Thursday
13Nov
Inconvenient Truth
Winston
Yesterday Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty shared with a conference of his fellow Republican governors a few uncomfortable little truths:
"We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states," Pawlenty said. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation . . . Similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."Regardless of what some of you may think, I’ve never thought it particularly healthy for a democracy to have only one political party that’s really competitive nationally. Maybe the fact that it’s Pawlenty, a bright and effective GOP partisan, pointing out some things that should be self-evident, will make the Party wake up. Or maybe it’s content to go forward having influence that is only regional and demographically narrow.
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Reader Comments (19)
I'm torn. On one hand, I don't mind watching these folks marginalize themselves, but on the other hand your right, one national party isn't healthy. I've heard the R's categorize themselves into two camps - the reformers and the traditionalists.
People like Pawlenty and Schwarzenegger are the reformers who want the GOP to have a bigger tent. Unfortunately, I see no indication that the reformers have any chance of moving their party closer to the center. As a matter of fact, I think the opposite is true. I think the GOP is going to move farther to the right and lose several more elections before they wake up.
The heart of the GOP is talk radio. I don't hear Limbaugh or Hannity or Ingraham talking about needing to build a bigger coalition. They believe they lost recent elections because they weren't conservative enough (I'm not joking). They have a mistaken notion that the country is still center-right even though the D's are in alignment with the majority of Americans on every major issue.
I'm not a Shepard Smith fan, but he is right in this clip when he smacks down a panel of right wingers who are blaming the media for the election results. He says that the election was Obama's to win all along and only a huge mistake would have given McCain a chance.
Egg... you talk about the Republicans moving away from the center... I'm curious.
When will the Democrat party start moving themselves back towards the center?
Why is it always the Republicans expected to alter THEIR stance?
If the Dems had gotten blown out this year,
I highly doubt you'd be trying to be more Republican.
Just because you lose is no reason to sway from your beliefs.
That goes for you, me, limbaugh, hannity, liberals and conservatives alike.
Skinnydipinacid-
You asked a bunch of questions so I'll do my best to be obective here-
What you are not recognizing is that the D's are the center. This has become a center/left country on all major issues. The majority of Americans want universal health care, environmental responsibility, better education, reproductive choice, the end of the Iraq quagmire, stem cell research, civil unions (if not outright gay marriage like some states allow), and on and on...
You don't have to. Just if you want to become a national party again, that is. If you look at the past few election cycles, conservatives have lost everywhere. All I'm saying is that your party is shrinking. These are indisputable facts, not a matter of opinion.
That's an irrelevant hypothetical situation. But, the D's were in the minority and fought their way back by appealing to idependents and liberals to form a powerful coalition. If your party doesn't change drastically, you will lose more seats in two years. If you doubt me, then do nothing. Keep things as they are right now, I dare you.
Fine, maybe you are better off as a white - male - Christian party. Judging from the mess conservatism has made of the country, maybe the Republican party should just be allowed to remain a minority or just die and something new will come along to take it's place? That's not up to me.
skinny - If you don't believe that the Democratic Party has moved towards the center in the last 30+ years, you haven't been paying attention. To give you a little hint, Hillary Clinton was the more liberal candidate in this last democratic primary.
I agree with Egg though, there aren't many signs of the 'traditionalists' moderating their views any time in the near future. In the mornings I listen to a conservative radio show on the way to work, and this morning a big portion of the show was dedicated to calling the libertarian host a liberal and a lefty. That is how extreme these people are. The hosts biggest crime? Saying that he didn't think Sarah Palin was qualified to be President and that she was a bad choice. He also seems to have more moderate views on giving Obama a chance in office before unloading on him. The other host and the callers were simply angry wingnuts who still are in the mold of Redbeard. Clinging to old fashioned demonization of anybody to the left of Pat Robertson.
I guess though if you think about it all of this makes sense. Being conservative means having a reluctance to change and believing in the traditional way of doing things. The in the area of law conservatives want us to reverse course and go back to the 1700s. In economics conservatives want us to reverse course adn go back to the the 1920s. In social policy conservatives want us to go back to atleast the 1950s, while others want us to go back to the Victorian era.
All of that clinging to the past doesn't let them adjust their views to the future. Republicans haven't quite figured it out yet, but Generation Y or the millinium generation doesn't share their hatred of gays and Mexicans (immigrants). Gay marriage is now and will be in the future a major losing issue for Republicans, a lot like fuel independence and the environmen. The faster they realize this the faster they'll recover their place on the national landscape. If they don't realize it soon then they aren't going to exist much longer.
In the old days [Winston wheezes] we didn't call such people "conservatives."
We called them "reactionaries."
Your slur aside, skinny, I suppose that’d be: when the American electorate starts signaling we're not occupying the center anymore. Right now we demonstrably are.
This writer says Democrats can put away their popcorn; the battle for the GOP’s soul is already over. The wrong, immoral, gutless, loser moderates lost. Traditionalists are deeper into self-deception than ever, believing—despite all evidence—that a hidden American majority supports them and their hateful, crackpot ideas.
Kilgore’s got an interesting take on a lot of this, including what accounts for the difference between how conservatives dealt with President Clinton v. how they now view Barack Obama.
The deepening isolation and craziness of their own constituents has got to be frustrating party leaders like Pawlenty something fierce. Who wants to lead a party whose members’ grasp on reality grows more tenuous every week? And where will they lead it? Over a cliff?
So much b.s. to respond to it will take bullet points to handle some of it:
*Hillary Clinton is the most conservative dem is the last 30 years?? Even Mondale and Dukakis didn't call for nationalizing the healthcare program like Hillary, not very 'conservative.'
* Obama gets 2% more than Bush in 2004 and his election was a mandate; Bush's was illegitimate? LOL. BDS. Old news.
* I see the "liberals hate religion" bile is on display again.
Liberals/MSM want to know why in seven days the Republican party hasn't 'fixed' there problem. First, it took the dems 12 years to lie; I mean fix there's to get Congress back. Republicans will have the Senate back by 2010. They stick with conservative principles and apply them to kitchen table issues facing Americans like college education, healthcare, jobs and taxes and they will be fine.
As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, BO will F-up. Libs can screw-up a two piece puzzle.
Hmmmm.... bullet point fun......
* I said Hillary Clinton was the more liberal candidate in the Demorcratic Primary
* Ummmm.......Bush claimed a mandate as a sitting President who won the popular vote by 1.5% but Obama doesn't have a mandate by winning the popular vote by 7%?
* Republcians have to defend 19 Senate Seats in 2010 and the Democrats 16. Repubs would have to hold every seat and take probably 9 Democratic seats to take the Senate. Chances? Slim to none. Even in a tidal wave election they aren't likely to get that many so it would be atleast until 2012 until Repubs even have a chance at either house.
* I think the whole 'libruls hate religion' thing as applied to this thread is rather entertaining. You need some persepctive TM. Generation X and Generation Y do not share your views on religion. Gen Y grew up watching Will and Grace, Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O'Donnell. They grew up in the era of grunge not the era of pop 40. And they are also known as the 'echo boom' being the children of the baby boomers you love so much. They are not peavish about sex like previous generations.
I think that's possible, Tom, but not by continuing to head in the direction they're going in right now. They seem determined to marginalize themselves. They need to toss the Malkins and other shrieking crazies overboard first.
Speaking of crazy people.
Just shoot me.
Then shoot me again.
Rosie says;
"They seem determined to marginalize themselves. They need to toss the Malkins and other shrieking crazies overboard first."
Just as soon as the libs throw out for starters:
1). Bill Maher
2). Keith Olbermann
3). Joy Behar
4). Michael Moore
5). Kos
6). Arianna Huffington
There are about 25 more but get through these six first then get back to me on why the right needs to deal with Malkin.
Don’t misunderstand me, Tom: personally, I don’t care if the Right ever deals with nuts like Malkin. The more deadweight they throw on on the conservative movement, the more consistently they act like shrieking lunatics, the more appalling they look to normal Americans and the better I like it. It can only accelerate their irrelevance.
Say, if Keith bugs you that much, you’d probably enjoy this Generic Keith Olbermann tirade.
Rosie;
You still better deal with your nut problem or the dems are nothing more than a passing fad. That election we just had was more of popularity contest vs. a political philosophical sea change.
1) Bill Mahar is a libertarian. Except he isn't the type of libertarian who drinks Republcians cool aid like Mach.
2) Keith Olberman is one liberal man with a cable talk show in a sea of conservative talk shows.
3) Joy Behar is actually a fairly down to earth person whom a lot of middle and lower income people identify with.
4) Michael Moore is Michael Moore. Entertaining every few years.
5) Kos is actually a very pragmatic political operative who can direct lots of money to candidates he supports. He isn't going anywhere.
6) I would be willing to bet that 90% of Americans have no familiarity with Huffington or her Post. You'll have to do better than that.
Tom, you’re a perfect illustration of a party sinking ever deeper in denial. Please re-read Pawlenty’s sobbing, above.
Here you’ve got a smart, popular, ambitious young Rethuglican governor telling you straight out the GOP CANNOT compete in the Northeast or the West Coast, is losing its ability to do so around the Great Lakes and the mid-Atlantic, and is beginning to lose its grip on the West. The party’s candidates do strikingly poorly with women and Hispanics and people of modest circumstances.
All this might be surmountable—if only the party could attract virtually any blacks at all. Your airy dismissal of all this as the product of a temporary fad screams that the base has zero recognition of how deep a hole it’s dug itself into. You’re consigning your party’s candidates to careers of uninterrupted defeat. That ought to go over well.
As I’ve said many times, y’all are completely entitled to wall yerselves off into The Very-Well-Off Straight Rural White Man’s Party. Just don’t let us ketcher whining ‘bout how that all turns out fawya. Choices matter.
The demise of the Republican Party is overstated. Some of the same things were being said about the Democratic Party in 2004, but as we all can see the party still exists.
True enough, it's not dead. But the R party is definitely in decline with no signs of recovery any time soon. Reformers in your party are badly outnumbered.
Your forgetting the atmosphere after 9/11. In 2004 R's were still able to use the politics of fear. As a matter of fact, scaring people is all they could do. Also, people were just starting to see how bad things were going in Iraq and understand that the WMD excuse for invading Iraq was a lie. So yeah, I heard a few clowns talk about a permanent Republican majority, but that was contingent on keeping the public in a permanent state of fear. The fear card was tried again in 2006 and finally backfired.
No, it ain't dead. But it won't quit doing the things that made it sick in the first place.
I'm not convinced that the demise of the Repub party is over stated. We are looking at a massive new generational change in the next few election cycles that is greatly disfavorable to the Republcian party if they continue on their current path
It will take an entire retooling at the grass roots level to bring the Republican Party back to the center. Right now the far right has ahold of the party platform with a death grip and they aren't about to let go any time in the near future.
As far as Washington goes, the phrase moderate Republican is coming to have just about as much relevence as the phrase Dodo bird. The far right is not only in a battle with Democrats of all stripes but they are increasingly going after easier prey, moderates in their own party.
The Repubs will continue to walk in the wilderness of the political world until they can convince competent and capable moderate center right peopel that there is a place for them in the party. Really, what is the right wing synonym for Blue Dog Democrat?
Just to throw this out as a thought, it occurs to me that the Reagan democrats never became the Reagan republicans. Why is that? Because as moderates they were only a piece of the pool to be used for electoral gain. RINO at best, fake Republicans at worst.