Well Done, Dummies
Note: The following was written by Travis Johnson, the head of Progressive Republicans.
President Obama was inaugurated in January, but the Obama Era officially began today. Don’t believe me? wait til you see what he does with the filibuster-proof majority we gave him by driving Senator Specter from the Party.
I’m appalled. Not at Senator Specter. At the Republican Party. You, me, all of us. Everyone one of us with an (R) behind his name on his voter registration card is responsible for losing Senator Specter and any chance of controlling the Senate again for a very long time.
Everyone who thought, because the Senator occasionally used his own judgment and chose not to vote in lock-step with the Party, that he needed to be driven out is responsible.
I’m looking at you, Pat Toomey, the chair of the Club for Growth, who saw ever-shrinking, but more vocally conservative Pennsylvania Republican Party as an ideal vehicle to launch his career in elected office. I’m looking at you RNC Chairman Michael Steele who thoughtit would be a god idea to threaten to endorse Toomey in the primary, an unprecedented move for a national party chair. I’m looking at you, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the “conservative” media who think the ratings they build up by inciting their followers into a populist frenzy is more important than the advice of most major economists, even their fellow conservatives.
Never mind that Specter had given 43 years to the Republican Party, with 29 of those in the US Senate. Never mind the fact that Toomey has even less a chance of winning the General Election than he did when he challenged Specter in 2003. Never mind the fact that removing Specter from office would take away Pennsylvania’s seniority within the Senate. History and reality didn’t matter. Specter was an apostate who had to be driven out of the congregation!
Every Republican who supported Senator Specter and his beliefs but didn’t speak up should is responsble for this. We should have cried out with a stronger, more unified voice when Specter was attacked over his pro-choice positions (even thought NARAL considered him pro-life). We should have risen to his defense when he voted against a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Many of us even defended his right to vote with President Obama on the stimulus package (even though we disagreed), because he had a right as an INDIVIDUAL, not just as a member of his party to vote his conscience. But, still, that wasn’t enough.
Senator Specter has voted YES on a Balanced Budget Amendment. He voted YES on reducing Federal Spending by 40 Billion dollars. He voted YES on tax cuts. he voted YES on Federal spending caps. He received an 81% voting record from the Christian Coalition, marking him as “pro-family.” He fought for free trade. He fought to seat Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the face of overwhelming liberal bias against him. This is the kind of man who doesn’t fit the mold of a Republican? This is the kind of Senator who must be driven from the Party?
No. The terrible treatment of progressive/moderate Republicans has gone on long enough. If this party is ever to regain power again, it must either do some serious soul-searching and do it quickly or the exodus of independent-thinking Republicans (many of whom, in Pennsylvania at least, have already left the party) won’t stop until the Party of Lincoln is no more.
Now is the time for progressive/moderate Republicans to speak out strongly and demand a seat at the table. Tell the conservatives who run the Party in your community that you want to be involved, but you are not going to compromise your beliefs in order to get along. The days of “go along to get along” as one of my guest bloggers said last week, are done. Senator Specter has shown that we can’t be expected to be taken for granted anymore.
6 Responses to “Well Done, Dummies”
John McCain 2008 proved that when the public has a choice between Democrat “for real” and Democrat dressed in Republican clothing, the public will always choose the right thing. But when the public has a real choice between Democrat and conservative Republican, they will choose the Republican.
The Republicans for the last 12 years went to Washington and became Washington. Spending like Democrats, immigration amnesty like Democrats, social issues like Democrats, nation building like Democrats, etc. Finally, the people said, why not elect real Democrats. And truth be told, the “Blue Dog” Democrats that are responsible for all the winning for Democrats are all conservative type Democrats.
It is only a matter of time that the Grand Ol' Party will be the real party of principal again and they will win back a majority. America is still right of center.
I doubt that the blue dog Democrats are as moderate as people believe. Now that the Democrats have 60 seats, blue dogs like Webb and Tester will probably end up looking much more liberal that how they campaigned.
In reality, as the U.S. becomes a one party state, the blue dogs can be more liberal while looking less liberal. Webb can vote to end debate on something like a renewal of the assault weapons ban and then vote against it during the roll call. The end point would be that he allowed it to pass but is on record voting against it.
The problem with GOP purists, is that they see any variation of Republican besides conservative as RINO or Democrat in Republican's clothing. This is encouraging the trend of the shrinking tent— with fewer and fewer voters comfortable with the party and what it stands for.
Just remember the last time Republican ideology actually worked was over 20 years ago when Ronald Reagan was in office, and even HE knew how to court moderates. The world and the nation have changed immutably since that era, but staunch conservatives refuse to adapt with the times, thus bringing on the inevitable extinction of their species.
Oh, that's right, many conservatives don't believe in the theory of evolution!
People like proudconservative are why I left the Republican party. As a moderate, I can't associate myself with the Taliban mentality expressed by the far-right that controls the party.
Proudconservative believes the country is center-right and that well may be, but why would the center-right want to associate itself with the current version of the far-right?
I surely do not.
Proud's argument is interesting…it's not that conservatives have gotten so rigid that most people no longer feel comfortable under that banner, it's that the people representing conservatism aren't conservative enough. It's kind of like how some people feel about the Bible, or Marxism, or Randian theory…everything is perfect within the framework of the book/theory/etc, and if people would just be pure enough in their adherance to the all-mighty conservatism, then everything would be peaches and rainbows. It's all those darn PEOPLE who get in the way. It couldn't possibly be that there are huge, gaping, ugly flaws within the framework itself…
proudconservative95020, you have to realize that Sarah Palin being on the ticket is what drove so many moderates and centrists away from voting for McCain. Here was a gift to the far right, and while she excited them she scared off everyone else.
Not that McCain would have done spectacularly otherwise – but he had a decent chance and you have to remember that he won the Republican Primaries, while more conservative candidates did not.
The political spectrum is really pretty simple. People on the far right are not going to vote for Obama, and McCain wouldn't have suffered much if he lost a few votes in Albama. What makes the difference, and what likely always will, is the center and who is able to swing that over to their side.
What is also disturbing is that the last time Republicans won the Presidency by more than 17 Electoral Votes (or one state) was in 1988.