Posted on 09/28/2009 11:18:12 PM PDT by JimPrevor
Kimberly A. Strassel’s column in the Wall Street Journal, Obama’s Swing-State Blues, focusing on the gubernatorial race in Virginia, is both thoughtful and accurate in detailing the importance and dynamics of the race between Republican Robert F. McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds....
One point Strassel makes may not, however, be the only lesson that could be drawn from the facts she presents:
"The unearthing of a thesis Mr. McDonnell wrote 20 years ago, critical of feminism and homosexuality, changed the dynamic.... The moral for the GOP? Cultural controversy does not sell."
Perhaps. But there are other considerations. One possibility is that what doesn’t sell is any hint of hypocrisy. And therefore it is important to be honest about the evolution of one’s views. Within the Republican Party, how many conservatives could not shake their doubts about Mitt Romney in the last election? To many it seemed obvious that he either tilted his views to win election in Massachusetts or was tilting them to cater to a more conservative base in the Republican primaries. In either case, he didn’t come across as a principled man.
It seems that if you don’t defend a position, your opponent gets to define the position. As Strassel points out, McDonnell did not attempt in any way to justify, explain or defend the arguments he made in his thesis. He just ran away from the points. With the Deeds campaign attacking the ideas in the thesis as “backwards” and the McDonnell campaign refusing to defend the thesis, the vast majority of voters, not familiar with the details of the matter, are understandably left with the take-away that years ago McDonnell wrote a paper representing some really bad, indeed indefensible, ideas.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Deeds is such a turkey that McDonell needn’t do anything. This writer looks like a bit of a troll.
Similarly, so far there has not been a strong defense from conservatives or Republicans regarding the recessions. The popular belief holds that the recession was caused by (1) greedy wall street capitalists, and (2) the lack of government's intervention that --because of their free-market ideology-- allowed the greedy capitalists to take advantage of the situation. Both result in negative view toward conservatism as well as Republicans. What would be the alternative explanation to this belief?
Might it stir the pot a bit to point out that most greedy Wall Street capitalists are actually liberal Democrats?
Thesis?
Isn’t that something democrats don’t have?
I sure haven’t seen any from the Clinton’s or Obama.
For some reason they are all sealed...
That, and the impact of Fanny Mae & Freddy Mac that pushed low income people--particularly the minorities--to get cheap credits... Granted, Bush was also partly at blame here, with his 'ownership society'.
Mr. McDonnell was spot on with his criticism of feminism and homosexuality! By taking a defensive posture, he appears to lack leadership. Why would he worry about the liberals who hate him anyway? Why not stand up to his principles? He would win handily I believe.
Sometimes it is surprising how well principled, conservatives actually do in elections in spite of the corrupt and twisted press and tainted polls.
We are looking for leadership in this country today. Without leadership we will see Sharia Law; the Islamofacists do not like feminism or homosexuality; that is what motivates them against the USA, IMO.
I think that this is a whole lot of phooey about nothing. Candidates for degrees understand that one big thing that stands in their way is their committee, who must sign off on the thesis/dissertation. Piss off your committee and kiss your advanced degree goodbye. Years of hard work, expense and toiling as a slave laborer all for naught.
The result is that these things are written to please the committee and respresent the views of the committee more than anything else. If we were to find Obama’s thesis, we would find something written to please his Marxist professors at Columbia. Whether Obama believed it, or not, would be neither here nor there. Same thing for Hillary’s memorial to Saul Alinsky. Both may have believed what they wrote, but even if they didn’t, the thesis would probably read the same. That’s just the way the corrupt academic world works.
http://www.bobmcdonnell.com/ for Governor
http://www.billbolling.com/ for Lieutenant Governor
http://www.cuccinelli.com/ for Attorney General
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