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Title: Republican Party is slipping into irrelevance as Sen. Arlen Specter and voters bail
Source:
NJVoices
URL Source: http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_pa ... lican_party_is_slipping_i.html
Published: Apr 30, 2009
Author: The Star-Ledger Editorial Board
Post Date: 2009-04-30 07:54:43 by HAPPY2BME-4UM
Keywords: SPECTER, GOV, IRRELEVANT, CRISIS
Views: 673
Comments: 48
Sen. Arlen Specter recently announced he is switching from the Republican to the Democratic party. Back in the Reagan era, the Republican Party advertised itself as a "big tent," a collection of conservatives, independents, recovering liberals, even Reagan Democrats. Today, by comparison, it's little more than a pup tent. Much is made of the Grand Old Party's latest evidence of shrinkage -- Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's defection to the Democrats. Too little is made of the fact that in Obama's Washington the GOP is increasingly irrelevant at a time of great crisis when a vibrant opposition voice is vital. It's not good for the country. One-party dominance has too often been a recipe for recklessness. The most alarming aspect of the GOP's steep decline is the seeming indifference of its elected leadership and its Greek chorus in the right-wing media. "Good riddance!" was the response of many to Specter's departure. Rush Limbaugh, Grand Poobah of conservative TV cacklers, even suggested Specter take Sen. John McCain out the door with him. A look at the map suggests this is not a party that can afford to lose anyone, even Sarah Palin. Recent elections have left it representing a bit of the farm belt and little more than the Old Confederacy; even there, it lost three of the Old South's four biggest states last year, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. Republicans are an endangered species all along the West Coast and have suffered grievous losses in the Midwest and the Middle Atlantic states and even in parts of their Rocky Mountain stronghold. In New England they're beyond endangered; they're all but extinct. There's no mystery why Republicans, like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat, are slowly disappearing, grinning as they do. It's their quest for ultra-conservative ideological conformity. As Specter put it: "They don't make any bones about their willingness to lose the general election if they can purify the party." He cited the purging of popular GOP moderates in party primaries in Rhode Island and New Mexico that led to Senate general election defeats. The party lacks the two things normally deemed essential to political success: nimble, attractive leaders and a message right for the times. Its Congressional leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner, have all the appeal of a pair of androids. The party chairman, Michael Steele, is working toward a black belt in malapropisms. And what damage Limbaugh doesn't do to the party image, Dick Cheney does. As toxic assets, they're a match for any held by Wall Street's most busted banks. But it's on the vital subject of message that the GOP is most clearly bankrupt. Its all-purpose cure for everything that ails the country is tax cuts and/or reduced government spending. That won't do; it might if times were good, but not now, with the economy on dead stop and needing a jolt. Moreover, the public is wise to the GOP's blanket opposition to the Obama program. A CBS News-NY Times poll reports that 70 percent of those surveyed believe the opposition is motivated primarily by politics, not principle. In time, GOP fortunes will rebound. But not without new leadership, new ideas, and a new welcome for viewpoints other than those of Rush Limbaugh. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham put it must pithily. "We have to find places in the party," he said, "for people who couldn't win in South Carolina."
Republican Party is slipping into irrelevance as Sen. Arlen Specter and voters bail
Posted by kheyboer April 30, 2009 05:33AM
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#4. To: HAPPY2BME-4UM (#0)
True, I tried to point this out to some people here but they put their hate for Bush above love of country. Nonsense! The reason the GOP has withered is because they have stopped being conservative. In 94 they owned it all, but didn't have the balls to do what needed to be done. Now we're paying the price. The author comes to the right conclusions, for the wrong reasons.
As someone who wants to speed the extinction of the GOPers, I certainly hope they take your advice to become MORE conservative. No one even knows what that means anymore, other than you can spot one by how he calls out everyone else with whom he disagrees in the entire world as "LIB'RULS" with a condescending sneer in his or her voice. What has come to be known during the last 30 years as the "conservative (bowel) movement" is actually the opposite of what the Founding Fathers were all about. Most of them would be Libertarians today. That "standing army" (and navy and air force) would be the first thing they'd get rid of. They'd also quit waging war on everything, up to and including most inanimate objects (e.g., "drugs"). There'd be no room for banksters running the government either. In fact, there would be no central bank--period. Reagan had some libertarian tendencies, but he let a combination of the Hamiltonian central banker types like the Rockefellers and Bushes and the authoritarian, militaristic Southern fundamentalists (who are truly Orwellian when they say they are for "freedom") take over the party. These two factions were naturally at odds with one another, but their marriage of convenience lasted longer than anyone could have ever believed possible. And now the country is destroyed. It ain't coming back. But neither are the GOPers.
No, the capital-L Libertarian party will have nothing to do with racists. Virtually every prominent American prior to about 1950 was by today's standards an unrepentant white supremacist.
That's a good point and one I had not considered. However, some of them had misgivings about the institution of slavery from the beginning. It's just that the slave-holders from down South were so heavily represented among the founders that it couldn't be addressed early on.
There are no replies to Comment # 25. End Trace Mode for Comment # 25.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestOne-party dominance has too often been a recipe for recklessness.
There's no mystery why Republicans, ..... are slowly disappearing, ..... It's their quest for ultra-conservative ideological conformity.
#8. To: Flintlock (#4)
#24. To: Sam Houston (#8)
Most of them would be Libertarians today.
#25. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#24)
Replies to Comment # 25.