Sunday, April 5, 2015

On eve of 1976 North Carolina GOP primary, 12 Republican governors signed a telegram prepared by Gerald Ford White House telling Ronald Reagan to quit the race. Despite their efforts Reagan won the North Carolina GOP primary

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"On the eve of the North Carolina primary, the Ford White House prepared a telegram signed by a DOZEN Republican governors, telling Reagan to get out of the race."...Following is Feb. 2014 article:

2/25/2014, "They Were Wrong About Reagan, and Now Cruz," Matthew Ung, Caffeinatedthoughts.com

"It’s important to remember who was WRONG and who was RIGHT in history. It is totally appropriate to compare his (Ted Cruz) beginning stages to Ronald Reagan and his 1976 run, who was only ever respected by the party when he overcame the party, and became the most powerful spokesman of his party....Below are “7 Fault Lines of Failure” of public record, which live on, to show us that stupid politicians, like historical blunders, repeat themselves.

Because our GOP ruling class experts sometimes speak in blabbermouth, I’ve provided translations for each one.

FAULT LINE 1: George Will was no stranger to writing contemptuous columns personally attacking Reagan. In the Washington Post (Nov. 12, 1974) he wrote: “But Reagan is 63, and looks it. His hair is still remarkably free of gray, but around the mouth and neck he looks like an old man. He’s never demonstrated substantial national appeal. His hardcore support today consists primarily of the kamikaze conservatives who thought the 1964 Goldwater campaign was jolly fun. And there’s a reason to doubt that Reagan is well suited to appeal to the electorate that just produced a democratic landslide. If a Reagan third party would just lead the “Nixon was lynched” crowd away from the Republican party, and into outer darkness where there is a wailing and gnashing of teeth, it might be at worst a mixed course for the Republican party. It would cost the party some support, but it would make the party seem cleansed.”

Translation: Get lost, Reagan. You’re an old, ugly disaster hanging out in the bowels of the party. And we need a cleansed party.


Note: “Kamikaze conservatives” are now “purists.”


FAULT LINE 2: Former Republican Senator Chuck Percy of Illinois in 1975 to the New York Times: A Reagan nomination and the crushing defeat likely to follow could signal the beginning of the end of our party as an effective force in American life.”


Translation: (Like Cruz) Reagan is stopping us from addressing the topics we say we totally want to address, but never did before he came on the scene. Because he interrupted us. Now I’ve gone and lost my train of thought.

FAULT LINE 3: Representative John Rhodes, Republican of Arizona, who became leader of the Republicans in the House, in 1975 said, “As soon as Reagan gets away from his clichés and his campaign slogans, he’s in trouble.”


Translation: He’s an amateur. He’s not a scholar even though he’s read more books than us, and he’s uneducated even though he’s studied more than us. He’s not qualified to bring up any case to the American people, because we haven’t been able to do it already. Reminds me of all the people accusing Ted Cruz of utter ignorance about the Supreme Court’s Heller decision on gun control. Frothy-mouthed opponents demand he read the Heller decision, totally ignorant of the fact that HE WAS THE ATTORNEY WHO ARGUED HELLER AND WON. Sorry for raising my voice, I just hate it when we don’t do our homework before attacking each other. That would have made an awesome political commercial on the idiocy of his opponents, but I’m sure the GOP decided to make a commercial about how well they will run liberal programs when they win.

FAULT LINE 4: Republican Vice President Nelson Rockefeller warned Republicans governors in 1975: “No major American party can long endure by directing its appeal to a narrow minority. It will not serve the nation to have our major parties polarized at ideological extremes.”


Translation: Reagan can’t win, because he’s going to run in a primary. Running against an incumbent is unpatriotic, and if there are differences with the incumbent, it is the challenger who is to blame for the differences. Our party can’t handle differences, so our country clearly cannot either.


FAULT LINE 5: Republican Representative Pete McCloskey of California in 1976: “A Reagan win would be a disaster for the GOP.


FAULT LINE 6: Republican Representative James Cleveland of New Hampshire predicted another Goldwater debacle if Reagan is the GOP nominee.


Translation: Reagan is not a good Republican, and yet he runs under the Republican Party. I’m jealous of such audacity, so I declare him a future disaster. Because change is hard.


FAULT LINE 7: In 1976, Reagan was publicly told by two Repubican governors to get out of the race against Ford: Virginia Governor Mills Godwin and North Carolina Governor James Holshouser. On the eve of the North Carolina primary, the Ford White House prepared a telegram signed by a DOZEN Republican governors, telling Reagan to get out of the race. The dastardly Reagan ended up winning North Carolina, the little rascal. Later, Ford lost to Carter, and then the establishment Republicans blamed Reagan.

Translation: Reagan, you are weak, so you should get out. Also Reagan, you are strong, so you should get out. Just get out. If you stay in, we will blame you for our loses. Remind anyone of the Tea Party? The Tea Party is both trodden underfoot and utterly defeated, but also the taskmaster and cutthroat ruler of the Republican Party, holding hostage the other Republicans. PICK ONE! Cruz, Reagan, the Tea Party… are they pathetic losers, or are they masterfully strong winners?


If they are pathetic losers, stop attacking them. Unless you enjoy burning the feelers off ants with your magnifying glass on the Capitol steps. Then I can understand. But if they are masterfully strong winners, if they really did vault Boehner into the Speakership in the 2010 elections, if they really do poll higher than the Obama Administration, then back them up. Follow them, fund them, applaud them, or lead them, it really doesn’t matter. If the RINOs want to lead the Tea Party, I hardly think the Tea Partiers (many of which still register as Republicans) would refuse. But then they wouldn’t be RINOs anymore. They wouldn’t be contemptible failures in their historical ignorance of party politics. What on earth would we do? The Tea Party conservatives could stop waiting patiently for this legendary “big tent” to arrive from the sky, and we could create it again, together.


Then our life-sized cardboard cutouts of a smiling Reagan could be joined by a few other life-sized cardboard cutouts so it isn’t so embarrassing for everyone that we only have ONE leader we can all agree on.

In other words, lead or get out of the way."

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Angelo Codevilla on GOP Establishment merging with Democrats: "The UniParty is unanimous: more of the same!"
12/15/13,  "Breaking the UniParty," Angelo M. Codevilla

"The Republican Party’s leaders have functioned as junior members of America’s single ruling party, the UniParty. Acting as the proverbial cockboat in the wake of the Democrats’ man-of-war, they have 


made Democratic priorities their own  

when the White House and the Congress

were in the hands of Republicans as well as in those of Democrats, and when control has been mixed.

The UniParty, the party of government, the party of Ins, continues to consist of the same people. The Outs are always the same people too:  

American conservatives. They don’t have a party.

Whatever differences exist within the Uniparty, between Republican John Boehner and Democrat Nancy Pelosi, between Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Harry Reid, get worked out behind closed doors. Those differences are narrow....

The UniParty is unanimous: more of the same!

Hence, so long as the Uniparty exists, mere voters will have no way of affecting what the government does."...


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Angelo Codevilla:
"Obamacare has existed strictly at the sufferance of the House leadership since that majority took office in January 2011. But John Boehner and his chosen band have thwarted the majority of Republican congressmen’s desire to use the constitutional power they have to refuse to appropriate money for Obamacare. In this, Boehner &co. have worked in bipartisan coordination with the ruling class, including the media, including Fox News."...

9/17/13, "The Obama-Boehner Project," Angelo M. Codevilla, libertylawsite.org 

"These heads of our ruling class’ Democratic and Republican branches made plans with reference only to the ruling class’ priorities, and assumed that the rest of America would be too stupid or too awed to object....

The Republican Party owes its majority in the House of Representatives – and John Boehner his speakership thereof – to the American people’s dislike of Obamacare. Because the US Constitution is explicit that the US government may expend only funds appropriated by Congress, Obamacare has existed strictly at the sufferance of the House leadership since that majority took office in January 2011. But John Boehner and his chosen band have thwarted the majority of Republican congressmen’s desire to use the constitutional power they have to refuse to appropriate money for Obamacare. In this, Boehner &co. have worked in bipartisan coordination with the ruling class, including the media, including Fox News....

The ruling class’ foolishness and insincerity, its willingness to insult the American people’s intelligence, are no joke. But we can take comfort in its transparent ineptitude."


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NPR notes Boehner was boosted by Obama's 2012 re-election:
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12/8/2012, Once Boxed-In, Boehner May Finally Be Master Of The House,NPR, Frank James


"In a paradoxical way, Obama's re-election victory coupled with congressional Democrats adding to their numbers 

may have helped Boehner. 

Some of those wins came at the expense of the Tea Party, the conservative movement whose affiliated House members have been very willing to stand up to Boehner....

"It is somewhat unprecedented, though, to see speakers starting off their tenure at a severe disadvantage and then cementing their power later, 

which appears to be happening right now with Boehner.""...


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"They’re so disdainful of what Mr. Cruz and Mike Lee did over the weekend (Dec. 12-14, 2014), because it exposed our GOP emperors have no clothes."...
 
12/15/14, "For conservatives, it’s all about 2016, and that starts in 2015," Washington Times, Steve Deace 


"Republicans won big in the 2014 midterm election, but it already looks as if conservatives still lost.


Just look at what’s transpired the past few weeks: 

- The GOP establishment moved quickly to retain all their leadership positions before the new Congress is convened in January, thus shutting conservatives completely out of the mix.

- That same GOP leadership has already funded every Obama scam they promised the American people during the campaign they would stop, scheming alongside a president they keep describing as “lawless” to pass the so-called “Cromnibus.” "...


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July-August 2010, "America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution," Angelo Codevilla

"As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class."...


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12/12/13: "If RINOs are not replaced, and if a genuine opposition party is not established, nothing can save the Constitution-or the representative democracy and freedoms that are the heritage of this country." (end of article)

12/12/2013, "The Nuclear Option: Misplaced Conservative Outrage," American Thinker, by Lester Jackson 


 

 



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