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Tag: Republicans (Page 8 of 11)

Lame GOP sticks with lame leadership

November 17, 2006 /

After getting humiliated in the midterm elections, you would think that House Republicans might consider going with new leadership. Guess again.

Minority whip Roy Blunt also issued a combative and obnoxious statement indicating that he and the other Republicans are not interested in bi-partisanship:

“For twelve years, the Democrats have gotten away without leading, without offering an agenda, and without saying what they’re actually for. Now they will be forced to govern.

“Under this Republican leadership, the job of the Minority Whip will no longer be to go to the House floor every day and lose. Instead, each time we hold our team together and force the Democrats to vote like Democrats, we’ll be taking one more step toward recapturing our majority in 2008.

“One-hundred-forty-nine Democrats demonstrated yesterday that they are willing to buck Nancy Pelosi. We’ll work each day to give those Democrats a viable alternative to her liberal, San Francisco agenda.”

It will be fun to watch these hacks get their heads handed to them now that they are in the minority. Every Democrat who reads this statement will probably forget about the divisive race for majority leader and focus on keeping the minority Republicans in their place. Blunt just did Pelosi a huge favor.

Republicans

Dick Armey slams the religious right

October 13, 2006 /

Here’s more evidence that the GOP is coming apart at the seems, as Dick Armey blasts social conservatives for embracing big government to adcance their agenda:

There was a day when social conservatives were united with economic conservatives in the belief that small, limited government was not only good for our economy and the prosperity of American families, but essential to protect traditional family values. We all fought for a limited federal government — a government that had the decency to respect the American people by staying out of their lives. Small government meant that all Christians could practice their faith as they saw fit. Big government violates those rights by meddling in our lives, misusing our hard-earned money, and dictating cultural norms to us. We were and are rightly outraged when government imposes wrong-headed values through its monopoly of schools, government-funded “art,” and taxpayer funded “family planning.”

As a united conservative movement, we win when we defend traditional values against big government pretensions to impose its brand of “morality” on the American people. We lose when we attempt to use government power to impose our values on others.

Armey then provides a brilliant summary of the Terry Schiavo fiasco:

Nowhere was it more wrong, with more disastrous policy ends, than in the Terri Schiavo intervention. While her case was heartbreaking, our Founders created a government built on checks and balances, not a nation run by an arbitrary and imperial Congress. Congress cannot simply override our entire state and federal legal system to intervene in one person’s situation. It was truly a chilling act.

I don’t agree with Dick Armey on many things, but I totally agree that we need to keep the government out of our private lives. Democrats and liberals can learn a thing or two from this column as well. Democrats need to consider reducing the reach and influence of government, especially now that many on the right are eager to use government to legislate their interpretations of morality on the rest of us. I’d like to see libertarian Democrats argue for less interference in our private lives.

Conservatives, Culture War, Republicans

GOP losing support . . . even in Kansas

October 13, 2006 /

The Republican Party has been taken over by the religious right. This is not a controversial statement when speaking to Democrats, but most Republicans would have strenously argued this point in the past. Not so much any more.

This editorial from a Kansas newspaper’s editorial board is fascinating. In it the writer explains why the paper is reversing over 100 years of supporting mostly Republican candidates.

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I’m talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

Note, I did not say it means “anti-abortion,” because I do not find that position repugnant, at all. I respect that position.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

That’s why, in the absence of so-called traditional Republican candidates, the choice comes down to right-wing Republicans or conservative Democrats.

And now you know why we have been forced to move left.

Hat tip to mcjoan at DailyKos.

Moderates are fleeing the Republican Party and are finding a welcome home in the Democratic Party. Fiscal conservatives and libertarian conservatives tolerated the religious right for years because they helped them form a winning coalition in the GOP. Moderate Republicans went along for the ride, even if moderate Republicans stopped getting on the ballot. Hopefully this unholy alliance is coming to an end.

Conservatives, Culture War, Moderates, Republicans

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