Leaving the GOP is what the establishment WANTS you to do!

[RickyJ]

Putting up with the GOP is also what the establishment wants you to do. I for one am not going to put up with them! The establishment can go to hell.

Ron Paul said parties are irrelevant and that the GOP is not his party.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Putting up with the GOP is also what the establishment wants you to do. I for one am not going to put up with them! The establishment can go to hell.

Ron Paul said parties are irrelevant and that the GOP is not his party.

That's not what he meant and you know it. He was saying it didn't currently reflect his principles.

No one here likes political parties. But, for right now that is how you get someone elected to office.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Guys, this is a revolution. It will not be decided based on whether or not we can take over the republican party.

If you do not have a mechanism to get our liberty candidates into office, our "revolution" will have a voice the level of a whisper. We have been successful in using the Republican Party to get our candidates elected and have made tremendous inroads in owning the leadership positions. Why on earth would we give up our gains and start all over again somewhere else?

 

[RickyJ]

That's not what he meant and you know it. He was saying it didn't currently reflect his principles.

If he didn't mean it then why did he say it? The way he said it, it sure sounded like he meant it. He had a lot of passion in his voice when he said "it's not MY party." I think most objectives listeners think he meant exactly what he said.

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

If you vote Romney, they double win, and all of our efforts are for naught, since you teach them they can run us over, beat us, cheat us, lie to us... and still get our vote.

You can walk and chew gum can't you? Nobody brought up voting for Romney. Stay in the republican party and support our people running down ticket and Johnson or someone else for POTUS.

 

[jkob]

Running 3rd party this time around doesn't mean we have to leave the GOP, it's not like there are any more primaries to vote in. I still think the GOP is the best vehicle to electing our candidates in 2014 and beyond.

 

[TheTexan]

The establishment wants us to believe the establishment wants us to leave the GOP.


(The establishment wants us working within their system, period.... doesn't matter if it's GOP, DP, LP, CP, as long as you're concentrating on pulling those voting levers, the establishment don't really give a fuck)

 

[hazek]

Bullshit they want you to leave.

They need you to win general, why the hell would they want you to leave?! No, no. It's clear as day they want you to stay and they even want more people to come, they just don't want You taking over and Forcing Them to operate according to Your principles. No, what they want is for you to stay and submit into being their little bitches, slaves they can use for slave labor: voting & campaigning for their chosen guy

As has been clearly demonstrated to you this past cycle you have two choices:
- you stay and be their bitches or
- you leave, be autonomous and faithful to your own principles of liberty and ignore them into irrelevance.

Which do you choose?

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

I know our county GOP is stacked full of Paul supporters at the higher level (well, minus one now - they had to resign in their leadership position because they are running for a Colorado State house Seat ). And we are filling up more leadership positions in precinct and district captains as this cycle winds down.

We are now beginning to have sway in changing how our county GOP works. For example, previously, higher level delegates to State and Congressional District assemblies were chosen at the precinct level (so about half our of county couldn't be represented at the higher levels). This is unfair, and really only benefited the establishment (people who were past chairs, etc, who live in precincts that aware such delegate positions). This cycle things were a little different, and we elected higher level delegates at our County Assembly. The establishment folks didn't like this as us Paul folks showed up and *gasp* organized to vote for ourselves and rallied others to vote for us, thus denying delegate positions to the establishment folks who just go along with the GOP as usual. There will be a meeting coming up in the next couple of months for all PCPs/DCs to vote on how we proceed going forward. But, based on how the Paul people are now participating in the GOP (much to the shegrins of the establishment folks), we have now swayed the conversation from "Should we revert back to awarding delegate positions at the precinct level?" to "Which method of awarding delegates at higher levels do we take?". While this is a small victory (it will be important for next cycle!), it's one of many. Being involved also means that you can help shape the local party and it's positions.

I'm going to ask that we take a stand in "supporting fair elections at all levels" at our next meeting, which may ruffle some feathers (see previous paragraph), but little by little we are having a larger voice.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a debate on why we should stay in the party, it just turned into that.

Great insight into what is going on locally and the impact we're having.

 

[TheTexan]

- you leave, be autonomous and faithful to your own principles of liberty and ignore them into irrelevance.

The obvious counterpoint to hazek's argument is that by leaving the GOP to go 3rd party sends us into irrelevance.... but if we're as strong as we think we are, by doing that we can make sure the GOP never wins a presidential election, ever again.

We may never win an election going 3rd party... but if we can make the GOP lose, time and time again, we definitely wouldn't be irrelevant

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

I think our reason to be in the Republican Party is to capture it, not capitulate to establishment candidates or establishment policies. The most important things we can do within the party to forward our agenda are:

1. Participate in local Republican Party organizations. Being membership organizations, all Republican Party organizations are subject to the will of their members. Controlling a political organization usually requires nothing more than a simple majority. Local organizations feed into state party organizations proportionally and state organizations make up the RNC proportionally. If we become the members - if we begin to gain majorities - we will begin to assert control. I believe this is attainable if for no other reason than the huge disparity of enthusiasm between our movement and the rest of the Republican establishment. We can win by simply showing up. This is one of the reasons we have made so much progress in the past 7 years. I hope we can continue motivating people to get involved.

2. Get "our" candidates on ballots. I believe that most people will vote for a liberty-minded Republican over a Libertarian 9 times out of 10. The two parties have huge financial, legal, and psychological advantages over third parties: so much so, that I think it is easier overcome the obstacles within the Republican Party than to win elections from within a third party.

Just my two cents.

The psychological advantage is huge! People don't think a third party can win and that severely diminishes votes and donations are nonexistent. Those are enormous hurdles to overcome when you're selling a third party candidate to the average voter. You don't even get to actually policy discussions because you're forever battling the voting psychology of average Americans.

Great post and insight +Rep

 

[Natural Citizen]

One of these days someone will hopefully explain what one of those above "average" Americans are. I always thought Americans were Americans. Whoda thunkit...

Gosh, I really hate that language.

 

[kathy88]

If you leave the Republican Party, they win...

If I leave the Republican party I win.

 

[MelissaCato]

Dear GOP, "All your base are belong to us" !!

 

[Occam's Banana]

If he didn't mean it then why did he say it? The way he said it, it sure sounded like he meant it. He had a lot of passion in his voice when he said "it's not MY party." I think most objectives listeners think he meant exactly what he said.

Objective listeners? I doubt it. The interpretations (on both sides of the issue) of what RP said in this interview constitute an excellent illustration of confirmation bias in action.

Your comment is a perfect example of this. In short: you heard what you wanted to hear (just as those who disagree with you heard what they wanted to hear).

 

[wgadget]

Some guy on Bloomberg radio said if Romney loses to Obama there will be a huge rift in the GOP with the Tea Party.

 

[LibertyEagle]

If he didn't mean it then why did he say it? The way he said it, it sure sounded like he meant it. He had a lot of passion in his voice when he said "it's not MY party." I think most objectives listeners think he meant exactly what he said.

You misinterpreted the meaning of what he said. Again, he was saying it wasn't HIS party, in that he didn't own it and it did not reflect his principles. That is the way it sounded to me, anyway.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Some guy on Bloomberg radio said if Romney loses to Obama there will be a huge rift in the GOP with the Tea Party.

Like there isn't now?

 

[LibertyEagle]

The obvious counterpoint to hazek's argument is that by leaving the GOP to go 3rd party sends us into irrelevance.... but if we're as strong as we think we are, by doing that we can make sure the GOP never wins a presidential election, ever again.

We may never win an election going 3rd party... but if we can make the GOP lose, time and time again, we definitely wouldn't be irrelevant

Big whoopee! Then the other head of the hydra wins; the Democrats. How is that helping anything? The goal isn't to stop one of the parties from winning, it is to win, ourselves.

 

[TrishW]

I have no desire what-so-ever to stay within the Republican Party. I think Americans are very dissatisfied with the choices the two party system has allowed us. I am voting for Gary Johnson and hopefully Ron Paul will be the VP. I remain an Independent with a strong leaning toward liberty.

You are fooling yourself to think that you can take down the machine from the inside. They will squash you like a bug, just as what happened at the RNC. To do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, is the definition of insanity.

I think that if Gary is in the debates, he will do very well. I think that if Ron Paul agrees to be his VP, the cause of liberty will be heard. We will make a differnce.... not in 4 years, or 8 years, or 16 years... THIS YEAR.