Where are the moderate Republicans?

The moderates are waiting for 2016. W is still fresh in people's heads, Obama is too strong so they don't want to blow their chance on a no real hope election.

Faux News is also driving the agenda so the kooks who have come out of the closet this election have tied into FN. With a really decent candidate the FN power would wane, but at the moment the GOP are simply singing to the choir. The song only plays to the FN minority. The GOP need a bit of time in the wilderness to actually decide who they are.

Happened in the Uk in the 80s with labour and the conservatives in the late 90s early 20s.
 
Montag451 said:
The moderates are waiting for 2016. W is still fresh in people's heads, Obama is too strong so they don't want to blow their chance on a no real hope election.
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I basically buy this notion ... with one small objection. Back when decisions were being made, Obama looked decidedly beatable. The economy was in the toilet, unemployment was predicted to be high for years to come, the Middle East was a mess, etc. There was every reason to think that the GOP could prevail. If they did, then those moderates would have had to wait until 2020 for a shot at the brass ring. I don't think any pol thinks that far ahead.
 
They are waiting for November, and either may or may not vote.

What they aren't doing is trying to participate in a noise fest.
 
One fewer Republican moderate as of next election. Olympia Snowe, famously moderate Republican has declared that she won't run for re-election, citing that it has become to partisan for her taste. I the last couple of years, she has been voting more and more with the Tea Party, but it is unclear if it is not exactly that which is sticking in her craw. Moderates are being driven out of the GOP at an alarming rate. My Republican friends, who I used to have (mostly) friendly political discussion with are now reticent to try to defend the party that is becoming more and more about who to hate and less and less about fiscal conservatism. The ranks of the Independants are being swelled, and right now, Independants favor Obama.

I really am sorry to see Snowe go because, though I didn't always agree with her, I respected her and believed she voted with her conscience, not because some flag-waving Tea-partier was screaming about Obama being Muslim.

But the news is disasterous for the GOP, as she was a safe seat for the party. Now, there is a better-than-average chance that the seat will be taken by a Democrat. Maybe that's why Ms. Snowe timed her departure as she did.
 
Tricky said:
But the news is disasterous for the GOP, as she was a safe seat for the party. Now, there is a better-than-average chance that the seat will be taken by a Democrat. Maybe that's why Ms. Snowe timed her departure as she did.
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I was wondering about this, too. I will be interested to see what she does/says in the months to come, seeing as how she won't have to care what anyone (including her party leadership) thinks about her.

I, too, will miss having her in the Senate. While this is good news for the Dems, I wish there were more moderates in the GOP; sadly, this is going to be one less voice of reason in that party.
 
I still think about when Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee. They both faced a lot of attacks fromthe right wing of the Republican party. The irony for chafee was that he later faced a challenge from a right wing candidate and the RNC supported Chafee knowing they would lose the seat if the right wing candidate won the nomination.
 
GreyArea said:
Travis, have you read that New York article? If not, you might want to give it a look.
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It seems to validate my view on the matter. Frightened hate mongers have decided to fight a last stand for an America where their brand of intolerance and inequality still operates as the status quo.
 
GreyArea said:
I agree. But how long will it take? And will their modernization be slowed by victories won by accident and not by keeping up with the attitudes of the American public?

In another thread, SezMe posted a link to an article in New York magazine, "2012 or Never". I think the author has it largely right.



Looking ahead, I think it will be a while before enough fire-breathers fade away into nursing homes and graves, and allow a less-religious, less-white, less-Bircher GOP to gather itself. There are still an awful lot of White Americans who remember (or convince themselves they remember) halcyon days before Brown and before 1968. As the above-linked article points out, there are still too many Republicans pushing for a return to their alternate 1950. Maybe only the attrition of time will free them from these shackles.
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So a top marginal tax rateis of 90% or is that one of the alternates?
 
ponderingturtle said:
So a top marginal tax rateis of 90% or is that one of the alternates?
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They're more focused on social issues, race-status, and culture. I probably should have chosen 1953. Ike is in office, the Reds are being routed out of Hollywood (if not out of all Korea), Stalin is dead, and Jim Crow is alive.

Then again, since we're looking at a populist movement, there does seem to be an undercurrent of resentment against the ultra-rich. Some of these temporarily-embarrassed millionaires just might possibly support higher tax rates, that is, until their inevitable lucrative destinies are within reach.
 
In response to the topic of the thread isn't the front runner a moderate republican?
 
eeyore1954 said:
In response to the topic of the thread isn't the front runner a moderate republican?
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He used to be a lot more moderate than he is now--back when he passed MA's health care reform and when he said he would protect a woman's right to choose, for example. But the need to pander to the party's base has pushed him hard to the right in these and other areas, whether he is being honest or not.

I would agree he is the least extreme of the GOP's candidates.
 
AdMan said:
*snip*

I don't miss the Republican party, but I am amazed that they seem to so blindly cling to outmoded and distasteful ideas such as the ones that are on display every day in the current GOP primary campaigns.
*snip*
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It's something I've marvelled at as well but I think the answer is obvious and shouldn't surprise me.

Conservatives cling to a past that to some extent never was, they are afraid of change by definition.

They're falling all over themselves to appear "more conservative". All they have to offer is Windrips. (see Babbitt for reference)
 
No! Torture me, kill me even! I'll never talk!
The remaining moderate republicans are barely viable as a breeding population and have to be kept hidden away at this time for the good of the future.
 
eeyore1954 said:
In response to the topic of the thread isn't the front runner a moderate republican?
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That depends on who his audience is. Even if he is, I think he's so fungible that a TP Congress could get him to sign the most radical bills.
 
Ausmerican said:
No! Torture me, kill me even! I'll never talk!
The remaining moderate republicans are barely viable as a breeding population and have to be kept hidden away at this time for the good of the future.
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President Merkin Muffley: You mean people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?

Dr. Strangelove: It would not be difficult, Mein Führer. Nuclear reactors could - heh, I'm sorry, Mr. President - nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely.
 
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