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Why Moderate Republicans Are Dying
You want to know why moderate Republicans are dying?
It’s not because conservatives have run them out (which they have).
It’s because we lack stamina. We lack backbone. We are more interested in our own wants and needs than in looking at the bigger picture. We see politics more as enterainment instead of hard work.
The far right got to where they are because they had passion. They had a vision for the country and saw the GOP as the vehicle to get them there. They weren’t just looking for someone that made them feel good, but someone who could help propel a movement. That’s why they are in control of the GOP and why moderates are not.
My fellow blogger and friend Pete Abel wrote today about his dissapointment with John McCain especially on what seems like backpeddaling on torture (I am also let down by McCain’s apparent reversal). While I’ll agree that McCain has dropped the ball on this one, I was mad after reading this post.
I kept wondering: okay, you don’t like what McCain did. Have you contacted him and raised bloody hell? Write to his Senate office? His campaign?
You want to know why McCain did this? Because he has to get the conservative base to win. I don’t like that anymore than Pete, but they are the ones that control the party, not the moderates.
He also did this, because he can. There are no moderates who will give him hell for this, no moderate Rush Limbaugh. If moderates don’t like what they hear, they will just go to someone they like, such Barak Obama.
What would have happened if an army of moderates jammed his Senate phone lines and email boxes? What if they called his campaign headquarters and shamed him for even thinking to do this? He might have changed his mind.
But of course, no one will do that. We moderates will get all pissy and just vote for someone else.
I support McCain, even though he isn’t perfect because he is probably the best candidate Republicans have had in a long time. He could pull the party in a better direction. And in the end, I am not thinking soley about McCain, but about the future of this party and trying to make it more humane and caring and more in line with true conservatism. But McCain can’t do that by himself; he needs a movement that will keep him honest.
The problem with a lot of moderates is that we want to be in love with our candidates. We want someone that thrills us and is a good show. That’s probably why so many moderate Republicans are going for Obama. He is thrilling and his speeches are wonderful. He talks about hope and unity and our nation is desparate need of both.
But in the end, he is a politician and he will dissapoint people. And in the end, he won’t do anything to help make the GOP a more center right party.
If there is anything that I’ve learned over the years is that politics is work and a bit of courage. My dear friend Jim is a lifelong Republican who is gay. He has gone to district conventions and presented resolutions that are gay friendly. My quiet, little friend has the guts to stand for justice in the middle of a bunch of social conservatives. He is a moderate that has a backbone made of steel.
I asked him once why he remains in the party. He told me that he has always been a Republican and that things will change. In the end, he knows who he is and is willing to fight for change.
I wish there were more Jims in the GOP. But the fact is, too many of us moderates aren’t willing to spend the time to get down and dirty and work for change. And then we wonder why the GOP has become so right wing.
I’m dissapointed that moderates are such wimps when it comes to working for change.
21 Responses to “Why Moderate Republicans Are Dying”
I don't know about Obama's not helping moderate Republicans, Dennis. Point in case – Reagan. You recall the “Reagan Democrats,” who crossed over to vote for him? I think it's obvious that they pulled the Democratic Party to the center, just as “Obama Republicans” could be the ones to pull the increasingly extreme Republican Party back toward the center a bit.
McCain is the place is in today because of moderates and independents, not the Laura Ingrahms and Limpbaughs. What does he tell his “insurgent voters” as he panders to Robertson and pro-torture crowd?
It's hard to believe Republicans have much of a chance this year. And if McCain loses, the dittoheads will be there to say I told you so. They've already built their excuses into the process.
How much money do you think Rush Limbaugh makes a year? And if Limbaugh quit tomorrow, the money would still be there.
The problem is worse than you think.
Dennis, thanks for the great post. Some really interesting observations in there and some ideas, particularly the idea that moderates are wimps, that are really good. I think you're right about the passion the conservatives feel and the amount of work (such as angry phone calls to representatives) that politics takes. Thanks again!
For what it's worth Dennis I emailed him about his change is position on torture and stated that I won't be donating any longer because of it.
i once thought i knew what a conservative was–there was nothing moderate about them. reagan was the first and only republican i ever voted for, for 2 reasons 1)fear-we were all going to die if carter got re-elected. 2) i want to be a man, and democrats weren't real men, with their progressive taxes, bleeding hearts, obsession with redressing discrimination, and their relativistic morality. Squishy homosexuals, the lot of them. (i was one of those sad closeted gays hiding through exaggerated machismo) republicans, on the other hand were strong and proud and unwilling to take shit from anyone.
things haven't changed much.
i believe the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us. that most of us want basically the same things: a safe place to live, equal access to opportunities based on merit rather than wealth, the freedom from government intruding on private decisions….there are a million things we can find to unite us. where we differ , mostly, i think, is how to get there.
what exactly is moderate republican?
You want to know why moderate Republicans are dying?
Cause a bunch of plutocrats ( Olin , Scaife) decided to fund conservative institutions (Heritage, AEI, Cato, etc) with the sole purpose of blunting liberalism & rolling back the twentieth century.
They also decided to take over the media and have succeeded in creating two channels of propaganda ( Talk Radio & Fox news) and are working really hard to take over the Cable News ( see Beck & Scarborough).
Moderate Republicans were buried under the demographic avalanche of de facto open borders and very high non-white birth rates. Moderate Repulbicans were also destroyed by identify politics.
Given that whites are a decreasing portion of the population and that non-whites vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, there are now many states and most large urban areas where the Republicans are irrelevant to politics. However, those are the areas where moderate Republicans used to come from. Thus, those moderate Republicans had to become Democratic Primary voters so that they would have some say in how local government performs since no Republican candidate ever wins.
If you want to find the locations where moderate Republicans used to be relevant but are not now, find the suburbs where the public schools are less than 60% white. In those areas, it is either be a Democrat or stop being involved in politics.
Thank you SD, from your comment I infer that Republicans are a “whites only” party. Maybe that is the problem, and not “wishy washy wimps”.
Rudi,
Republicans are a white only party because I believe that any conservative political party would be a white only party. If Hillary Clinton cannot get black votes, do you really believe that the Republicans have a chance.
However, If a Green Party develops to the left of the Democratic party after the collapse of the Republican Party, it will be just as green as the current Republican Party.
Dennis — I know we exchanged emails separately on this subject, but I'll go ahead repeat here what I said there.
I have worked for change in the GOP and I will continue to do so. I have written letters, donated money to moderate candidates, attended meetings and so on.
But sometimes, I believe, you work for change by withtholding your vote, or casting it in a different direction. Sometimes, the vote is the most powerful message-sender of all. Mike P's comment, above, says this quite well and quite accurately.
Or look at it this way: If I vote for McCain now — would I be signaling to him that moderation is what I want, or that it's OK he made this decision? If I vote for him now, would I be standing up against the hard right, or conceding to their world view?
Many of us who are moderate are not mushy about it. We've grown wise enough to distrust most of what liberalism has brought and wrought and we don't want the Republican Party to be Democrats Lite, “Me-Too” Republicanism as shown by the (standard, not Bush-era definition) neoconservatives. (“Big Government is fine as long as the right goals — pun intended — are pursued.”) We tend to belong to the libertarian Whig contingent rather than the traditionalist, authoritarian Tory element within the Party. Most of us, in fact, are not specifically partisan. The GOP is simply the lesser of two evils (they're the lightweight form of something worse that is routinely sought by the Dems). We want much less federal presence (a return to true constitutional federalism, and the much lower federal tax bill this would give us, would be ideal), an end to over-regulation, money and corruption in DC, and so on.
* * *
“Republicans are a white only party”
They aren't, but they're principally white (and middle-aged to older voter-based). Much of this is special-interest identity politics (reverse racism and sexism among them) that developed in the post-1960s radicalism of the Left in this country, at a time when the GOP was no longer the wealthy-white-males' exclusive club that was the stuff of legend then and is largely myth now.
Not to mention how those Dem special interests have leapt at entitlements…
Pete: As I wrote in the comment section of your post, I see no reason why you should feel you have to protest McCain's vote on the anti-torture bill. His explanation of his vote clearly met the criteria that you yourself laid out: he explains the alternate way in which he'd want waterboarding (or any other torture method) to be excluded from the CIA list of acceptable interrogation techniques, and he explains why he doesn't believe that restricting the CIA to the field manual techniques is acceptable. So why you feel this vote is a deal breaker is beyond me, and I'd still like to hear your explanation (not just because Andrew Sullivan thinks it is.)
And as to what your vote would mean, or what it would signal to the GOP: don't you have to look at it in a broader sense, anyway? That a vote for McCain would in fact signal that you approve of a more moderate candidate, even if you don't feel that he's always standing up to the more extremist elements of the party in every way that you'd want him to? I feel that you're being as petty as the right wing fringe- various factions there were threatening to walk out on the party if the candidate wasn't a pure enough conservative, and you do the same when you say that McCain's not a pure enough moderate for you. Don't you have to look at the bigger picture here?
CS – What is consistent about McClown is that his rhetoric(anti-torture) doesn't match his voting record. His voting is consistent with Spector on may issues in opposition to the Bush administration. BalloonJuice even has a tag for Spectering.
[blockquote]I like Andrew, but has he not followed ANYTHING the past 7 years? McCain, Graham, Specter, hell- there are a number of them- have spent the last two administrations running cover for this President. They say all the right things and then roll over and play dead, or are appeased with some last minute non-concession concession from the administration, and the President gets his way. It is an extremely cynical game, but it hasn’t been very well-hidden. Hell, Tim even created a category for it- Spectering.
This is why there is simply no chance in hell I will vote for a Republican this fall. The party is simply rotten to the core, and a vote for McCain will be a vote to continue this crap. The party needs to be destroyed, and I would vote for Cynthia McKinney for President over any Republican.
At least this time the bill passed. Most of the time when McCain stabbed us in the back the result went the other way.
*** Update ***
I really wouldn’t vote for Cynthia McKinney. It is called hyperbole, folks. You all should be familiar with it if you read this website.[/blockquote]
Rudi: Can you name specific votes that aren't consistent with specific statements McCain has made on this issue? Just because his stance isn't far enough to the left for some doesn't mean that he's inconsistent or giving cover for Bush. And I'm sure you're well aware that there've been plenty of other issues on which he refused to give that cover (Medicare, spending, and Iraq war where he consistently criticized Rummy's lean approach.)
Back to the torture bill, my argument with Pete on this is that Pete explained what he wished McCain had said to explain his vote, and I see no substantial difference in what McCain said and what Pete wanted him to say. Pete's position is a moderate one, not a leftie one- so I'm not arguing that McCain's position should be sufficient for a leftie, just that it should be perfectly acceptable for a moderate.
Christine — again, good points. I'm regroups and reconfiguring my next two installments to direclty answer the questions you raise, questions that Dennis Sanders has echoed.
OK, Pete, fair enough. And I can't WAIT to read your installment about Obama and big government, given that his spending proposals are estimated to cost close to an extra trillion!
“Moderate Republicans were buried under the demographic avalanche of de facto open borders and very high non-white birth rates.”
OMG you are a broken record. Don't worry SD, you and your fellow white buddies will still be holding they keys to the country clubs for a long time. Good lord you're worse than the christians crying about how they are so persecuted in america.
The people who spent years making excuses for George W Bush are back to make excuses for John McCain.
Yes, George, and the people who made asinine criticisms of George Bush (rather than sticking to accurate criticisms, of which there have been plenty) are still here and making asinine criticisms of John McCain. Some things never change, eh?