I can't believe, after saying that the party is too ideologically narrow, that he'd turn around and try to prevent his gay friends from getting married. Meanwhile a large majority of New Yorkers favor lifting the prohibition on gay couples. (And Rudy's on how many wives now, three? Nice way to support the sanctity of marriage.)

If this is his idea of not alienating voters, he might want to go back to the drawing board.

Here's a simple question:
In his last election, what kind of majority did Rush Limbaugh win by? Was it a landslide, or was it a close election? Hm?

I've been a Republican for almost 29 years, and it's becoming more and more difficult to stay with the party. I've already stopped contributing to the RNC, but I still give to my state and local GOP parties. I feel totally disconnected from the national party. Or, should I say, I feel the national party is totally disconnected from me.

I'm tired of the RNC using the same handful of hot-topic issues in an attempt to fire up a certain constituency. During the last campaign, I received a call from the RNC, and the canvasser told me that we needed raise funds to stop the brainwashing of college students by the Liberals.

Brainwashing?

I asked if any of the money would also be used to stop the brainwashing of college students but the far-right fringe? I guess it wasn't what the caller was ready to answer, so he just plowed ahead with a litany of social ills that would befall this country if we elected Obama.

Uh, don't we still have a Congress to balance out any real harm a President could do? I mean, maybe I'm being naive, but I thought that this country wasn't run by one person.

A broader party would pull in the talents of many people, right, center-right, center, center-left, left, and yes, those pesky RINOs the RNC would have us believe are as real as unicorns. A too narrow base leaves alot of talent, wisdom and experience outside the process.

Those of us in the middle need to stop crying and whimpering over why the rest of the party won't let us in.
It's "our" party, not just "their" party.

I have been holding onto my Republican affiliation by my fingernails for the past 15 or so years, since the Gingrich Republican Revolution brought the religious/social extreme Conservatives into real legislative power, followed by the eight disastrous years of the Bush administration.

Lately, the actions of Congressional Republicans in responding to the economic crisis just about pushed me over the edge...to the point that I started drafting an essay entitled 'Why I'm Leaving the Republican Party.' But I continue to hang onto a sliver of hope that the RLC might show some sign of pulling the Party back from the Limbaugh dictatorship of the lunatic minority.

A small but significant sign might be to remove the photos of Mr. Bush from the website masthead, which I was distressed to still see when I signed back in after an absence of a couple of months. Perhaps some photos of past Republican leaders who were more in tune with the goals of the RLC, such as Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and the last good Republican president we've had, Jerry Ford, would project a better visual of 'the mission.'

I've decided to hang on a bit longer, but our Party has made a true hash of things over the past eight years, and the ideologues now continue to keep digging rather than come up with constructive ideas to get out of the hole. The current leadership gave up any moral authority to claim a legacy of fiscal responsibility after signing Mr. Bush's blank checks for the past eight years. Trying now to vandalize the Obama administration's repair efforts in a frantic search for relevancy can only make matters worse.

The recent actions shown by a distressingly few moderate Republicans to partner with the Administration and have some creative input to the process illustrate the only rational approach to a long journey back.

'True' Republicans are going to have to begin more openly and aggressively repudiating the Limbaughs, Coulters, Hannitys, et al, as well as the Dobsons, Perkins's and their ilk. They're the ones who should go off and form their own party...not 'us.'

You can sign me:
The Cape Curmudgeon

This is just getting worse instead of better. Watching Rush Limbaugh not only crown himself the "spokesman" for the party but successfully cow the RNC chairman is sickening. The time is coming when we need a third party representing mainstream Republican values, not this....

In light of the recent CPAC - Limbaugh love in, Giuliani's words ring truer than before. The GOP, in it's current state is irrelevant nationally. As long as the religious right and the neo-cons hold sway the GOP will continue to shrink in appeal, leaving only the rabid base. Hopefully Limbaugh's speech was not the re-energizing of the conservatives and by extension the GOP but rather the last gasp of a perverted 'conservatism' and real conservatism will ultimately emerge. Until then, I can handle some time in the wilderness.

This strong emphasis on re-energizing the "base" of the party is off-track. The problem is not a matter of firing up the base, the real problem lies in how they are defining the base. As long as they continue to align themselves with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, the Republican brand will be attractive only to a narrow group of religious conservatives and extremist idealogues. It's all very disappointing when you think of what could be accomplished if the party leadership were to focus more on inclusion instead of exclusion.

I think Christie Whitman should run for President in 2012. She would be an amazing candidate. Maybe even the next Ronald Reagan. We need intelligence back in the Republican party and she will bring it.

For 8 years, my Republican party drove this country far away from GOP values and left us stranded, way off the main road.

As a life long Republican, I voted the straight Democratic ticket as a way to stop my party from doing even further damage.

Look who's driving this bus now!

This may not be your favorite highway but there are always several roads that will get you to your final destination.

Obama is driving the bus now simply because his ideas are better than anything the GOP could come up with in the whole past decade.

It is now his responsibility to get us back on the road to progress and prosperity.

My suggestion to the GOP; stop criticizing the man that is trying to fix what you all screwed up.

If he is so wrong and so far off base; then stop your crying at the back of the bus, roll your sleeves up, work your way to the front of the bus, and show us some brilliant ideas that will make us want to put you back in the driver’s seat.

If you can't be the best bus driver, then please shut up and sit down; because no one likes a back seat driver.

"[Democrats] focused on their broadest organizing principles, and left room for disagreement, whereas we focused on our narrowest organizing principles and didn't leave room for disagreement."

boediger

Another organization of International Bankers. Don't you have enough already?

Republicans lost the election because you pissed away tens of millions of jobs so international bankers (and Chinese Communists) can make a few more dimes. When people lose good jobs and are thrown into poverty it tends to tick them off, you should take note.

When Governor Giuliani said we have to run "candidates who are more centrist on social issues like gay rights and abortion, while maintaining a stronger focus on fiscal, military, and foreign policy stances" he was exactly correct. The Republican Party has to be fiscally conservative and socially inclusive. Unfortunately, it has moved so far to the right socially that moderate Republicans feel it is no longer their party. That's why groups like the Republican Leadership Council are so important. Without them fighting to regain some balance in the Republican Party, the RNC will remain lost and out of touch with the majority of Americans.

Absolutely; it is time for a GOP wilderness. We did 40 years before, perhaps that will have to happen again.

I agree, but it isn't just that. Republicans lost the American people's trust. Too many people associated Republicans with corruption and incompetence from the Iraq war being mishandled to Hurricane Katrina. We need to let the Democrats make big mistakes, which they will, and then build on that. Until then unfortuntately we will have to quietly oppose them. It is pretty sad that Democrats are being portrayed as tax cutters because Republicans used to have that title of less government. Although I think Eric Cantor should be a rising star among the Republicans because he seems to have knowledge on this issue which many Republicans seem to have forgotten.