If you had to choose: Jeb Bush or Chris Christie as nominee?

[Bigun]

Since 1932 only one GOP president makes the grade as "conservative."

You don't say??

And we wonder why we are where we are!!!

[massadvj]

Since 1932 only one GOP president makes the grade as "conservative."

As far as I am concerned, the last great president was Calvin Coolidge.  It's been pretty much downhill from there.  I do think Reagan was the best president in my lifetime, not so much for his policies (which were uneven), but because of his leadership capabilities.  Eisenhower was not a bad POTUS.  He was the leader of the country during the greatest economic expansion in the country's history, and no one gives him credit because he didn't do much.  No one stops to think that maybe the expansion was BECAUSE he didn't do much.  In that respect, Eisenhower is the post WWII president most like Coolidge.   

[katzenjammer]

As far as I am concerned, the last great president was Calvin Coolidge.  It's been pretty much downhill from there.  I do think Reagan was the best president in my lifetime, not so much for his policies (which were uneven), but because of his leadership capabilities.  Eisenhower was not a bad POTUS.  He was the leader of the country during the greatest economic expansion in the country's history, and no one gives him credit because he didn't do much.  No one stops to think that maybe the expansion was BECAUSE he didn't do much.  In that respect, Eisenhower is the post WWII president most like Coolidge.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on Silent Cal!  Excellent other points as well, Vic!  Kudos!!

[speekinout]

People who don't vote for President can not consider themselves the "base" of any party. Presidential candidates do - and should - spend most of their time attracting regular voters. A lot of people who consider themselves independents are more likely to vote than the Tea Party conservatives are.
Maybe it is time to have a third party. If Tea Party Conservatives aren't willing to vote for whoever the GOP nominee is, then maybe they should have their own party. After all, they wouldn't be taking votes away from the GOP. And the GOP nominee could be chosen for qualities like competence, executive experience, leadership skills and foreign policy knowledge, all of which are more important to accomplishment than just making speeches. 

[ChrisChristie4Pres]

I would pick a definite winner

[truth_seeker]

People who don't vote for President can not consider themselves the "base" of any party. Presidential candidates do - and should - spend most of their time attracting regular voters. A lot of people who consider themselves independents are more likely to vote than the Tea Party conservatives are.

Agreed.

[libertybele]

Funny thing.

2008, the democrats won.  They celebrated, we recriminated.

2012, the democrats won.  They celebrated, we recriminated.

2014, the republicans won.  And now we're recriminating.

What's wrong with that picture.

Exactly. We need to make our voices heard NOW with the RNC .... letters, e-mails, faxes and refuse to send $$$.

[libertybele]

People who don't vote for President can not consider themselves the "base" of any party. Presidential candidates do - and should - spend most of their time attracting regular voters. A lot of people who consider themselves independents are more likely to vote than the Tea Party conservatives are.
Maybe it is time to have a third party. If Tea Party Conservatives aren't willing to vote for whoever the GOP nominee is, then maybe they should have their own party. After all, they wouldn't be taking votes away from the GOP. And the GOP nominee could be chosen for qualities like competence, executive experience, leadership skills and foreign policy knowledge, all of which are more important to accomplishment than just making speeches.

In my humble opinion, let's not allow the GOP establishment, liberals and the media to redirect us away from what should be our focus right now:  STOPPING OBAMA and his agenda.  We will soon have a new Congress ... they need to work for us not against us.  Then we can worry about who's running for President in 2016.

With that being said, this has always been a difficult one for me.  I refused to vote for McCain over Obama and voted 3rd party and look what happened. However, I voted my conscious.  The two largest 3rd parties are the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party of which they normally only get a fraction of the votes.  IF TEA were to form their own party and run I feel that they would do better but perhaps not well enough to secure the oval office ... it depends on how well they campaign and how quickly they can get on the ballot in all 50 states and how well the GOP is able to change things now that we will have the majority.

We also need to consider two things; who is the opposition on the liberal side.  Wigwam Warren would be worse than Obama and I would vote against her RINO or not.  Secondly, a lot is going to ride on if 4,000,000 (more like 20,000,000) are indeed granted amnesty.  We already have thousands of teenagers (illegal dumped just recently) who will be of voting age by 2016.

We will soon have the majority in BOTH houses ... we need to fully take advantage of that.  We can win in 2016, but it depends on how we play our cards.

[mountaineer]

Would you rather have salmonella or listeria?   

[speekinout]

In my humble opinion, let's not allow the GOP establishment, liberals and the media to redirect us away from what should be our focus right now:  STOPPING OBAMA and his agenda.  We will soon have a new Congress ... they need to work for us not against us.  Then we can worry about who's running for President in 2016.

With that being said, this has always been a difficult one for me.  I refused to vote for McCain over Obama and voted 3rd party and look what happened. However, I voted my conscious.  The two largest 3rd parties are the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party of which they normally only get a fraction of the votes.  IF TEA were to form their own party and run I feel that they would do better but perhaps not well enough to secure the oval office ... it depends on how well they campaign and how quickly they can get on the ballot in all 50 states and how well the GOP is able to change things now that we will have the majority.

We also need to consider two things; who is the opposition on the liberal side.  Wigwam Warren would be worse than Obama and I would vote against her RINO or not.  Secondly, a lot is going to ride on if 4,000,000 (more like 20,000,000) are indeed granted amnesty.  We already have thousands of teenagers (illegal dumped just recently) who will be of voting age by 2016.

We will soon have the majority in BOTH houses ... we need to fully take advantage of that.  We can win in 2016, but it depends on how we play our cards.

Who is "we"? The GOP will have the majority in Congress, and there are a lot of people opposed to 0bama. But neither group is really homogeneous. There are different groups of conservatives - libertarians, fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, etc. All of them have some things in common. Opposition to 0bama in general, and to 0bamacare and to his foreign policy are the biggest. But the different groups also have different opinions on other matters. When you label the GOP establishment as a group that doesn't belong to the "we", you are eliminating some of the strongest opposition to 0bama and his policies. And you are eliminating some of the people with the most power to do something about it.

The Tea Party didn't do very well in this year's primaries. The establishment candidates won almost every contest, and they won almost every seat in the general. If you do think that the focus should be on defeating the dims now and in 2016, then you should be uniting with the most electable anti-0bama candidates, and those are not all Tea Party candidates or candidates that you would agree with on every issue. It's a matter of priorities, and if you think it's most important to make 0bama powerless, it might be worth aligning with everyone who has enough power to help in that cause, whether you agree with them on every other issue or not.

[ChrisChristie4Pres]

Might I remind everyone ahem Thanks to Chris Christie's nation building campaign strategy.

The establishment candidates won almost every contest, and they won almost every seat in the general.

[speekinout]

Might I remind everyone ahem Thanks to Chris Christie's nation building campaign strategy.

He did do a good job this election cycle, didn't he? 

[massadvj]

Personally, I don't think there are many members of the Freshman class in the 2015 congress that Tea Partiers are going to be uncomfortable with.  Most of them may have won with the imprimatur of the establishment, but few of them were challenged by the Tea Party, and most are quite conservative.

http://www.rollcall.com/features/Freshman-Priorities_Policy-Briefing/policy_briefings/-203839-1.html

[Bigun]

Personally, I don't think there are many members of the Freshman class in the 2015 congress that Tea Partiers are going to be uncomfortable with.  Most of them may have won with the imprimatur of the establishment, but few of them were challenged by the Tea Party, and most are quite conservative.

http://www.rollcall.com/features/Freshman-Priorities_Policy-Briefing/policy_briefings/-203839-1.html