"Fool Me Once... & Dying Moderate Republicans" - Stoller (the myth of "moderate" GOPers)

[greeneyedboy]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/31/15114/612

Fool Me Once... And Dying Moderate Republicans - Matt Stoller
. . . .Political systems are built through symbols, and no symbol has been more pernicious than the idea of a moderate Republican. Since 1964, the Republican Party has gradually turned itself into a neo-Confederate group of extremists attached to a political network of partisan pagan church groups. This transformation has happened explicitly, with a bevy of tax breaks directed at white churches, or implicitly, such as when Reagan opened his 1980 campaign at the site where three civil rights workers were murdered. Moderate Republicans - like Lowell Weicker, who did stand up to Nixon - gradually died out, replaced by leashed poodles who substituted affability and pork for moderation. Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson, and Rob Simmons are such figures.

Moderate Republicans are a dangerous symbol because they are a mirage that tricks liberal and moderate voters into thinking that the natural governing center is an affable extremist. Put a 'moderate' face on extremist policies or a party, and all of a sudden you have a country built on, say, corporate trade agreements that are reviled by the public at large. Or you have the war on drugs, which is nonsensical but considered part of the natural governing tapestry, or 2 million prisoners costing America hundreds of billions of dollars a year, or any number of crazy policies that are considered moderate but are in fact simply elitist in orientation.

David Gergen is the epitome of the adult in charge, the governing force without which adults will not trust you. Air America had 'moderate Republicans' running the show, and large Democratic donor networks have been stymied by donors who think that moderate Republicans exist and want to hire them to run a liberal movement (hint, it doesn't work). People like Tom Kean Sr. are a good example of the problem - he's loved and revered by liberals in New Jersey, and was put on the 9/11 Commission as a respected character, and then he goes out an engages in a dishonest smear campaign to peg Bill Clinton as responsible for 9/11 through an ABC propaganda piece, all to help his son get elected in New Jersey.

Killing the idea of the moderate Republican is critical if we are to convince the country that progressives can govern. As we've seen, right now journalists, opinion-leaders, donors, and politicians do not think that the hawkish pro-corporate bipartisan consensus will be disturbed if Democrats take over. Already we have Thomas Riehle trying to say that it is the netroots that want a targeted strategy versus James Carville-types who want to widen the playing field. We have stories in the New York Times about New Democrats ascendant and the progressives being beaten back in a more moderate party, and Harold Ford splashed on the cover of Newsweek as the face of a new and more conserative party. The LieberDems are licking their chops at a perceived ability for Joe to rule the Senate if he is reelected (prepare for a bad Q-Poll tomorrow, kids, polling director Doug Schwartz ain't a fan of Lamont). Certain House Democrats are panting at the ability to reach out to the Republicans as one of their first acts in office, to show a new spirit of openness to their GOP Beltway boyfriends who have been abusing them. . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/31/15114/612

[Phredicles]

1. Recommended, especially for the line about

"their GOP Beltway boyfriends who have been abusing them".

[greeneyedboy]

2. yeah, that's a good one.