Can´t read an article that praises Karl Rove in the opening paragraph.

It´s VDH, #1. And even Karl Rove can be right sometimes. He did engineer a good campaign for W (although I personally don´t have much use for him).

EXCELLENT analysis, Mr. H. Excellent. :bleaksigh:

Great insights once again from VDH. He doesn´t mention fraud, but his assessments are solid, especially on the liberal elite voters who felt oh-so-cool voting for the exotic "black" golfer.
I´m thinking Allen West-Tim Tebow the next time around. Both have time on their hands and have that underdog/wonderdog appeal.

Unrealistic No. 1. Can we please stop dreaming the impossible dream?

Number 6 is the most painful, but the most true. The media still calls the shots. Depressing.

Excuse me. I just have to add that I like Karl Rove. I think he is a nice man.

Distilled:

1. Race

2. Press

3. Food Stamps

Read the comments after the article, especially #3, #4 and #6. And check out the link in #12.

This excellent article should be a Must Read. VDH lives in Realville and Republicans and Conservatives, hopefully, will listen to his good, common-sense analysis. We can begin work now for 2016 with VDH´s logic and reasoning.

#2 thank you for helping #1 to understand Karl Rove a little better. If the Heritage Foundation can host a dinner with Karl as the guest speaker, I wouldn´t be too critical. I went to such a dinner, and Karl generously gave of his time to meet all 698 of us. Believe me, he has a lot more "upstairs" than say a Jim Messina who looks like Howdy Doody (my apologies to Howdy Doody).

Those who do not learn from their mistakes are condemned to repeat them.

This is a brilliant analysis: penetrating, comprehensive and painful to absorb. Will the Republican leaders learn from it? Of course not; if they could learn they wouldn´t be R leaders. Just look at McCain...eager to suck up to a completely discredited minion of King Hussein. VDH should have mentioned the RNC bigwigs are self-important, suicidal idiots.

Those like #1 are doomed forever to live in a liberal country.

But first they should read this article. And all should read twice the part entitled "Beware the Cocoon".

Every once in a while it should dawn on us that we are the choir we are preaching to. There´s a big, far different world out there that gets its news from the MSM, NPR and the ABC networks. And Dr. Hanson knows which way that news is slanted. So should we.

We will always have Eeyores around us. We don´t have to be them.

Pardon a second post, but #8 gave excellent advice, which is to visit the link given by #12´s comment after the article:
http://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/preparing-for-dictatorship-questions-for-the-younger-generations/

I am Bookmarking the website and possibly using some of his article "Preparing for a Dictatorship" when I substitute teach in history, although I will have to be careful to not mention Obama. I often use Nazi Germany pre-WWII to show what can happen if we aren´t vigilant about our freedoms.

Parents need to go over "Preparing for a Dictatorship" with their teenage kids.

I learned from the election......

DC is lost -- both demorats and republicans -- with the exception of a few Tea Partiers....

What did I learn from the election? You can steal the vote with fraud and manipulation and claim victory in my beloved country of United States of America....

LZK

Excellent article from VDH, as always. His analysis of what happened and his prescriptions for changing the drift of the country will be, unfortunately ignored by the placemen miscalled Republican leaders.

His description of some of the savvier and more successful looters and freeloaders in California was interesting.

And on top of all else, colorful film star Jamie Foxx refers to Obama as ´Our Lord and Savior´ and gets away with it.
.... I doubt that the real ONE is amused.

Yes #13! If I had not buried myself in the ´cocoon´ before the election, I would have been more prepared for the disastrous result instead of being devastated. And not listening to voices (like Karl Rove) who know American politics inside and out is burying ourselves even deeper in our cocoon.

When VDH speaks, I listen. This is an excellent analysis of what went wrong. Now I´d like him to concentrate on what we as individuals can do to make it right next time. As wonderful as it is, Number 13´s ´preaching to the choir´ here on Lucianne does not make for winning elections and turning the country around.

i love karl rove.........he was right on the facts...cant judge voter fraud

The frustration of losing our country, as we know it, is evident in this thread. But we have to adapt our fight. The Brits and French used to line up and walk toward each other shooting their guns and cannons, then came sharp shooters and ambushes, then came planes with bombs, then came jungle warfare, then came suicide bombers. We have to adapt in this current political war! We have these old fossils of "political advisers" telling our GOP candidates to move to the middle and be careful not to say anything offensive that they can use against you in a commercial.

While the left has had great success with combining all the single issue highly motivated voter groups in their common hatred of conservative principles, we try to appeal to the bored masses who sit home on election day. They lure the people who care more about their right to abort, their right to marry, their right to a government check than they do their country. We just have this milk toast approach that doesn´t motivate the masses to get off their asses and get in the fight.

The GOP power brokers are incapable of adjusting their methods and as rooted in keeping their power as the Ted Kennedys and Strom Thurmans were in Congress. We need to abandon the GOP and go with a new and smarter fight. The fight for our constitutional rights!

Voting in this country has become so sleazy and corrupt--I have voted in every election since I was 18, I don´t know if I´ll bother to do it again.

Maybe I´ll slip into Mexico, organize a movement, try to throw their election--it´s so crazy it just may work. :-(

Or better yet, beat it to George Soros territory (somewhere in Eastern Europe, he can not afford to live anywhere else) to see how free speech is accepted there.

VDH is a national treasure, much like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Republicans are still fighting according to the Marquis of Queensbury and the dems are training in the UFC gyms.

Remember when Mitt Romney came after Rick Perry with the N-rock? When he came after Newt Gingrich with stories from the ex-wife? When he took out Herman Cain with stories about white women who were helped by him?

Where was that Mitt Romney in the general election? I maintain that the Republicans didn´t want to win. They had plenty of avenues of attack against the wannabe dictator Barack Hussein Obama. They settled for the weak argument that he was in over his head. After the election, the Republicans had plenty of evidence of vote fraud in all sorts of venues. Except for Allen West, the issue was not addressed at all. It has become as taboo as birtherism.

We need a third party. One that wants to win.

The GOP lost much when we lost Lee Atwater at such a young age.

Yes, what did we learn????. We learned that Obama knows how to win - not even playing by the rules. We learned that he and his czars and mafia are a well oiled machine that knows how to take over this country. It is happening right before our eyes. There is NO going back......

FTA: "It does not matter much that no one watches MSNBC if they watch NBC."

Watching the Olympics enables Chris Matthews; it´s that simple. Conservatives provide material support to the very organs or our destruction.

I agree with #23, but this new impetus is not going to come from the Democrats or the Republicans--the power, the passion and the money will probably come from the secession movement.

We are as mad as he11, and we´re not going to take it anymore.

Here´s what I learned...

1. Early voting only for those who can prove hardship.
2. Purge voter rolls of dead people.
3. Only voters with valid picture ID allowed. (If dims say it disenfranchises the poor then they can hold ID drives).

If I had a choice for a dinner partner and a long dinner chatting with someone, it would be Karl Rove. I absolutely love him and listening to him.
People advocating a third party and dissing the Pubbies are beyond stupid.

Good Lord, how deep the delusion runs.

VDH, heads up, sir.

The election was fraudulent to the core.

Is it really that hard for brainiacs to understand this?

VDH, as always, presents a great analysis of most of the key "lessons learned." But I still think that there is something else in play here that everyone seems to be missing. Namely, our national elections are becoming more and more like high school student body president elections. The Republicans keep nominating dweebs from the chess club while the Democrats have figured out that they´ll win almost every time if they go with the cool guy that the chicks dig and the stoners like to hang with.

Like-ability, whether we want to admit it or nor, is huge in these national elections. Reagan had it, Romney didn´t. Republicans need to pay more attention to that in selecting future candidates. It´s not trivial at all.

As always, another excellent article from VDH. He always seems to come up with a clear explanation of whatever situation he writes about.

As far as what WE can do in the future, given the changing atmosphere of the various ethnic groups in this country, and their proclivity of voting for those who will give them "stuff" without working for it, and the fact that old school Americans are becoming fewer and fewer(check out the rise of Lations, Black, Orientals, etc.) the only solution I can offer is that which I have stated many times here. Somehow, someway, we need to rise up and have ourselves another revolution and throw off the tyranny of what we have now. I know this seems to be extreme, but remember, Thomas Jefferson himself wrote in the Declaration of Independence that it is our DUTY to do just exactly that.

I´m ready at any time. And I´m 67yrs old. I can still use my weapons.

Nov 27, 2012 Victor Davis Hanson’s smashing article declares the main press as just plain insidious. It´s all Party Line. It´s built in by generations of cultural Marxism in all of our schools.
Communism is quietly at the base of all our troubles. STEALTH communism (never discussed). Proof? Just one way to talk: The Party Line. TRULY insidious Rush, Drudge, Breitbart, Hannity, Napolitano, all on our side, as good as they all are, are still no bigger than a small start-up operation that preaches mostly to the choir. We will win only by observing, criticizing, taking back the supposed main stream words being used against us every day. As Hanson states, WATCH them and their strategy, refute relentlessly. Do not call Hitler or Obama a liberal, call them all the collectivist words as you prefer to use on them. We must constantly pitch freedom and relentlessly argue down non freedom, We must ID The Party Line, its endless, stupid cliches. Identify and expose these stupid cliches for all its massive open fraud. Hanson reminds us, “slanted liberal (he really means statist, collectivist etc) news is still passed off as Walter Cronkite mainstream apolitical news”, like their normal. We need tons of new pro free market language given out to new millions. And we must clean up this semantic war they are winning.
Politically correct speech does not stand up is not honest. Truth replaces PC the Party Line and most of the TV traitors to the truth.

#29, may I join you? And may I bring Steve Hayes and Liz Cheney to the discussion?

VDH is firing on all cylinders here. Especially gratifying was his exploding of the myth of the "conservative Latino" that has blinded the GOP for a decade or more. Open borders and amnesty will only enable more of the Democrat voters and public service parasites, both legal and illegal, who have been instrumental in the destruction of California.

#34, not far from Texas - feel free! Keeps me sane to read from this site1

LESSON #11...What the GOP needs to do, between now and January 6, 2013, is obtain court orders, in all those critical swing state voting jurisdictions, to have the electronic voter machines: (A) Impounded and (B) Examined by court appointed, certified, impartial computer experts!

The GOP/Romney Campaign failed to label Obama accurately, while the Dem summer smear campaign against Romney went largely unanswered. We were assured that after the convention the war chest would open up a big can of whoopa$$ on Obama. When concerns were expressed about expected Dem voter fraud we were assured that the Romney team had lawyers ready in all the key districts. All that I saw was warmed-over whoopa$$ and a dearth of lawyers the rest of our lives should be blessed with, just standard operating procedure for the “stupid” party who after decades of the same myopia must now be considered collaborators.

I can understand those who, bless their hearts, still believe they can find a political solution through the Republican Party or that people will be so sick of socialism by the next election we’re sure to win. Our culture has changed and we have to address the fundamental reality that this new “American” culture elected Obama. The system is already broken as evidenced by the blatant and accepted voter fraud, and the non-existent resistance by the GOP leadership. Traditional politics is a waste of time. We need to identify new tactics in the culture war that are the equivalent to guerilla tactics in a hot war. What those are, I’m not sure yet. Its time for necessity to give birth to a whole lot of invention, or we will go the way of the Old South…Gone With The Wind.

Karl Rove made a perfect fool of himself on election night, he sure looked like part of the problem to me, not the solution with his RINO ways. The Romney campaign didn´t just lose, they were apparently wrong internally about - EVERYTHING, and so was Rove.

This is a pretty good VDH, but I think he´s wrong about "the cocoon" business, it was the Romney campaign and Rove that supplied "the cocoon", and THEY WERE DEAD WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. Even Rasmussen, and I have to believe he was mislead by the Romney camp - or possibly vice-versa.

Agree with above posts--excellent article! I think he is absolutely right on the Latino vote issue. I don´t think immigration is the real issue--new immigrant groups typically tend to vote as a bloc, usually for the Democrats. But once they move up the economic ladder, they no longer identify as much based on ethnicity. The Democrats have a vested interest in keeping Hispanics a poor, but solid minority. I predict that Hispanics in the next several generations are going to inter-marry and many will be only be identified by that group if they have a Hispanic-sounding last name.

Get over the whining about voter fraud. That´s not why we lost. Yes, there was fraud but not enough to lose 300 electoral votes.

Also get over the nonsense about a 3rd party. You know how silly that makes you sound? We made a great start in 2010, knocking out many RINOs with tea partiers...and not accepting people like Mike Castle and that 80 yr old dolt from Indiana. It will take more than one election cycle to come back.

Lastly, re-read VDH´s comments about BO being a one-of-a-kind phenom. You and I don´t get the appeal but obviously others do. We only win by offering a grand vision, not by having 95-point econ plans. But we also can´t accept that we can never win again. I don´t see any more Obamas out there for 2016.

To borrow from a brilliant ad agency, "Here, Wego...."

Goethe was right: "He who does not have 3,000 years at his fingertips is living hand-to-mouth." So tell me, who better meets that test than VDH? Who?

But I am still Canute, and still Cassandra, as well as "veritas." I still hope to teach [to at least some] Canute´s lesson of the tide; and I am well-familiar with a disbelieving audience. But still I will serve Truth. Always.

Further, a rational mind will get past "loving the taste of his own tears;" will not use "the best as the enemy of the good;" and will work to get what can be had. Two important principles come to mind [though they have escaped the notice of many posters lately]: a. "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."; and b. "If you´re not part of the solution, you´re part of the problem." Well?

VDH´s Item 5 on Hispanics is the best I´ve read on the matter.

#1, #2: "Follow the principle, not the man, for the man will always disappoint." That´s wisdom, and it reminds why our Founding Principles matter like the blood in our veins. Re that quote, let´s evaluate what VDH offers, and not brickbat because a column´s not book-length-comprehensive.

Last, forget starting a 3rd party. Too expensive, wastes time we don´t have; but most importantly, it overlooks the fact that a 3rd party has been taking root with state-level Republicans. Look at what the guvs are doing now. ´K?

Ensign O´Toole, please don´t apologize for a second post - I look for your postings for a dose of common sense (that´s not so common these days!)

As far as learning from the election, it´s hard to spot a ray of hope when the majority of our country prefers to live in Idiocracy.

After the election, my students begged me to let them know who I voted for. I did and briefly told them that I´ve always voted Republican since I voted in my first election (former President Reagan) - whew, the hailstorm from that comment, one of my students told her parent, who complained to administration & nearly got me fired because I expressed my political views (she voted for BO, by the way).

Please forgive a second post. This is for those who admire Karl Rove. I have had lunch with the man. And I realized that he is a liar.

Afterward, I began to watch him on FOX with a new perspective. The face looks bland and innocent, but the words are weasel words. They can be taken more than one way, and they should be. The next time you hear him on Hannity, notice how he phrases things. He is not what he appears to be.

Reagan did best when he waded in and confronted those who did not like him.

Reagan understood the true meaning of turning the other cheek. When an aggressor throws the first punch it is with his strongest side. By turning the cheek the target places himself in a position to counter the follow up blow from the weaker side with his own strengths. When done in the best martial arts tradition the target can make a hulking aggressor look like a fool.

The left talks endlessly of compassion but the urban enclaves they have controlled for decades not only house the worst of the underclass but are spiraling into bankruptcy. Using that against them takes more than one speech before the NAACP.

A good VDH article, but such a downer. Our country is living through very dark times, and I don´t think we will recover in my lifetime.

As for the preezy, he has done such untold destruction to the country that I cannot think of one positive thing about the man.

Lastly, I do not think we are a center-right country anymore, we are not even the center-left one Victor mentioned, we are a far-left country now.

...and it is all very depressing.

Why doesn´t anyone on our side know how to play offense? I know the LSM is against us in a biiiiig way, but don´t we have anyone who can pivot and jab back?

The TEA Party is a lot of help, but the R´s aren´t sure that they even want the TEA Party. I do! We need bold LEADERS!

Please let´s dump the "racist, feminist" jabs somehow! Newt knows how. Get a hundred pounds off him and put him on the lecture circuit showing these sheep how to answer crooked lefties.

#44, I believe you because I have a pal who is (actually was) assisting with W´s library at SMU. She has known Karl and his ex-wife casually for years. She told me this before W´s first term was over and I found it hard to believe. I believe it now. He does lie.

Sorry VDH but Americans cannot and will not ever blame Obama for what he will visit upon us in the next few years. As I have furthered for years now, yes, they ARE that stupid and love it.