The rebirth of the GOP

Today on CNN.com - a beacon of neutral journalism, there was a bit of commentary on the resurgence of the Republican party. One of its equally neutral viewers wagered a very interesting comment:

Kris

GOP rebound?! Dream on. It will not rebound unless you guys learn to listen and be more moderate. Your views are so extreme and your followers ill informed about the world. You lack empathy and insist on your own way even though your crooked ways failed in the last eight years! Not only that you are a bunch of hypocrites. You want less government intervention and yet you want to appoint the most conservative judges to the Supreme Court. Why? Because you want to interfere with other people's way of life.

I’ll take this line by line.

Be more moderate:
As much as I hate to admit it now, because I pulled for him so much during the primaries and the election, McCain was the wrong choice. He was too moderate. There was very little difference between McCain and Obama, except Obama was younger, sexier, and more eloquent. While neither delineated specific plans of attack in regards to the Iraq war, the economy, health care, or education, Obama could get away with it, and that, in large party, is due to the Obama-media lovefest which preceded the election, and which is still taking place. The biggest issue of the Conservative community right now is the bailout and the budget (the teaparty movement). While McCain railed against pork his entire campaign, he blindly followed President Bush and now President Obama to the bailout slaughter. While Palin was not the right choice due to her lack of foreign policy experience, she still was one of the best governors we've ever seen. Alaska is a better place to live because of her, and Wassila has been completely remade because of her influence. She has executive experience, something neither Presidental candidate had. Perhaps some executive experience could've helped when Obama was picking his Cabinet.

Extreme & ill informed views:
This is another of many cases of the Left deeming diverging opinions as extreme and ignorant. The Left loves portraying itself as the haven of inclusiveness and open-mindedness. That is, unless you don’t agree with them. You cannot judge someone on their religious beliefs (well, unless you really are practicing, then that’s just loony), their ethnicity, their sexual orientation... There’s a whole list of what we cannot discriminate against. Except political views. Politicians like Palin and Bush Jr. were ignorant, personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin are bigots, and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are nothing less than pure evil. Despite my having a Bachelors from a public Ivy, having travelled to over 25 countries in my life, I’m still pegged as closed minded and ignorant by most Leftists that I meet.

Lack of empathy:
This one really gets me. I need to quote Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC speech on this one.

I want to tell you who conservatives are. We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming people know. What they know is largely incorrect based on the way we are portrayed in pop culture, in the Drive-By Media, by the Democrat Party.

Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause] When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government.

The rest of his speech can be found here: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030209/content/01125106.guest.html

I genuinely think it’s worth a listen.


Our failures the past eight years:
My biggest issue with President Bush was his fiscal liberalism and his support of bailouts in his last few months. Fingers can be pointed on both sides of the aisle for responsibility for the recession, and someone who definitively places blame on anyone’s shoulder’s shouldn’t be trusted as far as they can be thrown. However, there’s not much else I take issue with. After September 11, 2001, right after he came into office, we were attacked on our soil for the first time since Pearl Harbour. And we all waited with anxious, baited breath for the second attack. And it never came. He kept us safe. While some people may have found his methods questionable, the end justified the means when the end was American lives. He did not endanger our economy by drastically altering our environmental policy, nor did he use our tax dollars to pay for foreign abortions or research with fully realised human embryos, and for that, I am grateful. The biggest complaint against President Bush is, of course, the invasion of Iraq. At the time, it was "known" that they were possessors of WMD. They used it against their Iranian neighbours, and the wouldn’t let UN weapons inspectors in to verify their having disposed of them. By a vote of 29-21, the Democratic members of the Senate, voted for the war in 2003.

Less government intervention:
Yes, that is what we want. Thank you for getting something right.

Appointing conservative judges to the courts:
And Democratic Presidents appoint liberal judges to the courts. It’s called politics.

Interfering with other people’s way of life:
This is perhaps to do with gay marriage and abortion. While I am in favour of the former, this is ultimately a decision that belongs to voters, not politicians, not lawyers, and not judges. While I applaud people gaining equal rights, it should not be the few making the laws for entire states. California got it right when they introduced Proposition 8, regardless of the outcome. The efforts of the Left to subvert the will of the voters here is un-Democratic and un-Constitutional.
As for my views on abortion, scroll down. That's what I think.

The farther in time on on the spectrum I move from the Left, the more I see it for what it truly is.

So, the question is, how do we change our image? How do we spread the truth and disseminate our positions in a hostile Left-leaning media?