GOP continues to shrink
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With the move of Arlen Specter from the GOP to the Democratic party the GOP moves further down the road towards a regional and powerless party. Al Franken will win in Minnesota and that will give the Democrats their 60th senator and thus a filibuster proof majority. The 60 seats however is not the story, the story is the ever shrinking GOP base and what type of candidates that smaller, more conservative base will put forth in general elections.
It was reported that there were 200,000 Republican voters in Pennsylvania have recently switched their affiliation to the Democratic party, those represent moderates that are fleeing the GOP. If the Republicans want to stand a chance at recapturing the House, Senate, or the White House they will need to be a more moderate political party - and that seems to be something that they are actively moving away from.
Surprisingly, there are some in the Republican party that are glad to see Specter leave the party, saying that he was always a left leaning politician who was a ‘Republican in name only’ - a RINO. You can expect his name and his record to be smeared in the coming weeks as the GOP goes into damage control mode, it will not be pretty.
2 Comments
the oracle
April 28th, 2009
at 12:12pm
I think Arlen should have called himself Independent, as it would be easier to explain his centrist leanings.
He has always been a voice of sanity in an otherwise ridiculous group of simpletons (Shelby-Al) and rat-bastards (Boehner -Oh). The unfortunate thing I see is that Newt Gingrich, someone I once respected greatly, though almost never agreed with, is starting to show signs of rabble rousing (otherwise known as rat-bastardry), as though he is readying for a run in 2012.
I think that many more politicians should classify themselves as Independent, so that these times of “vote-jockeying” would be fewer and farther between. My governor (Arnold S) should be classified as an Independent, as he doesn’t fit the current Republican mold, and yet really isn’t comfortable with the Democrat label either. His ideas on various things show he really couldn’t identify as Libertarian, so Independent would be best.
If more time was spent on individual positions on the issues, of politicians before the elections, and less time on labels, we would all be better served.
And Franken has already won, it is simply obstructionism that keeps him from going to Washington.
Let them eat a superiority complex
May 20th, 2009
at 11:12pm
newt g has always been a demagogue, IMO. in the gop’s halcyon dayz, newt seemed only one sweat gland from being Jerry Falwell.
“It was reported that there were 200,000 Republican voters in Pennsylvania have recently switched their affiliation to the Democratic party, those represent moderates that are fleeing the GOP”
sadly, this “sea change” (cough) is purely generational (poltical fads), somewhat accelerated by recent economic decline, much as occurred in jimmy c’s presidential term when reagan became the yuppie & flatearth xian messiah.
the schwarzenator may be roughly centrist, but he’s still just a politician. I wonder if he’d ever expected the opportunity handed to him by gray D’s recall.