Seriously Tony...we love you. We love your philosphy. We love your inflexibility and unwillingness to compromise. We love your stance on the issues and the issues you think are top priorities.

We want you there hemming in any thoughts by GOP leaders about trying to find a position on the issues that might attract an actual majority. Keep up the good work....at least 30 percent of the nation agrees fervently and always will. And that's just perfect as far as we're concerned.

Note to Tony: You got us right where you want us. You're gonna win this thing. Keep repeating it.

The issue here is that McCain was the moderate who lost. But of course, he lost because the crazies forced him to abandon his moderate positions, as well as pick a whackjob as VP. But all the same, they consider this a loss for moderates.

Historically, the Republican Party moving to the Right is realistic in the short run. McGovern won the Democratic nomination in 1972. Perhaps the Republicans will nominate Tancredo in 2012.

There is a serious effort by moderate conservatives to build a new farm team from the ground up in local and state governments. These folks are not out grand standing in front of the microphones like these right wing nuts are. Give it some time. The right extreme will destroy itself soon enough and the moderate center will reemerge. They won't be flashy and they won't provide all this circus like infotainment but they are out there and they will rise. Perhaps with the voice of a young and eloquent speaker at the next GOP convention.

The Intellectualoids won!

(Thanks, Rush)

You can't keep running on a platform of ignorance and biblical
non-sense and expect the evolving electorate to keep listening to your drivel.

Really, where are these Republican moderates running the party?

I get the feeling Perkins is talking about John McCain.

McCain hands everything to Perkins and its still not good enough.

Steve Benen wrote: "Why anyone in a position of authority would believe him is a mystery, but that's a separate matter."

Perkins doesn't care about whether "anyone in a position of authority" believes him. He cares about whether gullible rubes will believe him -- both the many rank & file dittoheads, and the few nutcase right-wing extremist billionaires -- and keep bankrolling his organization.

Rush Limbaugh became a millionaire by preaching to legions of weak-minded, ignorant, gullible dupes that all their problems result from them being the poor, pitiful victims of "powerful liberal elites".

And he did that throughout periods when so-called "conservative" Republicans controlled the government. Think how much richer Limbaugh is going to get now that Democrats are actually in charge.

Limbaugh and Perkins and the rest of that fake, phony lot are crying over this election, all right -- crying all the way to the bank.

Go, Tony! Go!

Sorry to Tony Perkins if I give away the game plan, and sorry to the Dems who will continue to thrive as long as Republicans don't understand Perkins' game plan.

Tony's whole dealy-o is making money. He couldn't give a ripe rat's f*** if any agenda he promotes gets accepted. In fact, it will behoove him, personally, if they never become law. Tony-boy is whipping up those in the EvangelicaL base stupid enough to believe that if they keep financially supporting TonyBony, one day he'll pull through. Tony doesn't want to pull through. He makes money from the struggle, not frmo the success. He's playing the base for suckers, and they are all willing partcipants in their suckerdom.

So Republicans who are reading this (both of you), tell the base they have a much better chance seeing their rabid neocon agenda fulfilled if they STOP giving money to Perkins, and start cultivating the politicians who share your very narrow worldview. Perkins is deliberately incompetent.

This is going to be quite a spectacle. If we were 1/2 as socialist as we've been accused, we'd be demanding the government provide us free popcorn.

"Moderates never beat conservatives. We've seen that in past elections," he said.

The delusion is mind-blowing...

And he did that throughout periods when so-called "conservative" Republicans controlled the government. Think how much richer Limbaugh is going to get now that Democrats are actually in charge.

And this is exactly why I think the democrats have a really good shot at maintaining or even increasing their congressional majorities in 2010. As long as the GOP base is organized around insane talk radio screamers and Jesus hucksters like Perkins, the party will have zero solutions to the problems confronting the American middle class. Any new moderates emerging onto the scene will have to dissociate themselves from the idiot/corrupt GOP as it exists today, and that's going to be extremely difficult. Think of what the Democrats had to go through in transitioning from a party of Jimmy Carters and Jim Wrights to where it is today.

Speaking of the Republican Party destroying itself, check out this stat from Rasmussen:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2012/69_of_gop_voters_say_palin_helped_mccain

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.

Wow. The general population thinks she's a joke, but Republicans almost unanimously support her. If Palin is the best the GOP can do, they're in for a long, cold winter.

Abortion HAS to remain at the core of the Republican Party, but they need to start throwing the gay-bashing stuff over the side. The argument is over when it comes to Teh Gay. Young folks are becoming more accepting and I can't think of any reason why pro-gay 25 year olds are going to become anti-gay 35 or 45 year olds. On the other hand, abortion is a much closer question and there's at least some potential for young pro-choicers to become middle aged pro-lifers.

However, how to reconcile pro-life and pro-gay with jackasses like Perkins is beyond me.

Mike

I grew up in a Republican household back when most Republicans were, for the most part principled, ie the 50s, 60s, 70s, even into the 80s before the extreme right wing crazies took over. Unfortunately many older Republicans don't seem to understand that the current party bears no resemblance what they grew up with.

I recently sent a list of what I believe, as a Democrat, to be the role of government to a Republican friend (70+ yo) of my mothers and he wrote back that he agreed with me, that those were strong REPUBLICAN values! Well, maybe they USED to be, but I think he's kidding himself at this point.

So I think that some serious bridge building can happen - that most of us agree more than we disagree. It's the wingers that keep interjecting the wedge issues that divide us when we really can find common ground. Sure we can't convince everyone, but that's the way it will always be. And that's probably a good thing.

This was more recently made clear to me by Democrat Jeff Merkley's acceptance speech yesterday, when he was finally declared the Senate winner over Gordon Smith. Jeff had served in the mid-70s as a DC intern to the great Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, a moderate Republican. Jeff stated how much he learned from Hatfield and promised to be the same kind of senator, to work for the good of ALL Oregonians. This is the kind of promise and action that will help us heal as a country. Soon enough, I HOPE, the wingers will have little to no power.

"It's almost as if Perkins is living in another country." - SB

Actually, it's as if Perkins was living on another planet. Or in another dimension where reality shapes itself to whatever demented vision takes his attention at any given moment.

But then he's always been like that, nothing new there.

The GOP used to be called just Republicans . conservative came out of Reagan politics. What is wrong with moderate Republicans with a conservative arm. The Moderates do not have a diety like thinking; moderates believe in the constitution and governance.

"Abortion HAS to remain at the core of the Republican Party,"

Look at SD though. The state went to McCain but the they voted down banning all abortions.

Sure a lot of Republicans are pro-life but have that libertarian streak. As much as they disapprove of abortions they hate big government even more.

And might I add, great comments from many of you above. Of course money is the driving force behind the divisive rhetoric. It's a shame that so many people don't realize that they are being used by these con men.

Until we can get past the "us vs. them" mentality (ALL of us) it will always be so.

"Look at SD though. The state went to McCain but the they voted down banning all abortions."

Abortion bans may not be popular, but there's an awful lot of restrictions on abortion that are. That makes it a live political issue you can use to keep religious conservatives on board, while not losing too much on the other side (the number of folks who love everything else about the GOP but refuse to vote for it over abortion being fairly small).

Opposing gay rights, on the other hand, is pretty clearly going to become to conservatives what gun control has become to liberals - electoral poison where even policy victories end up damaging you almost as bad as defeats.

Mike

Republicans are in a bind. They are trying to find a way to rationalize a strong role for government that the election confirms most people want. Simultaneously they are trying to find a way to sustain their criticism of government and liberals/Democrats.

Watch them begin to focus back on character and culture issues. There's no place left for them to turn. Their overall political, economic and social program is bankrupt. As with the election personal attacks are all they have left.

Really, where are these Republican moderates running the party? What part of the Republican agenda in 2008 was insufficiently conservative?

In this case, I think "moderate" really means the pro-business wing of the Republican party. You know, the guys who always get what they want while the religious nuts are kept short of their goals cycle after cycle (all the better to gin up fear of the unknown and contributions). Perkins is really declaring war on the Club For Growth crowd.

I swear I've been hearing this argument since the 1990 congressional elections (in which the Dems did pretty well in the off-year races after two years of GHWB).

As if voters REALLY wanted to vote for far-right candidates, but because they couldn't find any, they had to vote for Democrats instead.

I hope Shalimar is right, since it would be great for the thecons to battle the moneycons.

If Palin is the best the GOP can do, they're in for a long, cold winter.

If they nominate Palin in 2012, I think the big question is whether the Republican Party is replaced as a major party by a third party like the Whigs were replaced by the Republicans, or drives the vast majority of the population into the Democratic Party forcing the Democratic Party to split the way the failing Federalists did with the Democratic-Republican Party.

What part of the Republican agenda in 2008 was insufficiently conservative?

Huhwhat? What part of the Republican agenda in 2008 was conservative at all?

There is nothing conservative about an endless occupation of a country that doesn't want us there.

There is nothing conservative about a trillion-dollar deficit.

Do I really have to say this? There is nothing conservative about nationalizing the financial industry.

Don't get me wrong, these things aren't liberal, either -- they're crazy. There can be lots of things that aren't liberal, that liberals hate, that aren't conservative either. Nationalizing the banks and endless occupations are like that.

when conservatives rule like conservatives the voters vote them out [see congress 1998, 2006]...when bush governs like a big gov't guy [see medicare part d] people like it....what's a party to do?

after katrina..the less govenment argument went out the window.... lead painted barbie and poisoned dog food was the coup de gras....

the only issue cons have left is teh gay..[see cali prop 8]....

even the feotus got the bumrush in CO....

the "rump party" indeed...

Dear Republicans,
Please, for the love of god, please take Tony Perkins' advice. Make sure your platform in the coming years expunges all traces of moderation and includes the following:

1. Complete tax exemption for people with a net worth over $1 million. Poor and homeless to be rounded up and offered as indentured servants to same until they pay off all the welfare they have received over their lifetime.
2. Elimination of all background checks for weapons of any kind
3. Divert resources previously used for weapons background checks to monitor women who purchase birth control
4. Ban all abortions. Retroactively charge all women who ever had an abortion with capital murder.
5. Incarceration of all known and suspected homosexuals. Except for ones like Ted Haggart who just "made a mistake" and accidentally banged guys.
6. Any geological features, fossils, artifacts or archaeological remains which secular atheist dating methods say are more than 6000 years old will be burned, nuked or otherwise destroyed so they no longer conflict with the Bible.
7. Education of women to be limited to eighth grade math and reading, unless they wish to take more advance courses in child care and home economics.
8. Departments of Energy, Education, Transportation and Agriculture to be abolished and replaced with regional "Prayer Teams" in charge of praying for God to provide infrastructure, power, and educational solutions, while binding the demonic forces which decrease productivity, and cause airplane crashes and poor test scores.

That's just for starters! Use your imagination, Republicans! Just remember -- no moderation!

"living in another country"????

He's living in an alternate reality.

But pleasepleaseplease, Republicans - listen to and follow Tony Perkins and join RedState's "Operation Leper."

That should be good for keeping you in the wilderness for at least a good 20 years, the objects of ridicule and jokes about your pathetic state, which is what you were born to be.

Barack Obama was the moderate in the Nov. 4 election. And he won. If you look closely at his policies, you'll see they are a mix of liberal, moderate, and downright conservative. His health care proposal is straight out of conservative economist Milton Friedman's playbook. Obama opposes gay marriage and supports the death penalty (fairly administered -- good luck at achieving that goal) -- hardly liberal positions.

Most telling is that everybody under consideration for his cabinet is either a Washington insider or a businessperson. Robert Reich, probably the best choice for Secretary of the Treasury, isn't even being considered (according to press reports). Obama's inner circle is filled with businesspeople, mostly in the financial and real estate industry -- very few actual liberals there.

I'm not saying that it's good or bad that President-Elect Obama is a moderate. I am saying that it's time that folks get it straight about who was the moderate (Obama) and who was the conservative (McCain) in the just concluded election. Sarah Palin? Another member of the radical far right whose ignorant views would make Barry Goldwater cry.

Tony Perkins just makes me laugh - and remember what my 7 year old niece told me some 15-20 years ago when I disagreed with her religous views - "I don't have to listen to you, Mommy & Daddy said you are going to hell anyway so whatever you say doesn't matter."
Tony and his group still feel that same way - if you don't agree with them, then you are wrong and probably already halfway to hell so what you say doesn't matter.
Go on Tony, surround yourself with yourself - a winning strategy ... for the rest of us sinners that is.

Please please please Tony Perkins! Succeed so the party will only win in the deep south and midwest states like it did in this election!
Palin/Perkins 2012: The ticket to Apocalypse!

"Really, where are these Republican moderates running the party? What part of the Republican agenda in 2008 was insufficiently conservative?"

All those decadent movies, CDs, radio and TV shows, and websites haven't been censored out of existence, have they?

There's no 28th Amendment banning abortion, is there?

The fags haven't been rounded up and imprisoned or executed, have they?

The Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Neo-Pagans, atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists among us haven't been forced to convert, have they?

We haven't launched nukes at Iran, have we?