GOP Losing Key Rural Voters
How can the GOP win in 08 with the support for President Bush’s strategy for Iraq falling apart? Do you think more Republican candidates will move toward Ron Paul’s position?
NPR-A new national poll indicates rural Americans are no longer reliably Republican, and the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq seems mainly to blame.
The poll was commissioned by the non-partisan Center for Rural Strategies, a Whitesburg, Ky., group trying to attract candidate attention to rural issues. Republican political consultant Bill Greener of Greener and Hook also participated in the design and analysis of the survey.
“Republicans are vastly underperforming among rural Americans,” Greener said in response to the survey results. “And if we’re going to succeed in 2008, we’re going to have to do better.”
Concern about the war in Iraq seems to be the reason for the decline in Republican support, according to respondents in the new poll. Three-fourths of those surveyed know someone who is serving or has served in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“I don’t like the way the war in Iraq is going as well as everybody else,” says Judy VanAhlsen, a realtor in rural Jefferson, Iowa, who describes herself as a lifelong conservative Republican. “I think people are so disenchanted with the war, with Bush in general. I think people think anything is better — even Republicans [think that].”
I think Republicans can benefit more from targeting the dense urban populations and let the gay marriage, baby killing democrats roam the wilds of rural america looking for two votes per xxx square miles…
James
Do you think the war is hurting the GOP?
Do you think the war is hurting the GOP?
Yes, but due to the misinformation spread by the liberal media *NP-COUGH-R!* most that believe what is on TV think that republicans are directly responsible for terrorism.
The public generally has a short memory. They don’t remember that Clinton shot some cruise missles at an Al-Quaeda training camp in the years preceeding 9/11. Neither do they seem to blame the real culprits which are muslim extremists.
James I recently read 2 different articles by 2 independent journalists who are embedded with the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.In Afghanistan the Afghan troops that are guarding the border with Pakistan are untrained and under equipped.Their weapons are AK 47 and the NATO troops wont supply them with anything heavier because the Afghans would trade them because they havent been paid for months and when they do get paid they dessert.
The situation in Iran is not much better. On the Iranian border the Iraqi troops are gotten from locale towns whose main source of income is from smuggling. These troops are either related to or are neighbors of the smugglers they are suppose to be stopping. The problem is there are no US troops to support them or watch them. Anymore when I read articles like this I really question the policy.
After reading these 2 articles I came to the conclusion that our border with Mexico is being treated the same way. You cant expect change by doing nothing to control the borders first.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.01/
James
Did not many conservatives at the time argue Clinton’s policy was making the problem worse?
JAMES
FYI
Republicans skeptical of Iraq attack on eve of impeachment vote
CNN-WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, December 16) — White House officials insist a looming impeachment vote in the House had no bearing on President Clinton’s decision to bomb Iraq — but planes were still in the air as a chorus of critics began voicing skepticism about the timing.
Prominent among the skeptics: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas).
“I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time,” Lott said in a statement. “Both the timing and the policy are subject to question.”
“The suspicion some people have about the president’s motives in this attack is itself a powerful argument for impeachment,” Armey said in a statement. “After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons.”
House intelligence chair says not consulted
Rep. Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was unaware that U.S. airstrikes were planned against Iraq until he saw them under way on CNN.
Goss (R-Florida) expressed anger that he was never notified by the White House that a strike was imminent and that no members of the House Intelligence Committee were brought into the loop.
“To be cut out at the eleventh hour is annoying, and it’s certainly not helpful,” Goss said.
He called the fact he was not contacted “a bad mistake of judgment or an oversight by the White House. … Today the White House should be looking for friends. It’s not a good idea to ambush people.”
“It’s certainly rather suspicious timing,” said Rep. Tillie Fowler (R-Florida). “I think the president is shameless in what he would do to stay in office.”
Finding conservative alternatives to no-bid contracts, nation building, oil wars, and global empire ain’t really that difficult. (If you have the internet that is)
Did not many conservatives at the time argue Clinton’s policy was making the problem worse?
Rather than exaggerate a division between parties, I would rather point out that the war on terror is something that all americans must face in an upfront manner.