarkable courage. Muriel White, an American woman who had married a German count in 1909 and settled in Germany, attended a dinner at the Adlon Hotel, in Berlin, in the summer of 1937. An American diplomat witnessed her exchange with a gauleiter, a Nazi district leader, seated at her table. She asked him whether it was true that the party sometimes called “deserving” Jews honorary Aryans. When he replied in the affirmative, she asked, “Can you tell me, then, how I could become an honorary Jew?”
Despite the overall American record of failing to marshal anything close to an adequate response to what was happening to Jews in Germany and later in Nazi-occupied Europe, there were other acts of courage and compassion – although not necessarily with happy endings. Murphy didn’t forget about his German Jewish colleague, Drey, after the Nazis took power. As late as 1938, Murphy flew back to Munich to urge him to flee the country, assuring his friend that he’d find a job for him elsewhere. Drey thanked him but turned him down, saying that the “temporary madness” in his country would soon pass. Drey died later in Dachau.
With the benefit of hindsight, such behavior appears perplexing, even infuriating. But for many well-educated Jews, non-Jews, Germans and Americans, Hitler’s rants and behavior seemed too bizarre, too far removed from any rational frame of reference, to be taken seriously. Which is why so many appeared to be in denial about what was happening until it was too late…
And, of course, deserving due to …ah! Contributions:
In late 1932, as Hitler was close to taking power, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, the Chicago Daily News correspondent who was one of the most perceptive observers on the scene, attended a dinner at the home of a prominent Jewish banker. All the other guests were also Jewish bankers, and Mowrer was startled to hear that some of them had given money to the Nazis at the urging of non-Jewish German industrialists.
When Mowrer expressed his astonishment at his dinner companions’ “strong suicidal urge,” his host insisted that Hitler shouldn’t be taken seriously. The implication: The Nazi leader would never act on his most extreme rhetoric, and besides, the donations would keep him reasonable. To Jews who were more willing to listen, Mowrer’s advice was unequivocal: “Get out, and fast.”..
Source here
Plus é§a change, plus c’est la méªme chose… too bizarre, too removed from any frame of reference. DILEMMA?
Kyndyll,
The GOP’s leadership does NOT care more about abortion and gay marriage, they pay those issues lip service only and if you exposed yourself to more than the MSM you’d realize that. The GOP leadership is for their being in the majority to maximize their leverage so as to forward their agenda of democrat ‘lite’.
We already have “a party to champion the Constitution and our traditional ideals of governement-as-servant-of-the-people, free enterprise, and the rule of law”, that party is the Tea Party. The democrats and MSM have convinced you, the LIVs that the Tea Party’s ‘racist’ concerns are gay marriage, abortion and other social issues, which is a lie.
We will never get the Left base. Read the comments on the WaPo’s columnist anti-Rudi articles and you’ll see what I mean.
Any member of the the Right base who doesn’t turn out for a Republican candidate because he only agrees with 70% of what the candidate says is a fool and a Democratic voter. Remember what William F. Buckley said: you pick “The most conservative ELECTABLE candidate.”
To win, we MUST appeal to the middle, the independents, the LIVs, the Great Unwashed, whatever you want to call them. I don’t think we’re anywhere near to determining the candidate who can do that best.
As nefarious as it may sound, we also must develop a strategy to keep turnout among the Automatic Democrat Voters low. There are plenty of states where rest of the state is red, but the blue cities and suburbs outweigh it.
The base must turn out in full, we must keep pajama boy and girl and the other ADVs at home, and we must have a Reganesque, very charismatic, candidate to pick up enough votes from the LIVs and hardhats to win.
Because “Winning isn’t everything, WINNING IS THE ONLY THING!”
Richard Saunders: “To win, we MUST appeal to the middle, the independents, the LIVs, the Great Unwashed, whatever you want to call them.
Meanwhile the press makes certain which ever “moderate” you have chosen for your watered down Republican candidate comes off just to the right of Joseph Goebels and the “middle” then shifts further to the left, dragging with it your idea of the most “moderate” electable Republican. No thank you. I’ll be voting for “purity” (i.e. the United States as defined by the Constitution).
Well, after all, thats what makes me extreme.
The LIV’s want gay marriage, medical marijuana and someone else to pay for their life choices. I dont see and end to that short of the complete societal breakdown Greece is on its way to. It doesnt matter who I vote for.
Well, Harry, I’d like to continue living in in the United States as defined by the Constitution, and I certainly want my children to live in the United States as defined by the Constitution, so please do me a faovr and don’t throw your vote to Hillary.