Give thanks that this is not your party:
[New York state Assemblyman Greg] Ball is concerned about the electoral outlook for the GOP in the 2008 election cycle.“George Bush has not only hurt the Republican Party, he’s left the nation without leadership,” the Republican state lawmaker said. “It’s going to be a tough year to run as a Republican at the national level.”
“There’s a big difference between federal and state politics. In Trenton, Democrats had a chance to govern and they did not do well. In Washington, everything hinges now on the economy and on the Iraq War,” [NJ GOP Assembly Minority Whip Jon] Bramnick told PolitickerNJ.com.
“It should be an area of deep concern to Republicans of all stripes. Once you lose the vital center, then you begin to lose the claim that you are the majority party,” said former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a moderate Republican who retired in 2006.
He said that in more than four decades in political life, he’s never seen “a higher degree of partisanship or a higher level of intolerance for another point of view.”
“I believe for any Republican to win in 2008, they have to have a clean break and offer a dramatic, bold change,” [Newt Gingrich] said. “If we nominate somebody who has not done that… they’re very, very unlikely to win it.”
“The war in Iraq and public opposition to it has put a pall on Republicans,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri.
“My level of concern and dismay is very, very high,” said Mickey Edwards, a Republican former congressman from Oklahoma who is now a lecturer in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “It’s not that I have any particular problem with the people who are running for the Republican nomination. I just don’t know how they can run hard enough or fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Bush administration.”
“We don’t have any candidates in the field now who are compelling,” Mr. Edwards said, adding: “It’s going to be a tough year for us.”
Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said the party’s presidential candidates were being whipsawed as they tried to appeal to conservative voters who have a history of strong views on issues like abortion and gay rights. “These tests are destroying the Republican Party,” Mr. Simpson said.
“People are concerned and worried about the party’s prospects,” said Steve Duprey, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP and a backer of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the White House race.
“There’s a certain nervousness I hear that if the war is going badly and we’re still in this intractable fight between a Democratic Congress and President Bush about the course of the war, we may have a tough time.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said, however, that the painful lessons of 2006 have yet to be learned. “I don’t think there has yet been a full appreciation for what just happened” in the November elections, Pawlenty said. “There remains an element of denial about the message that was just sent and the reality we face.”
What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?
ugh, what a stupid, hypocritical comment from my governor. If he truely believed that, he wouldn’t be such a roadblock to progress, especially since he is pretty likable, popular and has a very bright future in GOP and won by 30,000 votes out for 2.something million votes. Hypocrite.