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Decision Time
Though I may regret it, I’ve decided to join “other moderates to apply some much-needed CPR to the GOP, wresting it from the hands of those who have practically killed it.” This morning at Central Sanity, I explain why.
34 Responses to “Decision Time”
There is no realistic method of recesitate the Republicans because there are just not enough middle class and blue collar whites left around who would even be willing to vote Republican.
The real question to face is how will the U.S. function as a one party state? How do you build in checks and balances with a one party state?
If progressive really support checks and balances, then now is the time to start building in checks and balances that do not depend upon the two party system.
Bravo to you Pete for getting involved in the Republican Leadership Council.
For the large number of conservative districts throughout the country they may play a role in encouraging more moderate candidates.
Pete:
When are folks like you gonna learn? The Rs and Ds are far beyond hope. Even if you purge the religious fanatics, you’ll still be a bend over boy to the money men.
Third party. Until sane moderates get it thru their heads that you need 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 parties for a true democracy, the pendulum of slow political suicide will continue.
I too applaude you, Pete. But at the risk of seeming to be intemperate, where have you and other GOPs of your persuasion been during the last six years?
There has been a vigorous (if sometimes inane) debate about what the Democratic Party is and should be that has been going on for years. Why has there been nothing comparable on the Republican side until after so much damage has been done? Allegiance to the king? Fear of being cast out of the Big Tent?
Shaun: Nader’s had it right for many years, the Ds are R’s Lite. That’s why both will have to go. Neither party does a damned thing unless it’s a crisis, and both kowtow to their worst extremes.
That’s why, as with the even more extreme views of Fascism and Communism, they are alwyas likely to meet on the dark side of the globe on all issues.
I can’t speak for the others Shaun, but for me the answer is pretty simple and shameful: myopic apathy . I was caught up in the goings on of my little corner of the world and didn’t care much for what happened elsewhere. Crossing the age 40-threshhold forced me to re-think this limited view and start to ask myself: Have I made a difference? Have I contributed to something bigger than me? What am I going to do with the second-40, if I’m lucky enough to live that long. Hopefully, involvement is better late than never.
I agree with you, cosmoetica, but I don’t think we can ever have 3, 4, 5, 6 parties unless we first maintain 2 parties, and my fear now is that superdestroyer may be right: We may be on the verge of a one-party system, which would be a step in the wrong direction.
What’s more, I have closely watched and studied the history of efforts to create a viable third party, and frankly, they’ve been stifled at every turn. Why? I think it’s because the American people just don’t care about the number of parties and they largely believe the current system, with all its flaws, works “well enough,” though they might think differently if it boils down to one party.
Certainly, we could debate all of that, but until there’s populist passion for a third-party fix, I fear it would be wasted energy. And I’d rather devote my energy in the short time here to holding the line against a one-party system.
Pete:
What a refreshing response!
Given your candor, you are going to make a difference.
Pete,
The Republicans do not have any credibility on any issue that could be used to stage some sort of comeback. The Republicans have been lousy conservatives and cannot campaign on fiscal responsbility, good management, cutting government, or anything else.
There is also no issue that will ever help the Republicans increase their support from blacks, hispanics, asians, jews, gay, government employees. There is just not enough private sector employed middle class white voters for the Republicans to be able to build a competative party.
For fiscal conservatives and limited government advocates (such as myself), this quote from Brink Lindsey at the Cato@Liberty Blog nails it:
Problem being, that Brink draws the wrong conclusion from this assertion, and implies that this is an argument for libertarians to support Democrats. For 2008, the opposite is true. There is no way for the Dems to lose either house of Congress in ’08, so the only way to maintain divided government is to elect a Republican for President in ’08. Pete is taking the right approach. The best way to save the Republican party is to take it back from the right-wing fringe that is so over-represented in the blogosphere.
I am a registered Democrat, but will be contributing, working actively, and putting my blog in support of a Republican presidential candidate for this very reason. The key is the primaries, and getting an electable Republican nominated. to clarify by example – Newt (WWIII) Gingrich is not electable.
My preference is Chuck Hagel, but I could get behind Giuliani or McCain if I have to. The Republican party needs help, but is not terminal.
One last note – I categorically reject superdestroyer’s “race is destiny / only race matters” worldview. Such a notion is anti-intellectual and counter to anyone who believes that ideas really matter.
If you feel there is a death knell for the R’s, you are as mistaken as those who felt, after 9/11 and 2004, that the Ds were through.
This is always the same nonsense: ‘We need to save the party.’ BS- one or the other must die, like the Whigs.
And while I agre that Americans are generally lazy and do more talking than walking, that does not exculpate your decision to become an apparatchik, for, when a few million of you choose such a fate, you will resuscitate the Rs, and the whole cycle will kick in again.
Reading such rationales, one may as well go to an AA meeting.
Moderation is borne of stability, whereas fanaticism comes from one or two parties. Just as a chair is more stable with four legs than three, so are political systems less susceptible to idiocy when fragmented and compromise is a necessity.
Shaun:
‘What a refreshing response!’
That’s like telling a boozer to forget his troubles with a bottle of JD, sheesh!
cosmoetica,
Each to his own. Live and let live. Life goes on.
cosmoetica,
Anyone who thought that the Democrats were dead in 1994, or 2000, or 2004 were idiots who just could not look at demographic trends. I have read exerpts from books bout the permanent Republican majority and they even admitted that the Republicans had no chance of getting black or Hispanic voters. I suspect that such books were written by white liberal private school elites who believe that all democrats are like those they meant in Chevy Chase Maryland. They seem to forget that almost 50% of the votes received by Al Gore in 200 came from non-whites.
One of the reasons for the total collapse of the Republicans in 2006 was Karl Rove’s short sighted pursuit of the Hispanic vote at the expense of economic conservative middle class whites. President Bush believes in open borders, amnesty for illegal immigration, and pandering to Hispanic because Karl Rove told the president to believe in it. Karl Rove believes that he could isolate the Hispanic vote while maintain the white middle class suburban vote and history has shwon that Rove was dead wrong. The percentage of Hispanics voting Democratic went up in 2006 but the white middle class started leaving the Republicans.
SD-Sorry but- you sound like you view the Republican party as some outreach of the KKK. The Republican party as the last vestige of the white Christian male probably will die out, that’s why it has to evolve into a new identity. Political parties have evolved throughout history- remember it was the Democratic South who enforced Jim Crow and resisted integration, and the Republican North who brought in the Reconstruction era which put many newly-freed minorities into office.
We have seen that right-wing dominance doesn’t work in the real world, mostly because it governed in an authoritarian way which ended up annoying the other 2/3 of the population including indies, moderate Republicans and libertarians. Bush is unpopular because he makes no attempt to appeal to the 2/3 who do not make up his political base. There’s no reason that the Republican party cannot experience a rebirth, and move back to its traditional roots.
kritter,
John Kerry in 2006 received the same percentage of the black vote that McGovern received in 1972. That is a stretch of 34 years when the black vote did not budge a bit. If you look at the 2006 returns, they come in for Democrats at 90% for blacks, 90% for jews, 85% for gays, 70% for Hispanics and 65% for Asians. I do not see anything that the Republicans could do that would make those numbers budge while not alienating the white middle class social conservatives.
All elections are basically about turning out your base and fighting over the 10% of the voters who will split between parties. That 10% is virtually all white, middle and upper middle classes and live in the suburbs. The problem for the Republicans is that elections used to over 20% of the voters but since whites as a percentage of the popualtion are shrinking, the number of swing voters (whites) is also shirnking.
Anyone who claims that the Republicans can make a comeback should take a look at Mass. The Republican party there is irrelevent and has no chance of making a comeback.
Just because you can’t see something does not mean it is not there. Just because you are near-sighted does not mean that everyone else is. I will paraphrase and repeat here my response to your similar comments on my blog:
You are claiming that one’s skin color, religion, or sexual orientation absolutely determines political party affiliation. Not philosophical ideas, not political vision, not economic self-interest – only color and creed matter according to you. You are just flat wrong. Nothing is set in political stone. For decades the Solid South was dependably Democratic. Now the South is dependably Republican. People will vote out of group identity, but will also vote out of ideology and economic self-interest. As any group moves up the economic scale, their politics inevitably change.
To use your categories, Hispanics, Gays, Blacks, Jews, Asians want the identical American Dream that every other American wants – an opportunity to build a better life for themselves and their family. Ever hear of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” ? That is at the core of what all Americans want. That is the American dream, and it resides in Americans of all color, creed and sexual preference.
To the degree that the Republican Party can once again be identifed with that ideal (as opposed to the Party that wants to use big government to tell people how to live their lives, or fight elective wars), to exactly that degree the Republican party will begin to pick up suppport in all those groups. Republicans don’t need majorities in these categories, they just need more support than they get now. It is there for the taking. But not unless the party gets back its fiscal conservative, limited government, “live and let live” principled roots.
mw
Political actions show that demograhic groups whether blacks, whites, the elderly, or suburbanites have very different ideas of what the “American Dream” is and how to obtain it. A majority of blacks support reparations. Virtually all blacks support racial quotas and set asides. yet, the majority of American do not support such race based solutions. Even if the Republicans started supporting Reparations, racial set asides, and a government job for every black, I doubt that the percentage of blacks that vote republican would go up. It may even do down because the free market blacks would abandon them while no afro-centric black would vote for them.
I am using the term demographic correctly. If you look at the 2004 3-d map of country results in the presidential election, you will see that demographics affect election results much more than issues or personalities. In the counties where the Democrats won the majority, the generally crush the Republicans because those are the countries with the fewest middle class whites and the counties with virtually no blue collar whites.
I would say that the lack of blue collar whites is a better indication of the politics of any county in the U. S. than virtually any other indicator. A county that lack blue collar whites is a country with a very high minority population and is usually coupled with rich whites who can afford to isolate themselves from the majority-minority populations. See NYC, DC, LA, SF, Chicago, etc.
There is almost no county in the United States where the Republicans crush the Democrats. Why? because no matter how the Republicans dominate Texas or Alabama, there is still the black and hispanic populations that overwhlemingly vote Democratic. The south did not swtich from Democrat to Republican in the 1970′s. It was middle class and blue collar whites in the south that changed. All the other ethnic groups stayed the same.
Look at the buzzwords used by the current Democratic candidates. Does anyone doubt that when the black and hispanic population where John Edwards say “Tax increases on the Rich” what they hear is “Tax increases on whites.”
If you look at the birthrates of blacks and hispanics and coule it with the voting patterns on new U.S. citizens who immigrated from outside of Europe, there is no foreseeable strategy that the Republicans can use to be competative in most elections in the future.
If you also look at the current data that 18-25 y/o are the most Democratic Group in the U.S. as an age group, it becomes easy to see that the Republican pipeline for producing new candidates is probably going to dry up.
You can talk all you want in flowery phrases about “The American Dream” but in the end, there is just not going to be enough middle class white people around who will comtemplate voting Republican for the Republicans to be relevent to the future of American.
“…in the end, there is just not going to be enough middle class white people around … ” – supe
You choose your words carefully, but I suspect we are getting closer to the real core of your beliefs with this snippet. You use the word “demographics” as if it is a synonym for race. It is not. At best, your thesis ignores other demographic categories, such as age, economic status, population growth/density etc. At worst, you using the word to obfuscate a narrow race-based view of the world. I don’t know what is in your mind, but there are those in this country who believe that white America is somehow more American than non-white America. I don’t share that view.
SD- If you no longer appeal to a large enough segment of the population to win elections, than your party needs to learn to reach out to new groups of voters. The GOP thought it had it made by pandering to evangelicals, big business and Reagan conservatives. This coalition held pretty well for a while- actually the organization of GOP voter drives is pretty admirable, but split when the libertarians realized that the agenda was being driven by the RR, and the fiscal conservatives realized that the chief executive had no interest in smaller government. The coalition must be reformed, as the government is only pleasing 1/3 of the population. Not every candidate plays to the base—-Bush chose to , and in doing so became extremely polarizing and unpopular with everyone else. You can play to the base in primaries, but if you govern to the base, everyone else will want you out of office. That is precisely what happened here.
SD- people predicted the demise of the Republicans during the Great Depression and WW2- then came Ike. After ’64 and Goldwater, they were dead. Then came Vietnam, which led to Nixon, and after Watergate, the R’s were left for dead. Then came Reagan and the Iran hostage crisis.
Same unexpected results have led to resurgent D’s. You are following the fallacy of uninterrupted trends. Your view is also ahistoric.
A bad Democrat, if they win in 2008, could mean a ‘New R’ in 2012, and that’s the very point of why Pete’s choice is so damned depressing. In reality, he’s lost all hope- if he ever had it, of starting something new and better. He’d rather be an apparatchik. His right, of course, but depressing as hell. And, given your rationales, equally as depressing in other ways.
This is why this carousel of political incompetence keeps on a-whirring. Enjoy the ride, but don’t blame anyone but yourself for the vertigo and vomit to come.
cosmoetica,
Merriam Webster’s online dictionary offers this definition of apparatchik … “a blindly devoted official, follower, or member of an organization (as a corporation or political party).”
I assume that’s the definition you intended when you said I’d rather be an apparatchik. However, truth be told, I never want to be “a blindly devoted” anything. To the contrary: I see my decision to join the effort to “save the GOP” as the polar opposite of blind devotion. I see it as standing up against the blind devotion of the past in order to return the party to viability. Nor do I accept your belief that the party is bound to revive itself, regardless of what’s done by people like me, due to the precedent of short-term historical cycles.
Taking a more substantive slice of history, it’s painfully clear that parties rise and fall and disappear all the time. No party is guaranteed re-invention unless members push that re-invention. Will my joining such an effort make the critical difference between success and failure? I doubt it — and it would be terribly vain to think I could make such a difference. But I’d also be remiss not to do my part.
Finally, please don’t take this decision as permanent. Nothing in life is, nor should it be. In fact, once I feel the GOP is on firmer ground, the chances are very good that I will shift focus to support the creation of other parties, because as I said earlier on in this exchange, I agree with you that a diversity of parties (more than one and more than two) is the healthiest situation of all. That said, despite your assessment of my decision as “depressing,” I really do appreciate you commenting here and challenging all of us to think beyond conventional lines on these issues.
Merriam Webster’s online dictionary offers this definition of apparatchik … “a blindly devoted official, follower, or member of an organization (as a corporation or political party).�
I’m 42, and I believe you are older. If in that time you still have not learned that the Ds and Rs cannot be saved, and want to ‘save’ them, the definition fits, even if you bristle at the fitting. It reminds me of some of the ‘lesser’ animals in Animal farm, claiming their priority as the Pigs rule.
I’m not attacking you, just your mentality, and the fact that no one seems to really say fuck both parties. Start anew. Take on the burden if you care so much. I don’t and have not the time. Years ago I worked in a Democratic club and on some campaigns, but lost interest when my views, and others, were steamrollered w.o even a chance to publicly dissent.
The system is not broken and cannot be fixed. It is a fine tuned machine that resists ALL change. It just swings back and forth. The unforeseen of Bush;s stealing 2000 and then 9/11 have given us this hegemony, or else we’d have had fifteen years of D rule.
As for your brlief that the Rs cd disappear- as w SD, that’s ahistoric. It’s 150 years since a party died in this country. Since then it’s been Coke and Pepsi, D & R. And as w soft drinks, those who consume them get fatter and lazier, and that’s just how the soda barons of politics want it.
A few years ago, after Kerry, I was hoping that the Ds wd die. They didn’t. I’d like to see the Rs die. They won’t. But, nothing of consequence will happen. America doesn’t care for change, lest- 35 years after the first Arab Oil Crisis, we’d be on alternate fuels and not in Iraq.
Let’s see a multi-party system here, in the process fracturing the two major parties, and then have proportional representation in the House and approval voting in the Senate.
Until then — what reform? All the Dims need to do is wait until the Boomers are all hooked on entitlements as they retire (or earlier, if Medicare can be extended to all).
Or we can annex Canada, and thereby ensure Democratic control of the USA earlier.
> Nader’s had it right for many years, the Ds are R’s Lite
Backwards. The Rs are all to often Ds Lite, particularly the notorious northeastern Rs and some RINOs elsewhere, many of whom already should be Ds.
> all to often Ds Lite
All too, too often Ds Lite.
The “leaders” so far for the GOP for President in 2008 — they’re Blue.
Superdestroyer wrote:
> President Bush believes in open borders,
> amnesty for illegal immigration, and
> pandering to Hispanic because Karl Rove
> told the president to believe in it.
1. There’s more to it than that, but the first point here is that so many in the GOP hope that with Hispanics, the new, growing minority group, that they can be made “the GOP’s minority group” rather than another Democratic minority group. This despite the liberalism of the Democratic Party and the obvious place where the majority of support for immigrants, notably illegal immigrants, comes from: the Left and the Democratic Party.
The GOP hopes Hispanics will vote GOP, but I believe Hispanics vote Democratic by a predictably solid margin, 2/3 or 2:1 in favor of their obvious source of support.
2. Open borders? Amnesty for illegal immigration? Business, the GOP’s main special interest, wants it that way. Keeps wages and other costs down, don’t you know.
For every Rudy, there’s 5 Liebermans. Far more DINOs than RINOs.
It’s relatively easy to see and commend Pete for his decision. There is no reason to begin to think that the Dem’s will have only the populations best interests and wishes at heart.
A party in the majority, especially in the super majority will enact laws to help them stay within that majority or super majority. That’s when they turn to their own radical base.
In an electoral system like ours third or fourth parties don’t stand a chance. Lacking proportional representation of some kind the argument that they can’t get any influence is true and therefore successful in persuading many people, myself included that voting for a third party in the current political environment would only mean that the wrong person would wind up in office.
I’m not attacking you, just your mentality, and the fact that no one seems to really say fuck both parties.
I’ve already said it (well, not using those “exact” words). I’ve grown tired of the two-party-system and the black-white with no shades of gray type logic that it has fueled.
Unfortunately, all too many American (including moderates), are all to willing to vote for the lesser of two evils (or the evil of two lessers).
Democrats and Republicans each only represent about a third of the American people. If the remaining third would vote for a third party or independent candidate, the Democrats and Republicans would have reason to clean up their acts. We wouldn’t even all have to vote for same third party or independent candidate. That 33% of the vote could be split ten ways, for all I care. It would pretty much end any chance of either party attaining more than 40% of the vote in any presidential election.
Of course, this assumes that the so-called Independents that made up about a third of the voting population are true independents and not Democrats and Republicans who claim they’re independent.
The way I look at it, we ought to stop buying into the “lesser of two evils” mentality and refraining from giving our votes to major party candidates. Otherwise, things simply aren’t going to change. You may vote for a Democrat or a Republican with the sincere belief that he/she is truly the lesser evil, but unfortunately, the politician you’ve just help elect doesn’t see it that way. That politician won’t realize that you only voted for him/her because you couldn’t stand the other guy and will instead interpret you lukewarm support as a “mandate” to implement his/her entire platform–half of which you probably don’t agree with.
I haven’t heard it yet, but we’re sure to hear it sooner or later–”This is the most important election of our time!” It’s what they said in 2000. It’s what they said in 2004. And it’s what they’ll say in 2008. Anything to shame you into believing “this election is TOO important to waste your vote on a third-party candidate.”
Yep. The “wasted vote” syndrome–a rather sad rhetorical device invented by partisans who can’t seem to fathom that the only “wasted vote” is vote cast for some politician that you don’t even believe in.
Third party and Independent candidates claimed about 19% of the popular presidential vote in 1992 (largely due to Perot).
They claimed about 10% of the popular presidential vote in 1996 (again largely due to Perot).
By 2000, that number was down to about 3.5%.
And by 2004, that number was down to a paltry 1%.
Our presidential elections are become more polarized–not less–and it has led to a steady decline in the proportion of votes cast for third party and independent candidates.
It’s a vicious cycle that we’ve got to break. I’m hoping things will turn around in 2008, but I’m hardly optimistic.
I’ve participated at another centrist blog before in which I was the ONLY regular not to vote Democrat or Republican in the presidential election. It kind of makes who wonder about the prospects of EVER having a viable third party in this country when even “centrists” won’t support third party/independent candidacies and insist on voting for the same old Democrats and Republicans.
If even one of you joins me in voting for a third party or independent candidate (it doesn’t even have to be the same one) come November 2008, I’ll be happy.
[...] And then, on Friday, in 39 words here and 137 at Central Sanity, I announced my decision to devote some near-term energy to helping those who want to moderate today’s GOP — a personal matter that I thought should be disclosed and explained, but hardly a topic that’s material or all-that-important in the scheme of things. [...]
Nic:
Beautiful.
Nic: ‘The “wasted voteâ€? syndrome–a rather sad rhetorical device invented by partisans who can’t seem to fathom that the only “wasted voteâ€? is vote cast for some politician that you don’t even believe in.’
Exactly.