More GOP Hogwash
Buck January 20th, 2007 - 12:53 pmThis will work…. if Americans were to forget that you’ve been the OPPOSITE of these for quite some time now.
Party of reform? Didn’t you people just DERAIL some pretty impressive ethics reform legislation?
Seems to me you’re all a party of TRAMPS & THIEVES. And I don’t expect you to change anytime soon.
After losses, Republicans talk about return to core principles
WASHINGTON - The beaten-down GOP wants to return to its roots.
As the Republican National Committee gathered for the first time since the party suffered a drubbing in November’s elections, the consensus was clear: to be successful in 2008 the party must embrace its bedrock tenets.
“When we are true to our core principles of lower taxes, limited government and individual responsibility, we win,” said Mike Duncan, the RNC’s new chairman. However, he added, Republicans lose ground when they stray from those priorities, as the GOP did last fall.
Republicans lost control of Congress, a handful of governorships and several state legislatures in what President Bush has called “a thumping.” The stakes will be even higher in 2008, when the White House, as well as the House and Senate, are up for grabs.
In speech after somber speech, leading Republicans invoked the era of Ronald Reagan, saying the GOP must go back to a time of fiscal discipline and efficient government. It was a slap of sorts at Bush, a rejection of the status quo and an acknowledgment that the party has lost its way.
Party activists from across the country held a three-day meeting at a Washington hotel to elect new GOP leaders, formally name Minneapolis-St. Paul as the host city for the 2008 presidential convention and attend to routine party business.
Despite some grumbling about his immigration stance, the RNC easily elected Florida Sen. Mel Martinez - a Cuban-American - to be the face of the party at a time when courting Hispanics is a party priority. His formal title is general chairman.
For the next two years, he will share duties with Duncan, a longtime RNC official, who was overwhelmingly named chairman. Duncan, a native of Inez, Ky., will be responsible for running the party’s day-to-day operations.
Their elections were not a surprise; Bush had indicated his preference last year. They succeed Ken Mehlman, who ran the party for the past two years after managing Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
Martinez, R-Fla., promised over the next two years to “assist our party in a renewal of the principles that have made us great” - lower taxes, limited government, individual responsibility, freedom in the United States and abroad.
Calling the loss of power in Congress “a tough blow,” Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the Senate, said: “From this day on, Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate and Republicans everywhere else should have one goal - to recapture the party’s rightful mantle as the party of reform.”
A day earlier, his counterpart in the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, blamed his own party for the losses, and said: “Our goal should not be to ‘take back’ the majority - it should be to earn the majority by reclaiming our position as the party of small government and big ideas.”
Source: The Kansas City Star
