Parties don’t matter as long as you have unregulated lobbyists.
There must be some sort of rule/law we can promulgate that says something like, “As any thread about political parties approaches n post, the probability of BrainGlutton posting about proportional representation approaches 100%.”
I don’t come to this dark corner of the forum enough to get that, but speaking of probabilities, aren’t we overdue for some sort of Nazi comparison? 
Just so long as it’s not warped into a “You lose!” law like Godwin’s has been.
We already have the Constitution Party, the America First Party and the Libertarian Party. What kind of better conservative party do we need?
:mad: I hate New Jersey Nazis!
If you’re not on a VPN, you should be careful about how you talk about our state police. 
edit: actually, since that profiling scandal, they’re supposedly a lot better. IDK. I don’t think I’ve been on the turnpike in years.
No he is not: he is another Republican House lunatic. There’s only one moderate Republican in the House of Representatives and his name is Peter King. Sure, Mr. King supported IRA terrorists. But he’s still a moderate by GOP standards. King tried hard to end the government shutdown: saying that he could easily gather 25 Republican votes to support the Continuing Resolution (CR). In the end he could only put together 12 votes, many of whom believed that the CR didn’t go far enough. Old Rodney was not on the list. Michelle Bachmann and Louie Gohmert were among the not-crazy-enough crew.
Anybody who holds the economy hostage in exchange for repeal on the Affordable Care Act and when that doesn’t fly, budget cuts is more concerned with preening than with governing. And they certainly don’t qualify as moderates.
Rodney Frelinhuysen is a hostage taker: he can’t run away from his voting record. Supporters of Republican attempts to cut and gut the economy need to be identified, called out and yes voted out. Like I said earlier, the professional class has every reason to support sound and sane national governance.
My links and claims are messed up. Let me try again:
King and 19 Republicans claimed they would vote for a clean CR to end the shutdown and stop trampling on the economy. But they would not sign a discharge petition that would permit the clean CR to go up for a vote. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/06/2738461/peter-king-republican-shutdown/
Here’s the list from Oct 1 of Republicans who said that they would support a clean CR. Recall that AFAIK, none of them would sign a petition that would bring a clean CR up for a vote. So their convictions were flaccid. Nonetheless, they were willing to tell reporters that if somebody else would bring such a bill to the floor, that they would vote for it.
: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/02/2721971/boehner-could-reopen-government/
Rodney Frelinhuysen was too beholden to the Tea Party to join this list. Only a single NJ Republican representative expressed support: Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.): “Enough is enough. Put a clean [continuing resolution] on the floor and let’s get on with the business we were sent to do." [Burlington County Times, 10/1/13] Well said Representative Runyan. But you still voted for CRs that were total nonstarters. And you wouldn’t sign a petition to bring a clean CR up for a vote AFAIK. Talk is cheap: it’s actions that matter.
Moderate Republicans once roamed the great state of New Jersey. But today they are cryptids, much discussed but never confirmed.
I think what we’re seeing is the same problem that viruses run into. The most virulent/deadly strains kill their hosts the quickest but as a result aren’t able to spread to other hosts as easily so they tend to die out. That’s the Tea Party. They took over the GOP like a plague but looks like they have just about succeeded in killing their host before they could gain any real power.
ON the topic of the OP…
New Jersey may be interesting but I don’t think it truly qualifies for bellwether status. That title more aptly falls on Virginia. New Jersey is, in the end, a northeastern blue state with a leavening of moderate republicans.
Virginia has been a southern red state now trending purple. Hell, for a while the Tea Party was quite the thing there. But the current fortunes of Cuccinelli in the governors race against a wounded dove of McAuliffe is a sign that things are changing in the Old Dominion. After voting for the R candidate for the presidency at the rate of:
1996 47/45
2000 53/44
2004 54/46
in the last two it’s switched:
2008 53/46
2012 51/47
That’s an average R win of 5.6% to an average D win of 5.5% - a 10%+ percent swing. Even if you chalk up 2008 to Obama fever that still leaves 2012 as a true test of where it’s going. And I think that’s 13 electoral votes that the Republican Party isn’t getting back anytime soon. Follow that with the leftward move of congressional districts in NoVA and things could indeed get hectic there.
Still, the governors race is being perceived as a battle between a ‘true’ conservative in Cuccinelli and the Clinton brigade in McAuliffe. With that on the line the narrative for a McAuliffe win will be perceived as a step towards Hillary’s eventual declaration of candidacy. That’s no small stakes for the Republican Party.
I agree he’s an ass. I called his office to yell at him over the shutdown. I have not voted for him in six elections so far. But at least he’s sort of pro-choice on some level and not beloved by the NRA.
My point was that he could not get elected with such a record in many other ostensibly Republican districts in other states. Christie is about to get re-elected with a similar record on social issues. NJ is no more a Republican state than current NYC mayor Bloomberg is a Republican.
Thanks to Obamacare, no doubt. 
(What’s up with the “-ea-” misspellings in this thread?)
I fessed up to that early on but didn’t ask for it to be corrected. I figured it was my problem. If it’s annoying though I’ll ask.
I agree. Every time I get an inclination to hope for the complete destruction of the Republican party, I think of the DC government, and become glad that we don’t have a defacto one party system, even if the Democrats were that one party.
In Trenton there stands a bar
Where the bums come from near and from far
They come by bus, they come by car
The lousy bums of New Jersey!
The Whigs self-destructed and the Republicans rose from its ashes. If the Republicans suffer electoral collapse, it won’t be the end of the two party system.
So yes, we should hope for their collapse and replacement with a party that cares about facts and doesn’t take the economy and good credit of the United States hostage for their petty concerns. And we know they are petty concerns, since they dropped Obamacare opposition like a hot potato and promptly grabbed something else when their first demand wouldn’t fly.
The Republican Party of the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or even 1980s would be fine. This isn’t about ideology so much as patriotism, the public interest and neuro-stability.
Watching Christie’s victory speech tonight I had several thoughts come to mind.
[ol]
[li]This fella sure seems like a regular guy. And he’s so good at the public speaking thing![/li][li]If the Republicans got behind this guy and he could maintain the centrist tone he might have a shot![/li][li]Too bad for him the Tea Party folks are hunting RINOS.[/li][/ol]
My point being, I could never vote for him because I disagree with him in so many ways, but he sure knows how to sound like a moderate. Whether he is or not, I honestly don’t know. I do know there is no way he can continue the reasonable rhetoric he used tonight and have a chance to get the win in 2016. Too bad for the Republicans because I don’t see them having any better chance. No way the Tea Party will back him.
Right, but there’s some sort of constitutional requirement that NJ must send a Frelinghuysen to Congress. 
Right, the average SDMBer (meaning a very-far leftist, almost to the point of not being considered acceptable within the Democratic party which is much more centrist), is never going to vote for Chris Christie. His strength is the wide swathe of the electorate from the moderate liberals, through the centrists, through the moderate conservatives that would vote for him (evidenced by his wide support in New Jersey across ideological boundaries.)
He’s a complete non-starter as a candidate, though. He’s basically Huntsman with better celebrity and probably more mass appeal, but similarly unpalatable to the ultra-conservatives who vote in GOP primary elections.