ANDRES: GOP voters were apathetic

The ACORN can grow large oaks.

There is also a general attitude out there that government is corrupt on both sides, so why bother. After the way the fourth estate played the fifth column for Obama, one can see why. Congress was not listening in the immigration debacle, not thinking in the biofuels debacle and directly involved in the economic brownout and yet the same idiots remain in control. Somewhere along the line the system has become dysfunctional.

Let's not forget there was no conservative Republican Presidential candidate to face the Obama race card DNC Big Media machine. Sarah Palin was the ONLY excitement and enthusiasm on the Republican side, and she was constrained by the Presidential candidate who was anything and everything but conservative. For all the MONEY, and for all the DNC BIG MEDIA SUPPORT, by which I mean failure to do their jobs as investigative reporters, and for all the masterful use of NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) technique, Obama really should have done much better than he did. But, even with all that going for him, he cannot beat Sarah Palin in 2012.

I believe that the previous comments by CommissionerGordon, soxconn, and dittoman cover the subject nicely. Sen. McCain's biggest buddies in the Senate always seem to be the hardcore left; he demonstrated very bad judgment in initiating McCain-Feingold; he rushed to jump aboard the amnesty-for-illegals bandwagon; he rushed to rubberstamp President Bush's demand that the Congress immediately give his treasury secretary obscene amounts of taxpayer money to throw at our financial institutions, without any deliberation or any control measures attached. Sen. McCain's only real "conservative" plank in his election campaign was his determination to carry on the Iraq War, Part 2--a war which many (including me) believe was started by President George W. Bush under false pretenses, and should never have been fought; and is now draining the resources of our country. Basically, the Republican establishment gave the Republicans a RINO as their candidate in 2008; and consequently, too many Republicans stayed home--allowing Sen. Obama to win on a socialist platform and a pretty smile. The Republican establishment had distanced itself from us uncouth conservative slobs, proclaiming that it could win via the Big Tent approach--run a moderate (i.e. a Democrat in disguise), and pull all those independent votes away from the Democrats, and the conservative base won't be needed. Uhuh. What the Republican establishment will do the next time around really depends upon how much it hates and despises its conservative base. If it decides that this time it needs an even-more-moderate (i.e. Democratic) candidate, then the Republicans will be left wandering around in the wilderness for a long time to come, because you can't out-Democrat the Democrats. And if that does turn out to be the case, then maybe the Republicans need to junk the Republican establishment and start over again.

I almost didn't vote because I was SO turned off when McCain told that woman who claimed Obama was an "Arab" that Obama was an "honorable man". Really? Since when do "honorable" men associate with terrorists like Ayers, or sit in a church pew for almost 20 years listening to the vitriolic anti-American, antisemitic diarrhea flowing from Wright's mouth, or taking money from gangsters like Rezko? All McCain had to tell that woman was that Obama was an African American, period. I wonder how many other Republicans were so turned off by those remarks that they never made the trip to the polls? Of course now, the Obama kool aid drinkers are going to have to rationalize why their man, who made such a fetish out of "change" is appointing the same political hacks who worked in BJ Bill's administration. As for McCain, he will learn the truth of that old saying that nice guys finish last.

Voters aren't stupid. If the party's ideas aren't good... voters won't vote for them. Simple!

If the RNC elects another milktoast "big tent" drone, I'll probably change my affiliation to Independent.

Voters who vote Republican in one election aren't Republican voters forever. The analysis is simple-minded blather at best. It isn't that the voters who voted Republican in 2004 on the Presidential election necessarily stayed home either. They could well have voted for Obama. The problem with Republicans is that with Bush and his big government crowd, they have lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned. So why vote for them? They'll say one thing to get elected and then behave differently once in office. George Bush should be called Comrade Bush after nationalizing the banks and spending us into bankruptcy. Why vote for Republicans? The Democrats can't be any worse.

In my case it was not apathy, it was disappointment. After many years of having to choose the lesser of two evils, I decided to vote my conscience and pull the libertarian lever. I have come to believe that our current crop of democrats and republicans are cut from the same cloth, neither representing either the people or the constitution. I am feeling apprehensive about the future of America.

It was not GOP apathy. John McKane engineered his own failure. It was a failure plain to see from the day that it looked like he was getting the nod. A more inept, tongue-tied, wrong-headed candidate would be hard to find. The single most common reason for voting was that McKane might be better than the opponent. The common reason for staying home was that there is nothing but a bad choice to be made, and it would be made automatically, without one's self participating.

The low GOP turnout was no surprise to me. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans supposedly had a governing political ideology which got trashed in favor of political expediency when it took power. I took the Morton Blackwell's campaign leadership course. Came away with the distinct impression the party's leadership thinks voters are total fools who can be manipulated and bamboozled at will with campaign gimmicks. I anticipated the GOP would be wiped out in the 2008 elections absent taking on new faces and ideas. (MARK KLEIN, M.D.)

Wellstone's Legacy, Hows about losing the racist vitriol? I thought the election of BO was about a new beginning ... about change. So let's agree to drop the black/white monikers and talk about people as individuals, not racial groups.

I don't think it was GOP apathy, either. b.o. promised the moon and the stars to 95% of taxpayers, and they ate it up. Add to that the betrayal of the American people by the MSM. The GOP let b.o.'s side get the upper hand early on and never caught up. Most of all, it wasn't that likely that the GOP would hold on the the whitehouse for a third term. That said, b.o. LIED when he talked about change. This is not change, it is just reheating the same old Clinton pap we had to eat for 8 years. I don't think it is going to go down well when they find out their welfare checks aren't going to triple, and he can't deliver on much of anything. That's just the good news. God help us if he doesn't show that he can lead the nation through this mess. So far we are not impressed. Lofty speeches won't cut it here in the real world.

As a lifelong Republican I voted, and I voted for McCain only because I had no other choice. The GOP has no one to blame for their loss but themseves. By the same token, if the republican party nominates Mike Steele, who I know personally, as its National Chairman, I don't visualize the GOP regaining its stature for a long long time. I refused to give the GOP any money this year, and they will not be getting any money from me in the future until they get their act together.

I warned against G.O.P. apathy in letters to the editor written both in February and November. Republicans who sat home election day will have only themselves to blame as Obama enacts universal health care, bails out every industry with its hand out, signs "card check" for trade union members, and, as they listen to Rush Limbaugh's and Sean Hannity's last broadcast, they can blame themselves for letting in someone who will have signed the Fairness Doctrine.