White House: NY 23 Shows GOP Becoming More Extreme
It’s clear the White House perceives news from New York about a Republican moderate in effect being forced out of a Congressional race by conservatives who felt she was not conservative enough as a sign that the Republican party is officially shifting further to the right — and comments made by a White House official on ABC this morning indicate this theme that will emerge again as more inevitable challenges to moderate GOPers continue.
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos has this item (go to this link to see the video)
Moderate NY Republican Dede Scozzafava’s move Saturday to drop out of the NY-23 Congressional race drew harsh criticism from the President’s top adviser, Valerie Jarrett. She told me this morning on This Week that it shows the Republican party has become, “more and more extreme and more and more marginalized.”
She did say that the White House would love to have the moderate Republican throw her support behind the Democratic candidate Bill Owens over Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman. “It’s rather telling when the Republican party forces out a moderate Republican and I think it says a great deal about where the Republican party leadership is right now,” Jarrett said.
Whether its called a “purge,” “purification,” or making sure that candidates are “real” conservatives and “real” Republicans, the bottom line is that it now appears that moderates in the Republican party — already a nearly vanished species — have a future about as bright as VHS video tapes.
So now the question is going to become: which party can piece together a winning coalition? And what will the elements of that coalition be in this highly fluid, changing ideological environment dominated by the left and right?
The Republicans have been peeling off a good chunk of independent voters, although some argue the growth of independent voters under George Bush was partially due to disgruntled Republicans (moderates and conservatives) straying from the GOP. But that’s almost irrelevant to the central political question which is: which party can put together a winning coalition?
Moderates and centrists aren’t beloved by powerful portions of either political party. So it’s now seemingly a race to see which party offends them most, and which party offends them the least because — for now at least — it’s unlikely that liberals alone or conservatives alone will win elections or congressional majorities. And branding moderates and centrists as closet liberals, closet Republicans, radicals, reactionaries or wishy washy doesn’t exactly win their hearts.
UPDATE: There’s lots of discussion (much of which will disagree with this post) on this issue HERE.
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11 Responses to “White House: NY 23 Shows GOP Becoming More Extreme”
What NY-23 really shows is that the moderate Republicans (RINOs) have nothing to attract voters. They can support all of the liberal social initiatives and the left will still despise them and never support them. The moderate Republicans are going to have to find a way to appeal to conservatives and moderates without totally selling out to the left.
Once again, if people want big spending, big government, nanny state politicians, they can always vote for Democrats. If there is any lesson that should have come out of the Bush Administgraiton is that there is only room in the U.S. for one big spending, big government party. The moderate Republicans have to develop a clear message on smaller government, less social engineering, ending the nanny state and limiting regulation to where they are really needed instead of responding to very problem is a policy proposal.
I must give you a fair warning Joe. I am writing a rebuttal to this idiotic tripe. Be forewarned.
So endearing…not. We wait with baited breath.
I wonder if this is the same Pat who showed up on Dispatches from the Culture Wars a while back. Though his language was even stronger.
Interesting. The twitter page that his name links to no longer exists.
Oh c'mon! I worked hard on that. I thought it was cute…lol.. It was the video tape thing that reminded me of someone hard at work trying to perfect something that was obsolete. So naturally the Stone's line “perfecting ways of making sealing wax” came to mind.
From there it just took off.
[...] on November 1st, 2009 This written piece is part political commentary and part rebuttal to a blog entry posted at The Moderate Voice by Joe Gandelman. Now to be fair; Joe is a friend of mine. Joe has [...]
[...] White House: NY 23 Shows GOP Becoming More Extreme (themoderatevoice.com) [...]
Thanks for your posting, Joe Gandelman.
I caught only part of the news story about Dede dropping out of the race when it was first reported on one of the 24/7 news channels [ I surf all 3], and did not have time to follow up until this Monday morning. I searched the Internet and found your posting about it. What got my attention at the start is that she was referred to as a moderate, and there was a remark about centrists in general.
Dede appears to be slightly left of center, so it does not surprise me that the far right conservative Republicans would finally reject her. Even so, she should not have been bullied out by them, but should have stood on her own. She does further appear to be the AVERAGE of the two extremes, rather than having any true third choice options. The “World's Smallest Political Quiz” [at the Advocates dot org slash quiz dot html website] is like that, finding the middle by getting the AVERAGE of the two extremes, to Agree or Disagree. There cannot be a political party of those who answer Maybe.
There must be a true third choice. A couple of amusing examples…
1.The old question of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The question is flawed because it limits us to just two choices, both of which could be wrong. The egg is the child. The chicken is the mother, the female. What is missing from this picture? The father, the male, the rooster. The correct answer could be that the rooster came first. It is a clear third choice.
2.From the El Condor Pasa song by Simon & Garfunkel, the words “I'd rather be a hammer than a nail.” There is a third choice. I'll put it to you this way: If you have to be the nail, then be grateful you are not what the hammer is pounding you into! Like a board. So a board could be a clear third choice, but not one I'd select.
The point is that you can not have an effective political party that is a true third choice by picking what you like from the two extremes of the far left liberal democrats and the far right conservative Republicans.
For a while, it looked like some Democrats and Republicans were pretending to be centrists, with a lot of abuse of the “centrist” term, to try to gain support from centrists and moderates in the middle.
It is disturbing now that there is talk of “purification” in the Republican Party. The use of the term “purification” reminds me of the Germans during World War II. Over the years, I've had more friends who are Democrats because they accept me as I am and are inclusive, compared to the few Republican friends who tend to be judgmental and exclusive.
I am an active member of the American Centrist Party dot net. I also recommend the Modern Whig Party dot org. We are working on forming an alliance of centrists and moderates.
James C. Harwood
Science Fiction Author
Norman Oklahoma
Of course the slander was given an open floodgate. The start of this thread is no different.
Why is she now endorsing a Democrat? RINO (Rockefeller GOP) nonsense? Simple bitterness? Worship of the Duopoly? Aiming for a more compatible home, the Democratic Party, for that matter?