Where are the moderate Republicans?

[Miss_Kitt]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. A frightened person tends to make noise. And right now there are elements in the GOP that are terrified. They look around them and see an America that might be allowing gays to marry, electing atheists to congress or even the Senate and then there is the prospect of universal healthcare that they think means the onset of Communism. They see these things as possible and it has them quaking in their boots. Therefore this thoroughly scared element is asserting itself and trying to fight a last stand for their ideal society where everyone is forced to be Christian, heterosexual and resigned to death if they get sick while poor.

So they have risen up and taken control while moderates, as much as there still are some, lay back as they are frightened to say anything against these people who seem to think they have God on their side. Because when someone thinks they have God on their side they are willing to do terrible, terrible things since they think it is their path to heaven.

Wow, TLA Guy has already said this about as well as it can be said.

I used to be sort-of Republican, but back then it meant being fiscally conservative and wanting small govenment. Government non-intrusion in our lives, not "intrustion in the Name of Jeeeezus is great" like it is now. When I was a kid, Washington State's Republican Governor, Daniel J. Evans, campaigned for and signed into law our abortion statute.

The extreme right has taken over the party, and I am not sure if I can ever vote for a GOP candidate at more than a local level ever again.

But I find that the Democratic Party has also moved to the left in the last 20 years. I just recently read that we have finally passed the last threshold: The most conservative Democrat in Congress is to the left of the most liberal Republican. There IS no moderate or centerist bloc in Congress anymore. No wonder our national 'leadership' has devolved into partisan bickering, pandering to extremists, and grandstanding at the expense of the people's needs, wishes, and finances.

A pox on both their houses! I wish there was a reasonable third-party option. I am fiscally conservative and socially progressive; I believe in small government that protects the RIGHTS of its citizens and does not attempt to enforce morality with a gun. If it doesn't hurt anybody else, and it's in your home with consenting adults, do whatever. I don't care--in the nicest way possible. Make yourself happy! Just don't expect me to pay for it. Clean up the tax code to get rid of the gazillion special tax breaks for everything from chicken farmers to airplane axle makers, and harmonize the rates for capital gains and regular income, and there'd be no need to raise tax rates to increase revenues, AND it would move the tax burden back to mildly progressive instead of stupidly regressive as it tends to run today.

Where's my party? Because so far, there isn't one out there.

Resigned, Miss_Kitt

 

[MattusMaximus]

According to Ann Coulter Romney is the most conservative of the remaining 4 candidates. In any event, I think he is largely a moderate. I don't believe him when he says he is pro-life nor do I believe a lot of his other claims. I think he would say anything to get elected.

I mostly agree with what you said. What concerns me is what a president Romney would do during his first four years in order to placate the Tea Party in an attempt to get re-elected.

 

[MattusMaximus]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. A frightened person tends to make noise. And right now there are elements in the GOP that are terrified. They look around them and see an America that might be allowing gays to marry, electing atheists to congress or even the Senate and then there is the prospect of universal healthcare that they think means the onset of Communism. They see these things as possible and it has them quaking in their boots. Therefore this thoroughly scared element is asserting itself and trying to fight a last stand for their ideal society where everyone is forced to be Christian, heterosexual and resigned to death if they get sick while poor.

So they have risen up and taken control while moderates, as much as there still are some, lay back as they are frightened to say anything against these people who seem to think they have God on their side. Because when someone thinks they have God on their side they are willing to do terrible, terrible things since they think it is their path to heaven.

 

[RandFan]

I mostly agree with what you said. What concerns me is what a president Romney would do during his first four years in order to placate the Tea Party in an attempt to get re-elected.

Oh no question. What worries me the most about that is moving SCOTUS even further to the right. That could **** us up for up to two decades.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Oh no question. What worries me the most about that is moving SCOTUS even further to the right. That could **** us up for up to two decades.

Exactly. That is my #1 concern as well. If the SCOTUS moves any further to the right, we'd better be prepared for a lot more Citizens United type rulings, not to mention some of the potential for a lot of progress on social issues being reversed.

 

[AdMan]

Oh no question. What worries me the most about that is moving SCOTUS even further to the right. That could **** us up for up to two decades.

Yes it could. And to keep the broader picture in mind, as now-retired Justice John Paul Stevens said in 2007, as quoted by the New York Times:

“Including myself,” he said, “every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell” — nominated by Richard Nixon in 1971 — “has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Except maybe Justice Ginsburg. That’s bound to have an effect on the court.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/magazine/23stevens-t.html?_r=2


If that's an accurate assessment, the SCOTUS has generally been shifting to the right for 40 years. That is a scary thought.

 

[SezMe]

I just recently read that we have finally passed the last threshold: The most conservative Democrat in Congress is to the left of the most liberal Republican.

Huh? That's just not true. Do you have a link?

As just one example, Grassley is NOT to the left of Snowe. Or another, find me a Blue Dog to the left of Collins.

 

[Kopji]

I mostly blame what is happening on how the primary process works. It is designed to swing us wildly back and forth between extremes rather than support a moderate path. I don't think it is mere chance that huge elections repeatedly come down to only a few votes.

I'd support a process that produced party candidates based on the number of votes. Maybe something like letting us choose from the two top vote getters from each party.

 

[BravesFan]

as a registered Republican I have grown increasingly irritated with the party as a whole. However, being that I'm really for a smaller federal govt and fiscal responsiblity, I don't tend to agree with the DEM position on these things. The problem is , I don't tend to agree with he GOP position either (IMO, the parties fiscal party has changed from smaller govt to a different form of big govt.....) I honestly just see the differences between the parties as two broads fighting over who gets to spend all of daddy's money....

The social issues I don't really care about as I don't really see any problems developing. This kind of stuff gets discussed during primaries to drum up voters, but rarely do any presidents try to pass any of these things.... Though I frankly don't care if you want to marry a buffalo as long as at the divorce the buffalo gets half.

I would love to see a swing back to the Goldwater style of conservatism, but I seriously doubt its gonna happen anytime soon.

 

[BravesFan]

Not to mention I think that Presidents importance and impacts are overstated. Congress is really where more attention should be focused, yet we idiots keep re-electing the biggest boobs we can get ahold of back into office, regardless how ineffective they are....

 

[Juniversal]

I thought they were called democrats

That's true. The Republicans have a way of making the Democrats look liberal in comparison since they're so conservative. Their attempt to "out conservative" each other only hurts the Democrats further and it certainly doesn't help that many label Obama a far left liberal. The gravitational pull of their conservatism pulls the Democrats with them (since Liberal politicians have to kowtow the conservative vote so they are electable).

 

[Juniversal]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. A frightened person tends to make noise. And right now there are elements in the GOP that are terrified. They look around them and see an America that might be allowing gays to marry, electing atheists to congress or even the Senate and then there is the prospect of universal healthcare that they think means the onset of Communism. They see these things as possible and it has them quaking in their boots. Therefore this thoroughly scared element is asserting itself and trying to fight a last stand for their ideal society where everyone is forced to be Christian, heterosexual and resigned to death if they get sick while poor.

So they have risen up and taken control while moderates, as much as there still are some, lay back as they are frightened to say anything against these people who seem to think they have God on their side. Because when someone thinks they have God on their side they are willing to do terrible, terrible things since they think it is their path to heaven.

Good point. It's much like what happened during the civil rights movement (I happen to be watching a PBS special on the movement) and school integration. The transition away from Jim crow was rough and the backlash was significant but eventually people began to accept and embrace the changes and society (and politics) changed with them.


Much of the fear of change (particularly social change) still lingers in the Republican party but we're far removed from the days when a politician can be openly racist and no one bats an eye. Eventually the same thing will happen with homophobia and the opposition to secularism.


We just seem to be experiencing the backlash that results from the social change many Repubs seem to hate.

 

[GreyArea]

But I find that the Democratic Party has also moved to the left in the last 20 years.

According to this study about Congressional polarization, and this follow-up, they haven't moved very much in that time period. Certainly less than the Republicans did.

 

[jimtron]

There's a fascinating article called "The Obama Memos" in the January 30, 2012 New Yorker (you can read it online here). Regarding where the parties have moved along the left/right spectrum, the piece weighs in:

Polarization also has affected the two parties differently. The Republican Party has drifted much farther to the right than the Democratic Party has drifted to the left. Jacob Hacker, a professor at Yale, whose 2006 book, “Off Center,” documented this trend, told me, citing Poole and Rosenthal’s data on congressional voting records, that, since 1975, “Senate Republicans moved roughly twice as far to the right as Senate Democrats moved to the left” and “House Republicans moved roughly six times as far to the right as House Democrats moved to the left.” In other words, the story of the past few decades is asymmetric polarization.

Two well-known Washington political analysts, Thomas Mann, of the bipartisan Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agree. In a forthcoming book about Washington dysfunction, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” they write, “One of our two major parties, the Republicans, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

(bold added)
​

Whether you like Obama or not, the article provides insight into how he has made decisions, and also what he wanted to do before taking office vs the reality of what he actually could do once he was there.

 

[Juniversal]

There's a fascinating article called "The Obama Memos" in the January 30, 2012 New Yorker (you can read it online here). Regarding where the parties have moved along the left/right spectrum, the piece weighs in:

Whether you like Obama or not, the article provides insight into how he has made decisions, and also what he wanted to do before taking office vs the reality of what he actually could do once he was there.

At this rate in a decade or so Democrats may actually be Liberal and not moderate Conservatives.

 

[Juniversal]

Okay I actually bothered to read the article jimtron linked to and it was very enlightening. It is really pathetic how obstructive and ideological Republican politicians have become.

Obama is really made out to be some crazy left wing socialist by the right when in reality most of his short comings have been a result of his attempts at being the bi-partisan candidate he campaigned as, appeasing the Republican monster and him naively expecting the Repub's to be receptive the idea of bi-partisanship.

 

[BravesFan]

Now I was no Bush fan, but as i recall the Dem's did pretty much the same thing to him.


One thing that I want to get off my chest is this, the left has no high ground in politics. They do the same stuff that the right does, they do dirty tricks, back door deals, obstructionist malarky. I really don't see a party in this country that I can get behind anymore. It's all just a power grab and both sides seem to want in, at any cost.

 

[Juniversal]

Now I was no Bush fan, but as i recall the Dem's did pretty much the same thing to him.


One thing that I want to get off my chest is this, the left has no high ground in politics. They do the same stuff that the right does, they do dirty tricks, back door deals, obstructionist malarky. I really don't see a party in this country that I can get behind anymore. It's all just a power grab and both sides seem to want in, at any cost.

You're right but to a degree. The Dem's had no where near the amount of zealotry the right currently has. Also they didn't participate in the same completely unproductive obstructionism the Republicans currently revel in. No doubt vitriol and staunch opposition comes with the territory but the right has seemingly turned it into a sport.


Also Obama has had many missteps but in many cases his intentions were in the right place but Republicans continue to impede and obstruct even when certain policies were inline with their ideologies.


With Bush I feel much of the criticism was rightfully placed even if it was transformed into derangement (Bush derangement syndrome) or created misplaced blame and unrealistic expectations in certain cases (i.e. Katrina).

 

[RandFan]

Now I was no Bush fan, but as i recall the Dem's did pretty much the same thing to him.

No. I WAS a Bush fan. There is proof of that here in this forum. Search for my posts. I defended Bush. Nut jobs on the left aside, the politicians, pundits and commentators, by and large, attacked Bush on substantive issues. Bush did fail on Katrina. Bush did start a war based on lies. Bush did trample the constitution to torture and kill (yes, Obama has continued some policies but he has been attacked by the same people). The same can't be said of the Right as it relates to Obama. They have invented many false narratives about Obama. What did the left invent about Bush?

You know, Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X and he’s an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who’s coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe or worse yet, Saul Alinsky. And this is how politics has changed; you used to have to run against an actual candidate, but now you just recreate him inside the bubble and run against your new fictional candidate.

That’s how Bush won in 2004, by running against John Kerry, a French war criminal. And speaking of Bush, I know conservatives are saying oh Bill, come on Democrats did the same thing to him. No. Say what you will about the left’s hatred of Bush, at least we were hating on the real guy. We didn’t invent a boogeyman who tanked the economy, took us to war on false pretenses, and tortured prisoners. That was the actual guy.

But run down the list of complaints about fantasy Obama. He wants to raise your taxes, even though he’s lowered them. Confiscate your guns, even though he’s never mentioned it, and read terrorists their rights, yeah, like he did Tuesday in Somalia. And look what Gingrich said about him this month. (Video of Gingrich claiming Obama is against work). Yes, Obama is anti-work. You remember the bill he championed, The Grab A Corona And Call In Sick Act.

You see, the difference is the Republicans hatred of Obama is based on a paranoid feeling about what he might do. What’s he’s thinking. What he secretly wants to change. Anger with Bush was based on what he actually did. What Bush was thinking didn’t matter, because he wasn’t."

One thing that I want to get off my chest is this, the left has no high ground in politics. They do the same stuff that the right does, they do dirty tricks, back door deals, obstructionist malarky. I really don't see a party in this country that I can get behind anymore. It's all just a power grab and both sides seem to want in, at any cost.

There is some truth to what you are saying. I'm not a Democrat and never will be. There is good reason to be skeptical of many on the left. But I reject the false equivalency.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

^pretty substantive rejection too, depending on what you (Maher) mean by Bush "torturing people"