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So the rightwing loons really have taken over the party. Even the congressional Republicans who have been fighting Obama tooth and nail aren’t conservative enough for the party base.
So what does this mean?
It means that the GOP’s congressional leaders cannot take any steps toward accommodation with Obama. Leaders who advocate such action will be pushed aside and replaced by party leaders willing to do what the base wants – obstruct everything Obama does.
This increases the odds that universal health care will require a budget reconciliation process to pass.
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The growing mass of centrist ex-Republicans will be prime pickings for Obama, who has already had great success in winning centrists over. Two trends which show up in poll after poll, is that as the GOP shrinks, the number of independents is exploding, and they have leaned heavily toward Obama, both of which are really bad signs for the GOP.
The GOP obstruction of Obama’s legislative program, and continued defections by moderates (or expulsions), will reinforce the loony right’s control of the party, and continue the shrinkage of the party. That hurts voter turnout, organizing, fundraising, everything.
With a smaller, more extremist party, the few remaining Republican candidates will have to tack to the right to win primaries for Senate and House seats in 2010. This increases the odds that the general election voters, who don’t want to go to the right, will vote for Democratic candidates. So the GOP takes a whuppin’.
2012, same thing. The very Republicans who could be competitive in a general election for the presidency – Crist, Huntsman etc – are the guys who will be destroyed when they face GOP primary voters. Their presidential nominee will be from the Gingrich/Palin Axis – and will lose 30-40 states.
The last time the GOP was this screwed up was in 1910. The party was split between the supporters of Taft, who did what the party base wanted, mostly but not all the time, and Teddy Roosevelt, who was fed up with the crimes and outrages of Taft’s Wall Street masters and wanted to move to the center. The result: both men ran for the presidency in 1912, and Wilson won easily. The GOP’s official candidate, Taft, came in third. Third!
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http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics2/69_of_gop_voters_say_republicans_in_congress_out_of_touch_with_the_party_base
11 comments:
Well, in your facetiousness, you actually come close to describing an emerging situation - check out the new independent moview "How the Independent Movement Went Left By Going Right" (www.independentvoting.org/video) which talks about how the independent movement's growth from the Perot days to present, and yes, Lenora Fulani is an important protagonist in that story.
Gwen
gmandell@cuip.org
It also depends on how you defend left and right.
For a while, every time you'd log onto one of those "how liberal are you?" quizzes, you'd find that the whole thing was slanted with a heavy emphasis on wedge issues that are only important to the loony right. So that sort of thing is useless as a barometer.
Some third parties are a bit like that: like evangelicals, they have their own narrow list of key issues they worry about.
Also hazardous is trying to categorize yourself in broad philosophical terms, in such a way as to make the distinction meaningless: "I'm a conservative, I believe in limited government and I hate activist judges" etc. So does limited government mean Reaganesque tax cuts? Does it mean supporting Roe v Wade? Do we want judges to be active in supporting Roe, or active in restricting it?
As for Fulani -- she has always been all over the place. If you laid her end to end, she'd point in all directions.
Obama is one of the few guys who doesn't give a crap. He'll piss off the left one day, piss off the right the next day, and not even keep score. After eight years of boneheaded rightwing "philosophers" destroying the country, Obama's all about making good decisions and leaving philosophy to the priests.
Its a bunch of garbage to put down Fulani because she doesn't fit into some preconceived notion of which beliefs on certain issues SHOULD be attached to other positions. Most people don't fit into cookie cutter conceptions of any political label.
And of course it depends on how you define left and right, or anything for that matter. If you ask someone a question regarding where they stand politically, they're not going to ramble on for an hour giving you the finer points of what they think on every issue under the sun do you know precisely where they stand (well... I will if you ask, but most people wont, haha).
I worked my tail off for Obama... hell, I founded Omaha for Obama, took over a floundering Nebraska for Obama for a time and formed Yes We Can Nebraska, but I don't hold the illusion that he's transpartisan, independent or doesn't keep score. He shows every indication of being extremely calculating and effective politician, and falling somewhere in the middle of the Democratic coalition philosophically. Just because we're used to truly extreme neoconservative rule doesn't mean Obama doesn't have an agenda that is shaped by a particular ideology.
If you're selling the Democratic party in Nebraska, you must be a real trouper. This is exactly what Obama and Dean wanted -- to get out there into the heartland and find those people who never voted Democratic just because no one bothered to ask them to.
As for Fulani -- I'm not knocking her because she's not a stereotypical partisan politician. She is, however, a bit of a kook.
I can't comment on Fulani's sanity, heheh, although I respect her long time commitment to advocating for independents.
Yeah, well I'm even more of a trooper since I am pushing for independent politics in Nebraska, heheh. I tried to stick it out with the Dems, as well as the Reps a few years previous, but just couldn't fall in line enough to be welcomed there. My support for Obama stands because he is quite simply the best candidate that was out there. I've sat out presidential politics since McCain (version 1.0) lost to Bush in '99.
Want to post an article here, from the independent perspective (or any other)?
Kind of an uber novice blogger... I make lots of long comments but have only written a handful of guest blogs myself (I think thats what they're called right? heheh).
But yeah, I'd be glad to write an article here. Do you have a particular subject in mind?
Pick your poison.
I should be able to have something passable cooked up sometime tomorrow.
I can't seem to find a way to send you a private message on here, or find your email address. Can you shoot me an email at solomon.kleinsmith@gmail.com so I can run my rough idea past you?
Check your mail!
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