Newt's Plea

For those of you who may not be on Newt's e-mail list, his latest attempt to get Republicans back into power is a plea to pursue nine policy objectives. This comes after losing two long-held GOP seats in Illinois and Louisiana where Newt "you-can't-just-purge-Republicans-you-don't-like" Gringrich finally realizes that the GOP is in trouble.

The Republicans are showing poorly in all the polls, on the issues, nobody likes Bush, etc. Also, how can poor John McCain possibly keep up his obvious popularity while the GOP burns? So what should Republicans do to burnish their image with the party faithful? Stop schmoozing with liberal Democratic party leaders? No. Start voting consistently for conservative initiatives, show some spine with the war on terror? No. Build the fence? No. What Newt believes we should be doing is to....not attack the Democrats.

"The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail."

So we should run a campaign for the Democrats? See, this has been McCain's secret weapon, and we are going to spoil things if we point out that Obama consorts with bigots, racists and domestic terrorists or that Clinton is, well, Clinton!

He quotes a Washington Post poll to support his thesis that the GOP need to be nicer to the liberals:

"A February Washington Post poll shows that Republicans have lost the advantage to the Democrats on which party can handle an issue better -- on every single topic.
"Americans now believe that Democrats can handle the deficit better (52 to 31), taxes better (48 to 40) and even terrorism better (44 to 37). This is a catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans...."

The Washington Post. Next to the NYT, the Post is the most agenda-driven pack of newsprint hacks in the world. Al-Jazeera has more journalistic integrity.

Earth to Newt....maybe those Republicans lost in Illinois and Louisiana simply because they could not bring themselves to articulate a conservative message. Kind of like, hmmmmmmm Wayne Gilchrest. You remember. Ol' Wayne? He would vote AGAINST every single one of your 9-step program's measures.

1. Repeal the gas tax AND pay for it with spending cuts. First, the notion of "paying" for a tax cut reveals the thoroughly debunked belief that tax cuts lead to lost revenue; when every single tax cut in the history of taxes has shown the opposite. If Gilchrest voted against this, as he will, he should do so because of this fact. But he won't vote for it because it is a tax cut.

2. Sell strategic petroleum reserves on the open market. He would vote no simply because the rest of the "sheep" are voting yes.

3. A "more energy at lower cost with less environmental damage and greater national security bill" No, because he doesn't understand it...neither do I. This is not an initiative, it's a string of politically correct slogans.

Oh...it just goes on and on like this. Pure. Unmitigated. Gall.