GOP Voters Have Learned Nothing

Now they want Marco Rubio. Gary North poked fun at his State of the Union response. Many of the comments were unfriendly. On his subscription site, Dr. North noted today:

It was a pathetic speech. It was maudlin. It pandered to welfare state voters. It invoked his relatives, who he says were beneficiaries of the federal welfare state. So was he: free education. It is all good, he said. We must defend these programs.

Of course there are beneficiaries to these programs. But who pays? For how long? With how large a deficit? Just because your family has cashed in on the system is not a moral or fiscal defense of the system.

He appealed to the hoped-for Republican Party base of the future: welfare beneficiaries.

He never gave any numbers, except for an unattainable 4% economic growth rate.

It was all smoke and no mirrors.

If this is the best the party can produce at the top, which I think it probably is, the party is pathetic. Hopeless….

I am clearly anti-Republican at the national level. I think the Republican Party at the top is gutless, stupid, and geared only to compromise. The best that you can hope for is that they will keep the worst of the Democrat programs from being enacted. They are like a doorstop. They keep the door from slamming on your foot. Beyond that, the Republican Party is useless at the national level. I have said this for over 50 years, so I am not about to change at this late date.

My point was to have a little fun at Rubio’s expense. The speech was preposterous. It was one long saccharin call for more government spending for the welfare state. If that is what it takes to get elected President of the United States, then things are hopeless nationally.

I think local politics is worth contributing time and money to, because there, it is at least possible that you will get somebody into office who will stop taking federal money. But that is not Mr. Rubio….

Anonymous

Let’s say I agreed with Marco Rubio enough to support him/vote for him (I certainly do not). I suppose I can’t fault him for his ‘I was raised the son of poor Hispanic immigrants and, oh!, stay tuned for my Spanish version of this speech!’ shtick. Sure, he wants to be president, and there’s Hispanic votes out there. It’s his ‘wild card’.

But can we say enough already with the personal stories? The GOP has officially given into the ‘compelling personal narrative’ nonsense, designed to hoodwink people into idolizing politicians. Who cares that he’s Cuban, or the son of immigrants? Does he want to be president, or Ms. America? Can we imagine Ron Paul starting out a similar speech with : ‘I was brought up a middle class white boy in Pennsylvania’?

But this is Rubio: The consummate self-promoter. I note also that he became Catholic again the other day when he made a statement about Pope Benedict XVI–I think he said ‘as a Catholic, I occassionally attend a Baptist megachurch and donate thousands of dollars to it, because that’s just the kind of Mormon I am.’ Frankly, his faith is none of my business–but my cynical side tells me that this cloud of speculation about his faith is intended as part of Rubio’s constant image building.

Rubio is going to position himself as the first Evangelical Mormon Catholic president. Wait and see how the same GOP that ripped Obama in 2008 for his calculating political decision to associate himself with Jeremiah Wright’s influential Chicago church, defends Rubio’s convoluted ‘faith journey’ in 2016. I’ll bet they even call it that. To spice things up, he’ll be sworn in on one of the “Left Behind” books.
Scott Lazarowitz

I think that another Republican “star,” Rand Paul’s recent pandering to the neocons and the Israel Firsters and the warmongers, and his recent mealy-mouthed talking-out-of-both-sides-of-his-mouth foreign policy speech, shows that becoming the head honcho and getting to grab the controls is what motivates both Republicrats and Demopublicans. They’re all statists, they love power and control. After the departure from Congress of Ron Paul, it seems that no one who believes in actual principles remains in Washington. Oh, well.
TJ

From what I see, the Republican leadership has concluded they lost the presidential election because they had a fever and their only cure is more statism.
Franklin

Nice encapsulation of the bi-annual/quadrennial, hypocritical hoopla..
But to your question, “… can we say enough already with the personal stories?” Well, we can say it, but lest you have a lot of earwax buildup, you can’t keep from hearing it. And you shall, for as long as you or I or anyone else reading is alive.

Fighting the good fight is honorable, and we must continue to do so. But truth be told, we’ll never (and I mean never) see a libertarian society between the two oceans. Technology assures food for everyone, more efficient production, and four warm walls with a TV. Go ask the Euros how miserable they are, and if they prefer a laissez-faire environment. You’ll get the tilted-head-of-a-dog look:
“What are you, crazy?” Contentment abounds, with some snarky bitterness now and then, but there’s no Bastille storming imminent here, there or anywhere.

Nevertheless, we’ve got to keep forging ahead while the Rubios et. al. pine over their Thanksgiving day memories and ancestral quaintness.
Jay

contrast Rubio’s response with the Libertarian Party’s. Like night and day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RhmFXRe5Z68#!
Montana is full, go home

Saccharin? Awe, he means saccharine… not that white, sweeter-than-sugar substance…. pity that.
Jeremy

Nope. They haven’t learned anything. And I doubt they ever will.