Moderate Republicans: RIP.

[ginnyinWI]

Democrats are not the only ones who have been victims of the GOP's march to the right. I'd like to recognize a few in this thread who refused to march and were trampled.

Lincoln Chaffee first comes to mind. The Dems wanted him to switch a few years ago, but he didn't. Should have, because there was no tolerating a Moderate in his party.

Chuck Hagel saw the writing on the wall and got out completely.

John Warner: here is a Republican I truly respect. Did you hear him on Global Warming the other day? He's got real integrity--too much integrity for the Republican Party as it now exists.

There have got to be others who were swept away.

[saltpoint]

1. The very people who might have helped redefine and stabilize the GOP

were tossed onto the slag heap by the fire-belchers. The hate-radio hosts, the neo-Reagan fools, the hyper-corporate absolutists, and the fundamentalist Christian creepazoids.

Let's see Michael Steele et al rebound into an influential and effective national party working with components like that for its base.

[Alcibiades]

2. GOP=Goofy Oddball Party

There is no place for a moderate in the GOP today. In a sense, I would much prefer it if the reasonable, responsible adults in the Republican Party, folks such as Specter, would take over the party, but that's not going to happen: the national Republican Party has gone down a strange, Rovian rabbit hole of Manichean politics that only appeals to a select few. Republicans have an iron grip on 21% of the electorate. About a third of those people, folks who are not too ideologically extreme, really no longer have a home in their party: they just have not realized it yet. It can be hard when zealots take over: I feel the pain of moderate Republicans, and some schadenfreude. What we are seeing is the aftermath of a watershed election, one that has changed the electoral landscape in the US as dramatically as the positions of candidate McCain changed between 2000 and 2008. On the one hand, we have a pragmatic, center-left Democratic Party led by Obama. And on the other we have the rump Bush coalition, the diehards who see everything through an ideological lens. If they are tired of being in the minority, the Republican Party is more than welcome to change its positions to do a better job of attracting independents.

[ginnyinWI]

9. you put your finger on one key element.

Obama is not far-left so doesn't give the GOP very much to push against. Think of the attacks they've dreamed up since he became President. They have all amounted to nothing because they were based on nothing: they were lies or distortions or scare tactics about what Obama "might" do. Doesn't sell very well! He gets a lot of them wishing he were on their team--which of course he really is--he's on America's team.

In other words, the politics of polarization doesn't work very well when only one side is trying to do it. :)

[Alcibiades]

12. They tried the same thing on Clinton

and carter, though to a lesser extent. We have had only moderate Democratic presidents elected since LBJ, and the GOP has kept screaming that they are socialists, no matter what their actual positions. It has only taken 40 years for folks to figure this out, but usually when they figure something out, it sticks for a while.

It's all about the median voter (google it if you're unfamiliar). It was a fluke that the Rovian strategy of only appealing to the extreme of his party was able to work as long as it did. Today, it is the Democratic Party that represents the adult, sensible sensibility, in both style and substance. The Republican Party is increasingly the party of angry people who hate, scream and throw tantrums. Lots of folks are coming to the realization that, though Republican ideas may sound good in theory, they do not work in practice, and Republican misrule has been a vast social experiment that has failed.

[ginnyinWI]

13. "angry people who hate, scream and throw tantrums"

Cue Glenn Beck and Porky Limbaugh. And all of their listeners become an Amen chorus.

So what do they do when they look bad in the media? When they look like a bunch of fools with their tea bags? Blame the media!! :rofl:

[Alcibiades]

16. A big part of what ended the movements in the 1960s

was the perception that activists were just angry folks who are troublemakers who would be out protesting something no matter what. Even after average Americans agreed, in overwhelming numbers, to the substantive positions of the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement and women's liberation, the tenor of the protest movement alienated a lot of folks.

Now the shoe is on the foot. Angry, certifiably insane crowds of wingnuts represent the Republican Party today, willing to go out and spout racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and just plain stupid ideas to anyone with a camcorder. It is my hope that temperamentally moderate Americans will turn on the television and say "Golly, Molly--we have to go down to the board of elections and switch our registration: it's just not respectable to be a Republican anymore."

[AlinPA]

3. Lindsey Graham's statement that he would call Tom Ridge to run against Specter in PA

would put a moderate in the seat in PA. Ridge would beat Specter, but Ridge would have to satisfy the R's that he is no longer pro-choice. He would have to act a lot uglier than he had in the past: i.e, he would have to be more anti-science, anti-conservation, and campaign against air and water protection.

[saltpoint]

7. Hi, AlinPA. What is the deal right ow with the GOP race? I know Toomey

wants the nom badly and almost beat Specter for it last time.

Is Ridge felt to be considering the race?

[AlinPA]

10. Ridge has said nothing as of today. Lindsey Graham said he was going to call him.

The republican party in PA has been pretty much cleansed to their desired level of purity. So if Specter had stayed as an R, Toomey and Peg Luksik (right wing fundamentalist religious) would have taken most of the R vote with Toomey winning. Now, Toomey wins the primary easily.

But if Ridge runs in the primary, he could win due to popularity- I know he is a bit moderate but he was made "pure" by his association with Bush**.

So we would end up with Specter v Ridge. Ridge was a very popular governor here so I would see him beating Specter with age being a big factor. Ridge is a strong campaigner.

There was a tiny hint from Sen Casey that he would not support Specter in 2010, leaving the possibility that we could see Joe Sestak or Jack Wagner running in the primary v Specter. Both of these guys would give Specter a battle.

[PRETZEL]

11. Heard Sestak in an interview this morning

basically saying that if Arlen doesn't help the Dem's he's going to go after him, damn the party machine.

He'll be the one to hold Specter accountable.

As for Graham wanting Ridge to run, that's pure damage control. As has been pointed out quite eloquently here and on other threads, Ridge is Specter v.2.0.

[saltpoint]

15. Thank you for that info. This sounds as if it has thepotential to be very

wild and unstable, or maybe go the other way and see Obama's people ask Sestak or Wagner to hold their horses for a later race and let new-blue Arlen have this one uncontested.

It does seem that you're right about Ridge. He could potentially be a player here.

[rox63]

4. I think Olympia Snowe (R-ME) would be an excellent catch for the Dems

I don't know if she's considered switching, but she is a true moderate. But the folks in Maine like her, and they would reelect her if she went independent. Maine had an Independent governor in recent history, so they'd probably keep her if she went I instead D.

[cali]

5. Jim Jeffords

though I must say that both Jeffords and Chafee fall more into the liberal repub catagory (or rather they did before they stopped being repubs)

[Dappleganger]

6. Chuck Hagel

from Nebraska, he's another one who comes to mind. The repukes pretty much pushed him out too.

[L0oniX]

8. I hope these converts are not a covert attempt to sabotage the Dems from within.

[spanone]

14. Moderate Republicans: Vacancy