Another Republican Moderate Gone: Ramstad Won’t Seek Re-election
All within a week….the thinning ranks of Republican moderates or GOPers who had an independent streak.
First Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel says he won’t run for re-election. Then defeated Rhode Island former Senator Lincoln Chafee quits the GOP altogether.
And, now, Minnesota’s Rep. Jim Ramstad says he has had enough, too:
U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad announced today that he is retiring from Congress next year and will not seek a 10th term. Ramstad has represented the Third District, made up of the southern, western and northern suburbs of Minneapolis, since he was first elected in 1990.
After 17-years of commuting to Washington as a congressman, Ramstad said he’s “burned out” in an interview before his official announcement.
“My passion for serving people remains as strong as ever,” said the Minnesota Republican, one of the last of what he called a “dying breed” of House moderates.
None of this could considered good news for the Republican Party. Even if in the next campaign the Democratic Presidential candidate is Senator Hillary Clinton and she faces withering attack (several conservative radio talk show hosts have said tying her to moveon.org and past Clinton scandals is a must and is going to happen so if she’s nominated a good part of the campaign will be warning Americans about the perils of a Hillary Presidency) what we now see what appears to be the beginning of an evacuation of the GOP structure by a long established segment of the party. Is this part of a new realignment?
The question becomes: what voters is the GOP going to get to replace or compensate for the loss of what seems to be GOP moderates or independent thinkers from the party? Are they going to replace them with? Hispanic voters?
Conservative blogger and blog radio talk show host Ed Morrissey writes, in part:
The 3rd District will likely need as many GOP voters as it can get, because it’s one of the remarkable minority of Congressional districts that remains competitive after decades of gerrymandering….
…Whether the GOP can hold the seat depends in large part who will win the nomination. It will probably take a moderate to be competitive, although that’s not quite as cut-and-dried as the analysts will argue. Minnetonka has a bit of a conservative streak, and it has enough wealth to help float a candidate who can articulate a conservative vision. Democrats will rightly see this as a good opportunity to help hold off a Republican effort to win back the majority, and they will sink plenty of cash in MN-03 to ensure a victory.
Three shoes have dropped.
Will there be more? Will there be enough shoes on the floor to open a used shoe store?
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21 Responses to “Another Republican Moderate Gone: Ramstad Won’t Seek Re-election”
Wow, Bush’s dismantling of our nations status and treasury seems to be spreading rapidly to the people in his own party that might have helped stem it. Seems those not getting caught with their pants down or hand in the lobbying cookie jar are fed up with it all. Lotta strong lessons in there. I have high hopes it will result in a GOP that people can be proud of in the next few election cycles.
Since the Republicans are in the minority in the house and have no chance of regaining control, it is irrelevant that another Republican is leaving.
As the Republican Party becomes unimportant to the political process, the real question is how wil the U.S. function as a one party state. Of course, the MSM loves a conflict even when everyone knows who is going to win to they will continue on for a few more years acting as if the Republican Party has a say in governing.
However, the unexamined question is how are the winners and losers in a one party state.
Talk of planned attacks on Hillary is a predictably clichéd commentary on what the Republican party has come to offer anymore. Better to go on the attack than concentrate on substance, ideas, or anything that might actually benefit the people of this country rather than just an ideological core.
I’m afraid that attacking and smearing by Republicans, as scripted by rightwing talk radio, will become the favored campaign strategy for yet another presidential election. If so, then as a moderate and independent, it is my sincere hope that 2008 makes the backlash of 2006 look mild.
I see this as the end result of Newt Gingrich’s revolution of 1994, and the destructive result 7 years of the Bush White House has had on the GOP. The Republican Party’s insistence on Congressmen and women’s adherence to a strict conservative voting pattern and the demonizing of all dissenters within the party has left its moderates dispirited and demoralized. Many are also unhappy with both the outlook for ’08 and the experience of being in the minority.
Funding has dried up for the RNC, and moderate seats are being targetted mercilessly by the Democrats, so that they can enlarge their margin in both the House and Senate.
Is it me, or is there an echo on every thread?
…one party system…
…the end is near…
LIke the GOP hasn’t had total control for 6 years. They just screwed things up so bad the Dems get a chance at bat. They’ll be back in an election cycle or two. After the budget is balanced, the war is ended, and the world doesn’t laugh so hard when we get on our high horse about how much better we are.
I agree with krit completely.
What is interesting is that just a couple years ago people were saying that the Dems were not unified, had no vision and were in decline. Whereas the Republicans were united behind a common theme.
Right now the Republicans are out because of the Bush Administration and its disastrous policies (and lies). But once a new President is in the White House and we begin our post-Bush recovery then the Republicans will start gaining power again.
I only hope that these new Republicans, whenever the Republican Party begins to regain power will foster true debate and not insist on a 100% allegiance to the party line. The Bush White House was corrupted by power and they understand that to keep that power they needed more power and 100% control over all aspects of government, including the legislative and judicial branches. As well as all the supposedly independent departments, i.e. the Dept. of Justice. We’ve all seen what happens when there is no healthy, honest debate in society and dissenters are demonized.
The moderates who are leaving the Republican Party understand that the Republican Party has lost its way. Bush may still be President but is so unpopular (and his mind seems to be on his retirement) that there really is no longer an effective leader of the Republican Party. Bush just wants to get by until Jan. 2009.
Certainly not from me, but I see the parties as two sides of the same coin. I find it somewhat amusing that so many believe the “cure” for the Republican problem is Democratic control of Congress and the Presidency. Certainly it would be hard for the Democrats to do worse than the past 7 years, but one never knows for certain.
entropy- Its not that anyone really thinks the Democrats can solve all of the nation’s ills- but in a two party system they are the only other alternative. While I vote Democratic, I certainly don’t think they have all of the answers, but at least they are trying to find solutions, instead of merely trying to retain power for its own sake, as the Republicans did.
Personally, I think the system itself is broken- too dependent on special interests to work in favor of the ordinary citizen anymore. All we can do is vote a party out when they fail to perform or are riddled with corruption.
Other alternatives, such as third parties and term limits have not proven to be an effective solution. If the GOP were to return to its former, less ideologically rigid self, there would be a lot of moderate voters who would return to their ranks. In their present carnation, they have driven off all but conservatives.
I think it would probably be good for the Dems to win the 2008 Prez. election and retain control of Congress until the mid-term elections in 2010, at which time the Republicans gain control of either the Senate or House (maybe both).
I think the Dems should have a chance to fix the government after all these years of Bush rule. The Dems won’t be able to of course, but they were given a chance and have no one but themselves to blame. The experience of the Dems losing control of Congress in 2010 should chasten them and make them work with Republicans. (Hopefully the Republicans are treating this current loss of power as a wake-up call and they will be more likely to accept different viewpoints.)
My whole point being this: I think as a nation we are best served when the parties in power feel secure enough to negotiate in good faith (each has something to loose but each has an upper hand). Right now there is too much partisanship and both parties need a good wake-up call. We’ve seen the Republican way the past few years (and where it has led) and so two years of Dem-only rule is not too much to ask if it’s a path to get us to a more “grown-up” government.
The way I see it is that there is a big mess that the Bush administration is leaving behind (the war, the HUGE deficit, our relation/standing with the world, Iran, infrastructure that needs repairing, etc.) and the Dems can’t tackle it alone. One of my biggest problems with the current administration is that Bush is not a leader of the people. He’s only a leader for a certain, small number, of people. Both parties need to learn that they need to pull together the US and its people and lead.
The Republicans are not giong to regain control of anything in 2010. If you look at 2008, over 100 Democratic Congressman are currently running unopposed. That number will go no where but up. The changing demographics of the U.S. ensure that the Democrats will remain in power. The Democrats will also get something in 2010 that the Republicans never had: 60 seats in the Senate.
I would not hold by breath for a balanced budget. That only occured during divided government. The Democrats had 40 years to pass balanced budgets when they were in charge of the House and never bother to do it.
The real question is what will happen when the collapse of the Republican Party is complete. I think is may be a moderating force on the Democrats because all of the previous Republican voters will start voting in the Democratic Primary. Then it will much harder for people like Cynthia McKinney to win office.
Let’s spare ourselves the rhetoric that the GOP is down and out for the count for the near future. It was only months after the 2004 election that the stories and headlines were how Rove and the current GOP leadership had engineered a party, platform and campaign machine that would dominate the electoral process for the next two decades. It was conjectured that it would be several cycles before Democrats even had a prayer of winning control of either house of Congress or the presidency. Yet here we are, just three years later, and the same thing is being said in the opposite direction, but for different reasons. Let’s not fall into the same trap twice in four years.
Mr. Moderate,
The liberal journalist who were writing the books about the permanent Republican majoity lived in a state where the Republican party had already collapsed (California) and refused to consider demographics. Even in their own book, they failed to ackowledge that blacks will never vote for Republicans but believe that Karl Rove could find an issue that would make them Republicans.
The Republicans at their high water mark got to 51% of the vote. The Democrats will quickly be to 60% of the vote. There is a huge difference between clever political strategies and raw demographic trends. Most of the white liberal elite like to pretend that the demographic trends just do not exist and that the Democratic party is made up of the elite white liberals who were at the YearlyKos convention.
superdestroyer,
The conventional wisdom was not just on one side of the isle. From the right side it was a statement of orgasmic exuberance about a perceived lock on power and a mandate to push through the ever further right leaning agenda. From the left it was a statement of shock and sadness as well as a rallying cry to get their crap together in time for 2006. Don’t think that the current conventional wisdom wouldn’t be enough to topple the Democrats in 2008.
I fall in the club right now of voting against Republicans, not for Democrats. I’d say a sizable portion of the middle think the same way. We don’t like what we are seeing in the Democrats. We just hate it less. That’s not a solid base of support to go cheering about.
Mr. M.
The number of voters that will swing between the two parties is going to get smaller. The demographic trends in the U.S. ensure that in the long run. What President Bush has done is destroyed the Republican brand and thus brought the collapse faster. I always thought that it would come about 2030 (just in time for Chelsea Clinton to run for President in that decade). However, the incompetence of the Bush Administraiton is just make it happen faster. The Bush Adminsitration has killed the chances for future Republican candidates. Everyone who served in the Bush Administration is now tainted enough that they cannot run for office. The same goes for most Congressional staffers. That leaves the Republicans poking about low level state offices or looking for egotistical rich men who can finance their own campaign.
When the Democrats gain control of everything, they will surely pass a campaign finance reform bill, a new fairness doctrine, and an update to the voting rights act that will eliminate any chance of the Republicans making a comeback.
> The Bush Adminsitration has killed the chances
> for future Republican candidates.
Harmed in 2008, and maybe harmed Jeb Bush’s chances in 2008, 2012, or 2016, but not killed most GOP politicians’ chances in the long run. Bush will have no such permanent effect. He will be largely forgotten or discarded as someone of the past.
Not many people think much about William Hearst and the Maine either. At the least though, that was a successfully silly “war.”
DLS
You forget that with every election cyccle, the Republican party has to get a higher percentage of the white voters or fall farther behind. Since most 20 somethings will go a decade without voting for Republicans, the chance of that happening is very low. Then starting around 2030, the hispanic and black voting popualtion will be so large as to make the Republicans irrelevant no matter who they run or what they do.
With the demographics, I’d even be more specific and say it’s the percentage of white male voters that is of interest (or concern). Not so much Southern white voters, not so much NASCAR white voters, not so much working-class voters at all levels of remuneration, not even suburban white voters, but white male voters.
Of course, if that’s all the GOP ever got (which is not the case), it would be exploited with even more delight by the Left.
Oh jesus.
Generally the American people have very short term memories when it comes to what their leaders say. Bush will be vilified for a very long time but many other Republicans will make a comeback.