Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, writing in the Washington Post, gives further evidence that there are now two kinds of Republicans:
(1) Those that want to return to the GOP being a party of values — values Democrats may not agree with, but values that are consistent.
(2) And those that believe whatever belief-of-the-day coming from President George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
Rush and Sean won’t like Armey’s Op-Ed piece:
Somewhere along the road to a “permanent majority,” the Republican Revolution of 1994 went off track. For several years, we had confidence in our convictions and trusted that the American people would reward our efforts. And they did.
But today, my Republican friends in Congress stand on the precipice of an electoral rout. Even the best-case scenarios suggest wafer-thin majorities and a legislative agenda in disarray. With eight days before the election, House speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi has already begun her transition planning.
Where did the revolution go astray? How did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-scoring on meaningless wedge issues of today — from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?
The answer is simple: Republican lawmakers forgot the party’s principles, became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy. Now, the Democrats are reaping the rewards of our neglect — and we have no one to blame but ourselves…
…..The 2006 midterm elections will be a success for the Democrats. Republicans will have to manage their own disappointment. Fingers will be pointed, and various villains will be fashioned out of recent events. But the plain fact is that Republicans have been setting the stage for this outcome for nearly a decade, running from themselves and their own principles. We will not find ourselves by conforming to the status quo, but by returning to our Reagan roots.
When we act like us we win. When we act like them we lose. Let’s win.
Read the rest yourself.
The important point is that Armey essentially agrees with many independent and centrist voters. Believe it or not, even in these days when political admakers scramble to produce the most vile, mean-spirited and divisive ads humanly (or inhumanly) possible, there IS a segment of America that may disagree heatedly over issues — but can do so with certain “givens.”
The battle now is on among those who want to throw out “given” boundaries in campaigning and fixate on using wedge issues to set group-against-group. On the other side you find Armey and others who still defend the oh so 20th century idea that there is true value in standing for IDEAS and sticking with them.
You either embrace the idea or formally drop it, but you don’t try to fudge later on and say you never had it or asserted it or say you’re embracing it and then actually do the opposite (assuming that if you say X is Z your totally loyal followers will also say X is Z).
There are Republicans, and Democrats, and independents. And then you have a special group of people today who are now the Republican party controlling elite. They are not the favorites of some Reaganites, Goldwaterites or members of the first George Bush’s administration.
Can the Republicans who want to get their party back to basics — so it’s again thought of as the party of Lincoln and Barry Goldwater and not the party that airs a TV ad showing a white woman asking a black Democrat to call her — get their party back on track?
Will the GOP evolve back to what it was?
Or evolve further into what it has become?
Story via Moderate Voters.com
A CROSS-SECTION OF OTHER THOUGHTS (go to the original link to read full post)
—skippy (who writes in lower case and invented the phrase “Blogtopia”): “where did the revolution go astray? how did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-ascoring on meaningless wedge issues of today — from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?” read skippy to get the answers.
But Armey is absolutely correct when he says that the Democrats aren’t winning anything this fall. It’s all being handed to them and when all is said and done, we’re going to have a two-year fight on our hands to prove we deserve to lead, something I don’t think we’re ready to do.
The party must be purged of corporatists. They endanger our nation far more than Iraq does. In fact, I’d argue that Iraq is simply a subcomponent of Corporatism, a gift to the Halliburtons and Lears…..If real conservatives like Dick Armey regain control over the GOP in 2007, they could put up a real fight in 2008. The votes that are turning the tide this fall are from the simple-minded center, and those Reagan Democrats can defect again on a moment’s notice.
Indeed, the current GOP is often called extremely ideological, however when it comes to the Congressional Republicans at least, I just don’t see it. Where is the coherent set of guiding principles that explains the behavior of those actors? I would submit that they may comprise the most partisan Congressional leadership (especially in the House) in some time, but “ideological� strikes me as the incorrect word. And by partisan in this case I mean that the guiding principle is retaining power for the party–party über alles and all that (including over the supposed core values of the GOP, like fiscal responsibility and small government).
So, in a sense, Armey is correct. The Republicans have not done a good job at sticking to ideals. There are two years to fix that; some folks better get cracking. If the Democrats do take control of the House, they would be forced to deal with a lot of issues instead of simply complaining about everything. I suspect that a Democratic victory is not a sure thing at this point, however. But the Republicans do need to address some of the issues Armey brings up if they want to win in 2008.
—Alabama Liberation Front answers Armey in detail and asks a bunch of pointed questions of its own. Must be ready in its entirety since a quote would lose meaning in the post’s larger context. An excellent MUST-READ counterview.
—PSoTD:”Armey fails to see the problem. It isn’t that they turned into Democrats, it is that they turned into power-hungry money machines, which is how the system in Washington is set up to work when one party remains in power. Armey’s complaint is with the system, but he’s certainly adverse to changing that, because he’s a product of it.”
—The All Spin Zone looks at Armey’s comments in the context of “Whistling Past The Fiscal Graveyard.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.