Should we just retreat?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

First of all:

Club For Growth's greatest hits:

MD-01
ID-01
MI-07
AZ-05
LA-06 special election
NM Senate

Phil I'd take a lesson from what your pal Toomey has done.

Second of all:

Phil is right about don's hackery, anyone Democrat's inanity in defending him on it, and perhaps most of all, the absolutely idiotic way don includes Bush and Bill Frist among his "moderates". It's beyond amusing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Club For Growth's greatest hits:
NM Senate

Do you seriously think Heather Wilson would have even had a prayer in hell at winning this?

Exactly. She would have done just as badly.

OK fine. So how about the rest?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes, and see what happened with the other purging of moderates I mentioned before (which Phil completely ignored to focus on only one example.) Wasn't Phil one of the big cheerleaders for ousting Gilchrist? LOL.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wasn't Phil one of the big cheerleaders for ousting Gilchrist? LOL.

More of your blatant lying. I made it a point to say that I had no real problems with Gilchrist. My problems with him came after the fact, when he started whining about not winning and endorsed the Dem.

Now admit that you are wrong.

You did say when the results were coming in that you would've voted for Harris.

You keep dodging the main point though, which is that the Club For Growth has cost you a ton of seats. Nominate Gilchrist and he wins in a walk. Then look at the CfG candidates who won in 2006 in ID-01 and MI-07 and what happened the Dems got their act together against them. Those seats would be safe if the CfG didn't fight to install nutjobs in them.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You did say when the results were coming in that you would've voted for Harris.

Ok...so...how does that make me a big supporter of ousting Gilchrist?

Come on. You can do it. Just admit that you're wrong. I wasn't a big supporter of ousting Gilchrist.

OK you were a supporter, not a big supporter. Is this the dumbest semantic argument ever?

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You mentioned five seats (not counting the NM U.S. Senate seat that we would have lost anyway). That equals a ton?

It's seats you had no business losing, and how many has the Club for Growth won for you? On a whole the CfG is obviously hurting the Republican Party.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For the record it's amusing how Phil claims to not be an extremist and just a mainstream conservative, but love the Club for Growth who focus on not electing mainstream conservatives but rather people like Bill Sali.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The thing is this though, it was a three-way race. The third candidate was a conservative from the Eastern Shore, who would've likely won.

Basically there was a race between a centrist from the right part of the district politically, a mainstream conservative from the right part of the district politically, and a far right-winger (From what I read, Harris was possibly the single most conservative member of the Maryland Senate and was frequently on the losing end of XX-1 votes.) from the the wrong part of the district politically. And who does the CfG back? They NEVER take electability or pragmatism into account.

Also why the CfG doesn't really actively recruit candidates, they did sort of take the first approach by hinting that they would back a challenger to Gilchrest and thus attract one who might not have ran otherwise. The CfG frequently issues "RINO Watch" type stuff and hitlists to attract people they then fund. They tried the same thing against Walter Jones too but failed (Kind of amusing they went after a guy who endorsed Ron Paul, but then again, neither Paul or Jones is the type of economic conservative the CfG likes.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

OK you were a supporter, not a big supporter. Is this the dumbest semantic argument ever?

I really didn't care and no, it's not a semantic argument. You said I was a big advocate for replacing Gilchrist. You're wrong and you refuse to admit it.

Even if it wasn't one of your big concerns, here's what it comes down to: Who would you have voted for in that primary if you lived in the district?

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I don't know exactly how many they won. I haven't been obsessed with it as much as some.

The answer is none, the CfG has really only backed the more electable candidate once (AK-AL) and in that case they lost and held the seat anyway. There's reason why Alaska was basically the only time ever the CfG and RSCC or NRCC were on the same side.

Yeah, we have no business losing some of them. Maybe the crybaby primary losers endorsing the Dems should be partly to blame.

OK, blame Gilchrest there, but there's still the others I mentioned.

For the record it's amusing how Phil claims to not be an extremist and just a mainstream conservative, but love the Club for Growth who focus on not electing mainstream conservatives but rather people like Bill Sali.

Oh, you want to get owned on this one again?

BRTD, tell me how I'm an extremist. Give me the issues. You're obviously hinting at me being an extremist in your comment. You know it isn't true so you use some half assed connection to prove it.

You're missing the point, which is that the CfG doesn't even represent your own interests by what you claim.

I was never a fan of Sali but that doesn't mean every conservative that the Club endorses is extreme. Not surprising that you are being disingenuous yet again. A+ for effort, Zach.

Uh yeah. Please give me an example where the CfG didn't back the biggest right wing nutjob possible. See my post above too for a great example.

And please don't argue that Toomey wasn't extreme. His ratings from conservative advocacy groups were usually >95 and his ratings from liberal advocacy groups was usually <5.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Doesn't really contradict my argument (maybe it wasn't worded well), which is basically that a little more clarity about what they themselves are would, you know, help them.

They don't just go after safe seats though. Rhode Island 2006 comes to mind. Sure that seat was lost anyway but they were still trying to remove a guy who did have a chance of winning and would've done better without the damaging campaign against him and would've even been the favorite in any normal political climate in favor of a guy who had no chance in hell of winning under any circumstances.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

CFG does do some good things, like this:
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2008/08/new_ad_in_alaska.php


Parnell would have been more electable than Young

I mentioned that as the exception.

One exception does not disprove the rule.