Senator Specter (D-PA) changes his affiliation to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party brought forth a big coalition to attain a majority in 1980 when he first was elected 29 years ago which included centrist to liberal legislators such as Arlen Specter to conservatives such as Jesse Helms.
The Republican Party became more polarized over time and the caucus moved more to the right where even Vermont’s own senator Jim Jeffords left the party in 2002 and became an Independent to caucus with the Democratic Party. The only two North Eastern centrists that lurk in the party are the Maine Republican women of Collins and and Snowe.
Yes, we need to follow the fundamentals of fiscal responsibility. But we need to ditch the reliance on bashing the queers and Mexicans for votes. I think I see the writing on the wall, if the Republicans want to be a party of the nation, they need to understand reality. If we want to represent the North East and the West Coast we need to moderate our views on social issues. It’s the base stupid!
We follow the same old playbook and fumble each time, politics is about addition not subtraction if we want a winning collation we got to adapt with the times. We are facing a possible generational realignment in the political culture, the traditional Republican base is dying off, and the vote share is going down. The youth voted for Obama 66 to 32 in 2008, compared to 61 to 30 in 1984 while white voters are going down from 88 percent in 1988 to 74 percent in 2008. And I do understand why Steve Schmidt discussed his support for LGBT equality in his speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, its the demographics. Young people do understand that intolerance is not cool and they will likely shy away from a political party that treats their family members and friends like they are second class and irrelevant.
Immigration is the other wedge issue that will cause a wider vote share to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party had its modern day Southern Strategy in 1994 with Proposition 187 which polarized Latino voters and caused many of them to stay away from the Republican Party. Even though many Latino voters may be socially conservative, they avoid the Republican Party because they are mean and used them as a wedge issue. Even though we are against illegal immigration, we should advocate for legal immigration because without people immigrating America would not be as successful as it is today. Wedge issues have a shelf life and they are increasingly coming close to expiration.
Yes, we do need to maintain a two party government. However when the Republican Party establishment refuses to adapt with the times we are seeing the shrinking margins in congress become wider since they last lost the majority in the 1950s. We need an opposition party to stand up against the Democratic Party.
Take a look at California, with a caveman dominated Republican caucus where voters would rather elect Democratic party legislators because Republicans are just basically mean even though Democrats can not balance budgets and lead us to massive budget deficits. We need to be an effective opposition so we can be the checks and balances to prevent an one-party state or national government.
With the Republican Party having no leaders, no cohesive message and by relying on knee jerk reactions we are still stuck in the political wilderness. We need a majority first before we can make things happen, when the base’s dogmatic reliance on staying the course makes the job easier for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has a majority because they have conservative leaning legislators in states and regions that lean conservative economically or socially. The Republican Party needs its own liberal to centrist influence in communities and states who would not elect someone who is socially conservative. The Big Tent must return.
By becoming socially inclusive, fiscally responsible by advocating small yet responsive government the Republican Party can return to form. If we could fix California by assembling a new collation we could bring the Republican Party back to life.
who is matt munson?
Former State Assembly Nominee 2002 for Assembly District 61, UC Riverside Graduate 2003 BA Political Science.
And blogger of San Bernardino County stuff since Sharon Gilbert shut down her blog, I am one of the only main sites for Inland Empire politics aside from Red County.
Besides saying “NO” to everything proposed by the Democrats, the GOP needs a positive plan.
So Obama is a socialist say they – then let’s hear the GOP plan for dismantling the existing socialist programs of Medicare & SS – or is being a little bit pregnant OK.
Agreed. It kills me when I hear people say that they are happy to see Specter become a dem and they wish that he would take McCain, Snowe, and Collins with him. These people just don’t understand politics.
Politics is about addition, we are becoming a regional party like the Bloc Quebecois and we are not going to be a governing party. Same thing with California, we need the Silicon Valley, we need Burbank, Torrance, San Pedro, Pasadena, Palm Springs.
America is going to be ruined like California thanks to a dogmatic Republican Party.
The majority of the Flash Report readers and editors think that its better to be a fringe party and have no power than to modernize the party.
They say oh yeah AD 80 voted for Prop 8, so who cares if we elect another losing Republican like Gary Jeandron. But maybe if they nominated someone latino or gay friendly they would of won.
Wonder why Silicon Valley has the Republican Party as the third most popular party behind Decline to State.
Problem is we have a party who sold itself to the fundamentalists and decided to spend like Democratic party legislators.
That was a refreshing explosion of truth!
But seriously, Matt, what is the best course from here? Can we really persuade the most active GOP’ers to ditch all the subtle bigotry and intolerance? Would it be better to bolt from the party of Huckabee, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin and follow Specter in the hope of making Democratic primaries competitive with competent centrist candidates who understand basic economics?
People wanted a candidate like classic Schwarzenegger, who was fiscally responsible yet socially inclusive. We do not want new Arnold nor another Arlen Specter to be the future of our party. Thats one reason why I would likely support Larry Elder over Carly Fionia for US Senate.
Ron we have to explain that the same old tired attitudes do not win elections.
I honestly would not defect to the Democratic Party either. The parties dependent on big government have a stranglehold on the establishment in that party just as much as the fundamentalists of Lou Sheldon, Karen England have influence in the California Republican Party.
Sadly the California Republican League is weak and a national group called the Progressive Republicans is starting to be formed via Facebook. I wanted the leadership of the CRL to organize with the national organization, but I never had any response back from the CRL.
My best advice is take over the state party. I bet a new leader with the sensibilities of John and Ken would do a better job than Ron Nehiring. All we need to do is get like minded people as nominees in the 2010 election.