Apr 30 2009
GOP Moves Towards Centrists To Regain Viability
It has been a long 4+ years since the purity wars erupted in the one time conservative coalition, destroying alliances and sending centrists (who are not ‘moderate’, just not extreme) out the door to the Democrat candidates. The end result: 51 house GOP seats and 13 GOP senate seats lost since the 2002-2004 election cycles when there was talk of a filibuster proof GOP majority in the senate. Now the democrats have the filibuster proof majority within reach.
The conservative denial about their political decline is best seen in two recent news items. The first was the insane comments by Sen DeMint, where he claimed that he would prefer an impotent echo chamber of 30 true (e.g., pure) conservatives  (who would make up an impotent backbench of whiners) to actual control of the senate and its agenda:
DeMint says he would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than. . .that don’t have a set of beliefs.â€
Talk about loser talk. Who would support a movement whose strategy is permanent irrelevance? Anyone think this would attract supporters, volunteers and donations? Of course, not! A plan to be pure and irrelevant is the fast track to the laughing stock corner of the trash bin of history. Who would waste 2 seconds on a plan of endless political failure and election losses? I am stilled floored at how ridiculous this statement is.Â
The second laugher example was Bill Kristol’s declaration that losing the only leverage the GOP had left (the filibuster) was a victory for the right!
Good News for Republicans!
….
Similarly and contrarianly, I wonder if today’s Arlen Specter party switch, this time to the president’s party, won’t end up being bad for President Obama and the Democrats.Â
What a dumb attempt to put a smiley face on defeat. I guess al Qaeda should be happy that, while they lost Afghanistan and Iraq, it is good for them since they don’t have to try and win in these places anymore. This is logic? This is leadership? Will Kristol be happy with further GOP irrelevance?
This insanity had to come to and end sooner or later if there were going to be an effort to change the nation’s future, to lead us in a better direction, to do more than whine and tout purity. Finally there are signs that groups of conservatives and GOP leaders – who live way outside the righwing fringe – are starting to end the slide to oblivion.Â
House and Senate Republican lawmakers were the latest to launch a group independent of the RNC, announcing the formation of the National Council for a New America late Wednesday through aides and in a letter going out to supporters Thursday.
The group comprises potential GOP presidential candidates who plan town hall-style meetings to promote ideas different from Obama’s. Their aides and allies have been vexed by the lack of comprehensive alternatives put forward by the national Republican leadership.
…
The lawmakers’ group includes Jeb Bush, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain. Republican aides on Capitol Hill disclosed the group Wednesday just before Obama started a news conference to mark his first 100 days in office.
It and a similar group — Resurgent Republic, a collection of the party’s senior strategists — are meant to be a Republican roadshow outside Washington’s circus tent.
This could be the conservative Phoenix rising out of the ashes of the purity wars. This is the path back to relevance – find common ground that can unite a coalition of opposition to the liberal policies of Obama and the Democrats (which of course would not include changing Obama current policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and FIS-NSA since these are extensions of the Bush policies). I would also bet these  groups workto craft a new comprehensive immigration package  with Obama in order to oppose any liberal poison pills in the legislation (again, an extension of the Bush-McCain proposals).
I would expect this group to make alliances with conservative Democrats to stop policies that are too far out of the mainstream – opening a dialogue which will allow compromises that attenuate the left wing desires.
But this is just a start. The flame throwers on the far right need to be basically pushed aside so they can stop damaging the conservative brand. In an interesting side benefit to the Specter switch to the Dems it looks like the GOP will be dumping the far right (and unelectable) Toomey for a more centrist candidate in the PA Senate Republican primary:
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is recruiting Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) to run for the Senate because it views Pat Toomey as unelectable against Sen. Arlen Specter, according to Gerlach’s lead consultant.
According to Gerlach consultant Mark Campbell, Cornyn reached out to Gerlach this morning, and the two are expected to chat about the Senate race this afternoon.
…
Gerlach is one of the most politically tested House Republicans, winning a Democratic-leaning suburban Philadelphia seat despite being a top target in a punishing environment for the GOP. Democrats and liberal groups have spent nearly $30 million against him over the last four elections but he has narrowly prevailed each time.
…
Either way, leading Republicans don’t sound bullish about Toomey’s prospects in a general election against Specter. The vice chairman of the NRSC, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), said he didnt think “there is anybody in the world who believes [Toomey] can get elected senator there.”
Oh, there are many in deep denial who think Toomey is a gift from God himself and can’t lose. There is a need to end the bleeding and soon. The GOP is losing support at an astonishing and historic rate. Example 1:
Fifty-one percent of people questioned in the survey said they have a favorable opinion of Democrats. While that’s down 7 points from February, it’s still 12 points higher than the 39 percent who said they have a positive opinion of the Republican Party. Fifty-five percent hold an unfavorable opinion about Republicans.
Just amazing, GOP is more unfavorable than the Democrats are favorable. The rejection by the American people is quite clear. Example 2:
Quite a few Republicans see that as an urgent need, especially now that just 21 percent of the electorate identifies with the GOP, according to the April 21-24Â Washington Post/ABC News poll. That percentage is the lowest that thePost/ABC News poll has found for Republicans in more than 25 years.Â
Even on top issues the raging minority on the right is losing ground. People interested in making a difference as opposed to screaming their moral superiority over all others in this fine country would do well to read the Op-Ed of Sen Olympia Snowe, which reviews her assessment of where the conservative movement took a wrong turn and began to self destruct. Some important excerpts:
When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection.Â
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I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate
…
…Â Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.
…
I have said that, without question, we cannot prevail as a party without conservatives. But it is equally certain we cannot prevail in the future without moderates.
In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.
How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious from the results of the last two elections.Â
Yeah, the results are obvious to everyone but the oblivious, who to this day cheer each new act of purifying the party of dissenters and diversity. The one thing the purist forgot is, as they distill their ranks down to fewer and fewer true conservatives, they lose all their political clout and open the door for centrists to pull together a viable opposition to Obama and the liberals made up of center left to center right voters, who can defeat either fringe with ease. That is the next phase of this long process. We are hitting bottom, and we will come out the back end of this with a two party system devoid of the fringes. The far right is being distilled out now, the far left will be distilled out when their socialist policies to attack the economic crisis fail miserably.
Sometimes you have to go through tough times in order to learn the lessons that help you jump ahead in the end.
AJ:
I think the GOP needs a bigger tent too. But….Specter is an unprincipled and selfish man.
Here in Indiana, Lugar is something of a moderate, but the Republicans here like and respect him. Specter was in trouble because rank and file Republicans in his own state preferred someone else for his seat. In order to save his job, he went over to the other side. And a lot of Democrats I have talked to are not that crazy about the whole thing, for some reason..they don’t trust him.
It is one thing for purists to drive people from the party, it is something else for an old politician like Specter to swich parties when his time has come and gone.
So I do think that Republicans need to concentrate on issues like fiscal responsibility and national security, but not every single defection like this is about the purity wars, sometimes it is just about a bad actor.
I think DeMint’s point was not that they want to be a minority, it was that they want people with integrity and not liars like Specter.
March 17th he swore he would never change parties, but in a month the sneak went and did just that.
AJ, you’ve missed a key point.
Look who the big names in the road show are. They share one trait…they come from outside the Beltway. And many a second…Hurricane Katrina. These are Good Men In A Storm.
I think this is key. The electorate is fed up with Washington. And much of the problems the Republicans face stem from inept execution. The Republican party of old had a cadre of grimly competent managers. We need them back.
What amuses me the most is Jeb Bush. If his name were ‘Smith’, he’d be President today. Decent conservative credentials, highly popular governor of a key swing state, and with national exposure during the hurricanes that made him look steady and competent.
And something else AJ, you keep finding these totally crappy polls.
Rasmussens just had a poll that had Democrats and Republicans with parity. NPR did a poll that had Republicans ahead a point. That has not happened for years.
The poll you are talking about only had 21% Republicans responding, that was all they talked to. I saw the internals on this poll on Hot Air.
There is no way any poll that only includes 21% Republican responders can be accurate and there are all sorts of polls out there that dispute that. Over at RCP, the generic balloting only puts the Republicans 6 points back and way above 21%, in fact about 16% above it.
I know you are upset that the right has pushed the GOP too far in their direction, but some of your posts are becoming as unhinged Malkin can get. And that is coming from someone who has read your blog for years and respected you and agreed with you.
I don’t know the answers for the Republicans. But I feel sick with the Democrat answers. Read this.
The CIA’s $1,000 a Day Specialists on Waterboarding, Interrogations
The New Focus on Two Retired Military Psychologists Called the ‘Architects’ of the CIA’s Techniques
By BRIAN ROSS, MATTHEW COLE, and JOSEPH RHEE
April 30, 2009
As the secrets about the CIA’s interrogation techniques continue to come out, there’s new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture.
Psychologists Bruce Jessen, left, and Jim Mitchell shaped the CIA’s interrogation program of al Qaeda detainees, including Abu Zubaydah. Both refused to speak to ABC News citing confidentiality agreements with the U.S. government.
(ABC News)
According to current and former government officials, the CIA’s secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington.
Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates.
Both men declined to speak to ABC News citing non-disclosure agreements with the CIA. But sources say Jessen and Mitchell together designed and implemented the CIA’s interrogation program
BTW, Specter, Snowe and Collins were the three Republicans who voted for Obama’s economic plan. That is not a badge of honor, not even among moderates. My Senator Bayh, the Democrat did not even do that.
You are right Terrye, and if they hadn’t voted for it, the bill would have had to be modified. We might have gotten something that didn’t throw money down a black hole. What a shame!
I think much of this talk about “conservative intolerance” is probably true to a certain extent, but is somewhat exaggerated and off the real mark. My goodness, the party had been tolerant of Specter for far too long, in the face of downright destructive behavior on his part:
The media of course loves to play up this angle of there being a big war for the soul of the party. (Because the media are nearly all Democrats — what could be more delicious than a civil war within the ranks of your opposition?) But my feeling is that it’s not so much that the party is all that intolerant of some diverse views here and there — it’s that it’s (finally) not willing to put up with veritable saboteurs, within the ranks of its leadership, especially.
Reagan once said:
We need to keep in mind the difference between having different views while also being respectful of the very boundaries that define and distinguish your party — and, in the case of Specter and a few others, being almost gleefully insolent.
Looking at John McCain’s twitter site:
Closing the border. Properly identifying Obama’s agenda as socialism and Leninism. Voting with the fringe 31 against confirming that nice, glamorous lady Kathleen who loves abortion so much.
Where was this kind of unequivocal common sense during the campaign?
AJ
You keep saying conservatives are leaving the GOP every time someone brings up true conservatism. You say you have left the conservative party. Where did you go, AJ? To the democrats? Or will you waste your vote and vote third party? A third party vote is a vote for the democrats.
People in the GOP can have their pet issues but to me a conservative is someone who loves God, country and family. I am an extremely patriotic person and it breaks my heart to see where this country is headed. I love this country with all my heart and respect the people who do whatever it takes to protect it. It is a shame that the people put into power a president and congress dedicated to it’s demise.
I lost $20 thousand smackers of retirement money that I sacrificed for my retirement in this debacle that could have been avoided but the dems were too busy greasing their friends’ hands. They say they got political donations from these thieves but I believe they also got some of the loot as well. There’s a reason members of congress go in poor and wind up as millionaires.
I still believe that Obama’s peopl went around all the neighborhoods and took down the names of the people who said they would not vote and voted for them. Here in North Carolina the law says a voter has to show identification but in the early voting I was told it was not required. With these people, the fraudulent registrations and the dead, this guy was elected. I have never seen anyone get away with so much law breaking. It just shows that this guy may be legally an American but he does not have the values of someone brought up in this country. He has shown time and time again he has no respect for our system or our country or the people. And congress is the samehen they would not accept phone calls, e-mails and text messages from the people during the stimulus debate (?) they rammed through congress.
Dress it up how you like but Harry Reid offered Arlen Spector some freebies to vote for the stimulus and to change parties just Tom Daschle did with Jeffords. Democrats are snakes of the lowest order and will do anything to get and retain power.
To me that is disloyalty of the worse kind. And the dems will find out that this guy will show them the same disloyalty that he did several decades ago. He is not only a traitor to his party but also to the welfare of this country. He cares, like most congressment and women, only about getting re-elected. Washington and the country are now ruled by narcissists and arrogant thieves.
There are a lot of good things going on in the GOP right now. I think they are starting to work on “messaging” which has always been a negative for them. The town hall meetings to have conversations with the people and carry those ideas back to DC is a great idea.
These things go in cycles. And, usually for the best.
Big tents are good to a point. However, sometimes the tent is so big that you flail around with no direction. I see “direction” emerging from all of this. It may be a direction in opposition to Obama’s agenda; however, and not “bi-partisan” as moderates prefer.
The anti-DC sentiment is growing out there right now. And, people feel that the government isn’t listening to them. Take the tea parties, for example:
Number of Events: 882
Overall Attendance: 935,304
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=view-events&type=1&sort=turnout&reverse=true&category=2&state=
It would be smart for the GOP to try to connect to these grassroots movements around the country. Obama dismisses them; the GOP shouldn’t.
AJ, I think you grossly exaggerate the number of flame-throwers and purists. I’m a moderate R living in PA, and worked in each of Jim Gerlach’s campaigns. He would be a good candidate, but that’s not the point.
Specter’s announcement was a cause for celebration in this household. Unprincipled does not begin to describe the Senator’s well-earned reputation for putting Arlen first. I have written at least three very civil letters to him over the years, the last a fax re: the stimulus bill before it was apparent that he would support it. I’ve never received any response.
Unless you live here and follow what he does/doesn’t do on a regular basis, you can’t appreciate the animus so many of us have for him. The last time he ran I swallowed hard and voted for him in the primary believing that Toomey was too far right for my taste. This time I would not have hesitated for one minute to vote for Toomey.
I happen to agree with Bill Kristol. I think the Dems will live to regret embracing Specter. Had he remained an R, this was a certain D Senate seat. Now, the Rs have a much better chance of regaining the seat. In the meantime, on the two big Senate votes since the switch, Spector has voted with the Rs. Let him drive Harry Reid nuts. And by the way, the local Ds are none to happy with the idea that Obama, Biden and Rendell have coronated Arlen as the next D candidate.
Finally, I confess to enjoying your columns more before you became so obsessed with what you describe as the right-wing nuts. Your analysis re: forgeign policy, domestic spending, etc. is great — but on this topic, you are beginning to remind of why I gave up on Andrew Sullivan a fews year back — your rants about conservatives is undermining your credibility on other issues. Please accept this observation as coming from one who has read your blog since shortly it began, has appreciated many of your insights and research — and wants to continue to enjoy those.
Nice post, Goldwater Girl. Very well said.
Goldwater Girl:
I too am a Pa. resident and agree 100% with your comment.
It did not pain any of those in my family to see Specter jump to the Dem’s as we also have contacted him over the years on various issues and the only time we have received any communication from him was in a request for dollars.
Let’s face it the man only became a Republican years ago when we realized he could not win a state race as a Democrat.
Sound familiar?
Excellent post, Goldwater Girl. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Thanks Goldwater girl.
Purity wars? What a canard and misdirection ploy.
The Repub party is in disarray for only two simple reasons and two only. All this other posturing is a bunch of tripe.
Repubs exist to provide balance to the emotional swings in the electorate. Repubs are the boring bean counters and class monitors. They exist to provide the two most important functions within the Republic—fiscal responsibility with a small government bias.
They came into power after 50 years in the wilderness because of Reagan. They consolidated those gains with the contract with America in 1994. Within ten years they started to throw it all away by becoming Dems—scandals and bridges to nowhere. Wasting the public treasury and bragging about it.
A few of us started warning about it in 2004, louder still in 2006 and finally screaming in 2008. Specter, Snowe and Collins are the last in a long line of big spending Dems posing as Repubs. Whenever they are confronted they scream Hillary’s vast right wing conspiracy.
The Repub party will continue to be irrelevant as long as they waste time on secondary “big tent” issues instead of spending 100% of their time on fiscal prudence and small government philosophy. If we are going to loot the Treasury I would rather have Dems in control–at least they are honest about it. That is why Dems got elected by the most important voting block in America, the Independents.
Unless the Repubs present a concise, no creative accounting, budget with a reorganization chart for the behemoth government we live with, Obama and crew will continue to clean the slate.
Meanwhile, look over there, there’s opinionated reborn evangelicals? Grab the kids, run! Oh my god, there’s someone who wants to close the border! Yikes.
Yes Ms. Snowe, tell us again how all your bridges are doing.
Since 1950’s:
Eisenhower- R
Eisenhower- R
Nixon- R
Nixon-R
Ford-R
Reagan- R
Reagan- R
Bush- R
Bush-R
Bush-R
Kennedy-d
Johnson-d
Carter-d
Clinton-d
Clinton-d
obama-d
I would say republicans were hardly wandering before Reagan. Carter, for whose policies we are STILL paying and suffering, today, set the stage for Reagan. And I think a point that is often missed of dismissed is that Reagan had been a democrat. He brought a lot of dems to the republican party with him.
We shall see what happens next year.
“I would say republicans were hardly wandering before Reagan.”
Wandering? They were not wandering they were irrelevant. They were the extreme minority in Congress.
Presidential elections are about personalities and ideas. Republicans and Democrats have never elected anyone. What they do is nominate and the vast body of independents decide the winner.
As for the upcoming election in 2010 the Repubs will only gain measurable seats if they put together the fiscal agenda I previously mentioned and Obama and crew continue to loot the treasury. As for the tripe about the center, the majority of voters could care less about any new Repub message about inclusiveness or less purity that is bandied about. Like the majority of the black electorate they think we are all phonies when it comes to these matters. They see it as just pandering.
Again I ask, as I have since 2004, where is Repub fiscal planning and small government bias in all their actions. Where are the leaders educating the public about the hard choices. All I see, as I have all these years, is carping about how bad the evil Dems are. Well the electorate has thrown the Repubs out and they will stay out as long as we spend time on “purity debates” instead of rolling up our sleeves and clawing back our fiscal reputation.
Until that work is done the Repubs will do better only when the Dems do worse. Boy, there’s a strategy!
Nonsense neid. It really has come down to a popularity contest. Have you heard the GOP tell the little secret to the public about who controlled Congress the last two years? The scary thing is that a lot of the voters think Pugs had it for 8 years with George W Bush. The BRAND is damaged goods and the GOP thought they could just associate it all with Bush.
Michelle said we were mean. The public thinks the GOP is mean.
I even hear people like Hannity sit quietly when they mention that the Pugs controlled it all. Hannity. Unbelievable.
The new GOP listening tour might be a good thing but even better would be to put more new blood on that tour and get people like McCain, Grinch, and Bush out of people’s faces. The GOP needs communicators. That simple but it needs them to be new faces. The GOP makes it too complicated to take root.
ivehadit……………thanks. Clinton twice. Now someone needs to look at that closely and learn.
Specter’s Defection could help Republicans block Souter’s potential replacement
excerpt:
But in an ironic twist, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party this week could give Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee the upper hand in rejecting a nominee they find unacceptable.
That’s because the Judiciary Committee, where Specter was the ranking minority member, requires the consent of at least one Republican to end debate and move a nominee to the full Senate for a vote.
“Most people presume in a controversial nomination that Arlen Specter would have been the one most likely to vote with Democrats, since he prides himself on being independent of Republicans. But now that he moves over to the Democratic side, the president and Democrats lost their most likely minority vote.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/01/specters-defection-help-republicans-block-souters-potential-replacement/