Here’s a snippet from one of these new “moderate” New York Republicans (Anthony D’Esposito) campaign website. Look like somebody itching to reach across the aisle?
With inflation at a 40-year high, hardworking Nassau County families are facing a hidden inflation tax on everything they buy–from gasoline for their cars to milk at the grocery store. The inflation crisis was caused by the Biden Administration’s out-of-control spending, failed policies and inability to solve disruptions to the supply chain. Unlike Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress who have been a rubberstamp for the Biden agenda, Anthony will stand up for taxpayers and put an end to wasteful government spending.
Oh, I don’t expect any of them to sound like Democrats when speaking publicly. It’s what happens behind the scenes when things devolve into chaos in the coming weeks and months and the poll numbers show them slipping badly.
So only time will tell, I think. It’s not going to be obvious anytime soon. And I will always allow I could be wrong. Republicans of all stripes have often proved they will stoop to depths heretofore unimaginable by me.
I don’t think they will. The Tepiblicans have consistently shown a willingness to go over the cliff if they think it will help them “win,” whatever that might mean in the circumstances. Even “moderate” Republicans have no real values, or they would have stopped being Eepublicans at some point during this Highway to hell.
Sure – I have no crystal ball either. I would just caution against assuming that being from a swing district/state will make a Republican more “moderate.” Wisconsin is the most closely divided state in the country, and they’ve elected Ron Johnson to the Senate three times. There are members who win in close districts through a reputation for moderation and bipartisanship, but there plenty who win because they successful goose turnout by their base voters through partisan antics.
[Wording of the quotes is from the other thread, but the general sense seems to still be under discussion over here.]
New York overall is heavily Democratic, yes. The particular areas these representatives are from, to the best of my knowledge, are heavily Republican. The recent redistricting, for instance, landed my immediate (quite R, though mostly polite to D’s) area into a district designed to be very much safe R, though we used to be in a district that while generally definitely R held at least the hope of swinging D and had elected a D not all that many years back.
I hold a bit of hope, as some of them would like those committee seats for themselves, and may have been expecting them. But it’s not a large bit.
As I have repeatedly said, I’m not talking about traditional swing districts or districts that have more than once elected someone unfit like Johnson. I’m talking specifically about newly-minted, brand-new never-before-Republicans who have been elected in traditionally Democratic districts, such as these:
There are others. Again, these are brand-new Republicans whose hold on their seats is tenuous at best. Those are the potential “moderates” I’m talking about.
FWIW torpedoing the negotiated rules package would not be equal to caucusing with the Democrats. It would take less spine than the Upton option would have: they voted and got their desired GOP Speaker, that Speaker assured the third party group that he will put forward a package with these rules. People don’t trust McCarthy for reasons. He will put it forward but he never promised it would pass and he may have kept these so-called “centrists” on board by assuring them that there would be no repercussions to them if they voted against it.
And what is the result if that happens?
The revolting group (I know they are all revolting but you know the meaning I intend! ) feels betrayed by McCarthy despite his playing innocent but what can they do? The package that gets passed is a continuation of the one that the Ds had put in place, which makes a motion to vacate hard to happen. They’re a bit screwed.
Will they then be hard to deal with? How much harder to deal with can they be but now the rules are not ones that give them all the power.
Still likely more spine than the so-called “centrists” have got. But reality will be that they are very screwed if they play nice as expected.
Several years ago it didn’t matter – it would have been ridiculous to think that a vote to unseat the majority party’s chosen Speaker would get a majority vote. So nobody tried.
My take has been and continues to be that a very weak GOP Speaker over a fractured caucus with a narrow majority was the third best possible result, with others having been very unlikely (a few GOP being so pissed as to be able to be given enough to cross over and vote Jeffries being best, unity compromise candidate, two.)
Vox expresses why some.
Another reason why is that the GOP having to act the most crazy as a whole because the craziest are in charge keeps GOP dysfunction and extremism as the constant face of the party for the next two years going into the next elections. The issue any GOP presidential candidate has to grapple with is whether or not they endorse these most crazy most extreme positions or not, where they sit on issue of a GOP Civil War.
The things that absolutely need to get done will get done in any case, even with more Sturm and Drang, and nothing else was going to get done in any case.
) feels betrayed by McCarthy despite his playing innocent but what can they do? The package that gets passed is a continuation of the one that the Ds had put in place, which makes a motion to vacate hard to happen. They’re a bit screwed.