Tuesday June 30 | The Future of the Republican Party
June 26, 2009 at 2:33 pm | Posted in Coming Up | 16 Comments
The Republican Party has had a longstanding and powerful presence in North Carolina, but the past election cycle brought large scale defeats to the party, including Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory’s gubernatorial bid. There is also internal debate on who leads the party on a national level. We’ll speak with several prominent local Republicans on the future of the party in our region, the upcoming election cycle and who may emerge as the main leaders both here in North Carolina and on the national stage.
Guests
Tom Fetzer – Chairman, North Carolina Republican Party
Karen Bentley – County Commissioner, District 1
Mayor Pat McCrory – Mayor, Charlotte NC
16 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a reply to Charlie Cancel reply
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
Charlotte Talks 
One thing we know for sure. Moving to the center failed miserably. McCain was Democrat light. The left never moves center. They moved way way left…and won.
Comment by Gregg Smith— June 30, 2009 #
If republicans would focus less on social issues like “Gods, Guns and Gays’ and more focus on less gov’t, balanced budgets, less taxes and less spending they would be much more successful.
Comment by BJ— June 30, 2009 #
Can you have your guests: 1. evaluate the legacy of Ronald Reagan putting together the “modern GOP” as a coalition of fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and national defense conservatives and 2. how easy/difficult it is to garner all three different factions’ support for a presidential candidate? Thanks.
Comment by Mike— June 30, 2009 #
The problem with the Republican party (and the Democrats too), is that they forget that most Americans are willing to meet in the middle. When venomous rhetoric is the mainstay and people like Rush Limbaugh wind up as the “head” of the party you will lose the moderates and left leaning voter who may be interested in something other than the Democrat party. As a personal liberal but Independent voter I had planned to Vote for McCain. He lost me when he took a right turn and started embracing the religious rights agenda, Robin Hayes lost me when he chastised Liberals for being lazy, As A small business owner I’m not lazy. If Republicans want to regain strength across the US, not just the south, they need to stop bowing to a minority group of the religious right.
Comment by Bryan Mitchell— June 30, 2009 #
The bottom line for republicans is this: 1. Demographics in NC are changing and they don’t get it. People aren’t interested in the buzz words of “socialism” and the religion. President Obama is a Christian and a US Citizen. 2. Too white, too old, too male. Granted, they try to be diverse but aren’t there. The State got younger and the Country got younger but, republicans did not. 3. Confusing conservatism with being racist, anti-abortion, and bringing in religion. Birth control, prayer in schools. These are non-issues going forward. And bssides, on the social issues, people notice when a person who runs on “sound christian principles” such as family, purity, abstinance, et al gets caught as they really are. Sanford, Vitter, Gingrich, Craig, Foley. An “abstinance only” candidate with a pregnant daughter. Don’t say Democrats did it as well. It is the hypocracy that you beat the principles but are just a front and really don’t believe them.
Republicans are behind in technology and don’t have a leader. Boss Limbaugh has a very high negative number among voters under 30, a real growing group.
McCrory lost an election. Could not carry Mecklenburg county. Lost to someone who ran a campaign nearly as bad as Erskine Bowles, she may as well had someone say “vote for Pat.” Beverly is a much better Governor than campaigner.
I hope you folks follow the National lead and stay with socailism, pointing out that Obama is not who he says he is. Eight to 16 years of a Democrat President is a good thing.
Lord knows you folks did poorly the last eight.
One other thing, a survey pointed out that the two highest ranking states per capita in internet poronography subscriptions are Utah and Alaska. Go figure
Comment by Charlie— June 30, 2009 #
Not sure that you have asked Tom Fetzer about this quote from his acceptance speech —
>>We cannot move to the mushy middle, and we cannot tolerate mealy-mouthed candidates who do.<<
As a partisan Democrat, all I can say is…"THANKS TOM!"
Comment by Mike— June 30, 2009 #
The Republican Party’s biggest problem is that voters have gotten smarter. People vote on things that affect them directly, and not necessarily what candidates stand for. When I hear republicans talk now, you never hear them take onus for the last 8 years, and the effect of those 8 years on the average American. Blaming the person who’s trying to clean up the mess, especially since he’s only been in office such a short time, will hurt more than help then. If Obama improves things even slightly, it’ll still be better than the last 2 years, and the Democratic Party will become more popular for it. The buzz words and name-calling no longer work, gentlemen!
Comment by Timi Ayotunde— June 30, 2009 #
I am really tired of hearing about our sainted founding fathers who setup a white male organization that profited by using women and people of color to drive the engines.
Comment by Lorraine Hill— June 30, 2009 #
Yawnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Comment by TheEqualizer— June 30, 2009 #
As one of many African American, Charlotte citizen who supported Mayor McCrory, is there any interest in running for U.S. Senate 2010?
Comment by Mario— June 30, 2009 #
Republicans need a plan and need to develop ideas and solutions for the many challenges our country faces today. I don’t hear any republican solutions for the economy, the environment or health care. It seems like all they do is oppose democratic plans but offer no alternative.
Comment by BJ— June 30, 2009 #
The Republican party will be fine as long as it returns to it’s conservative roots. Most posters here want Republicans to morph into Pseudo-Democrats…that is the very problem with the party. Quit compromising principles.
Comment by TheEqualizer— June 30, 2009 #
I hope the Republican party takes yor advice. If so, the democrats will be even more popular in the coming elections. BTW: 46 year-old strait white male, voted for RR in’88, Bush 2 in ’04, and Mc Crory in 2008. I think you guys are living in the past. I hope that human society has gone beyond you range of thought.
It ain’t. But I can wish…
Comment by Andy Bumgarner— June 30, 2009 #
The Republicans have to step up and be the party that is firmly against illegal immigration as well as LEGAL mass-immigration and the outright legalization (‘amnesty’) of the unknown millions of them who broke our laws. That is a very contentious issue – however, most Americans DO NOT agree with amnesty! Again, you Republicans MUST be on the correct side of the immigration issue or else your political party will go down for good.
If the 10-15-20-? million illegal immigrants (no one knows how many are actually here) are eventually amnestied by the Obama Administration with the treacherous support of various Republicrats like McCain, at least 75% of those new Americans are clearly going to be voting permanently for the Democrats, as will their children who will stem from the large families that they have. That will mean that the USA will immediately revert to a one (1) party state as the Democrats become the permanent political majority – and the Republican Party will then be dissolved.
Demographics are destiny, and if you Republicans go along with the heinous attempt to grant amnesty to untold millions of illegal immigrants then your party deserves to go the way of the Whigs.
And just in case no one here has never read any of Pat Buchanan’s books on the importance of the ethnic/racial makeup of the USA and its relation to the socio-cultural, economic, and political system of the USA, you’d better start reading them NOW – http://patbuchananbooks.com – I especially recommend STATE OF EMERGENCY, THE DEATH OF THE WEST, and DAY OF RECKONING.
If we aren’t careful, the very bad direction that California (plus many other immigrant-heavy states) is heading in will become the grim norm across the USA, and the USA will as a result enter in to steep decline; read: http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-california-here-we-come-1585
Comment by Demographics = Destiny— June 30, 2009 #
I would like to get more clarification for why Tom Fetzer thinks having President Obama “exalt the virtues of Islam” is a bad thing. Does Mr. Fetzer believe that 1 billion followers of Islam do not deserve to be respected by a U.S. President?
How does Mr. Fetzer feel about North Carolina residents that are Muslims?
Comment by Moataz Eldib— July 1, 2009 #
[…] Tuesday June 30 | The Future of the Republican Party « Charlotte Blogs […]
Pingback by » NSN Daily Update 5/20/2009 helots— July 5, 2009 #