# Possible 3rd Party Forming on the Right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 24, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942 "2009-10-24T05:57:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/61 "2009-10-26T14:51:29Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There are a number of factors at play which could lead to a general conservative resurgence. One is that national security is starting to become a larger issue again, and not just in the war on terror. The U.S. is facing a lot of hard opposition right now from a number of countries. :mad: Don’t worry! We’ll show those damned Canuckistani savages who’s boss! > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The financial meltdown is making people more conservative with their money. The growth of the debt is turning a lot of people into real deficit hawks who might not have made that their prime issue in the past. N.B.: The last time we had an economic situation anything like the present one, public response was massive support for the New Deal. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And it’s still early in the Democrat’s reign. If they keep this up, and keep passing big government laws, they’re going to reawaken the inner conservative in a lot of people. Have you been asleep since 1980?! There is no “inner conservative” left to “reawaken.” Market saturation for that message was reached a **long** time ago! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/62 "2009-10-26T15:14:28Z")
I’d like to know exactly what “big government laws” the Democrats have passed since Obama has been in office. Bush sure passed some (PATRIOT Act, for instance), but I’m not aware of Obama passing any. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/63 "2009-10-26T15:52:39Z")
[Here, once again, is the lastest version (2005) of the Pew Political Typology.](http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=949) I submit that the only defined groups to which a pure-conservative party to the right of the GOP would appeal (defining “pure-conservative” as (1) consistently small-government, and (2) social-religious conservative) are the Enterprisers (10% of registered voters) and the Social Conservatives (13%). (The Pro-Government Conservatives definitely would not be interested, for obvious reasons.) That only sums to 23% of the vote at most. Add all the Disaffecteds and you’ve still got only 33%. Not enough to form a majority or even a plurality. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/64 "2009-10-26T17:12:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Here, once again, is the lastest version (2005) of the Pew Political Typology.](http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=949) I submit that the only defined groups to which a pure-conservative party to the right of the GOP would appeal (defining “pure-conservative” as (1) consistently small-government, and (2) social-religious conservative) are the Enterprisers (10% of registered voters) and the Social Conservatives (13%). (The Pro-Government Conservatives definitely would not be interested, for obvious reasons.) That only sums to 23% of the vote at most. Add all the Disaffecteds and you’ve still got only 33%. Not enough to form a majority or even a plurality. That’s all well and good, and maybe I missed **Sam Stone** ’s point for this thread, but most of the opposition to Scozzafava is that she’s pro-choice and pro-gay rights. If everyone wants to talk about the potential appeal of a right of GOP pure conservative small government party, it’s fine by me. But in the context of NY-23’s special election, Hoffman is appealing to angry people who hate socially liberal ideas. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/65 "2009-10-26T17:22:35Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The teabaggers are not any kind of significant “movement.” It’s just a minority of hardcore fundies, gun nuts and racists. They’re everything that Americans repudiated in the last election, and they’re shrinking, not growing. > > No one who actually wants to win any sort of national office would want to attach themselves to to a bunch of idiotic birthers, deathers and town hall screamers. > > Palin is politically finished, by the way. The kind of “values” she esposues (i.e xenophobia, theocracy, plutocracy, corporatocracy witch burning, Ark hunting, book burning, gay bashing, lying, killing animals from helicopters, secession, creationism, narcissism, anti-environmentalism, fear-mongering, making things up, forcing little girls to have rape babies, war-mongering, shopping with other people’s money, quitting, the list goes on) are exactly what’s killing the GOP. She might be a hero to angry, sub-literate, white evangelicals, but she has no appeal outside them. Its always amusing how myopic people are about their own political beliefs. I’m talking about you, not the tea baggers. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/66 "2009-10-26T17:58:27Z")
Mswas, Sarah Palin IS finished. She’s never going to hold another elective office. She might have a future as a ultraright hood ornament, but she’s a nobody who has nothing going for her besides identity politics. The teabaggers don’t love Palin because of anything she’s done or any skills she might have, they love her because she’s “one of them”. She’s Al Sharpton for white people. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/67 "2009-10-26T20:01:12Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > That’s all well and good, and maybe I missed **Sam Stone** ’s point for this thread, but most of the opposition to Scozzafava is that she’s pro-choice and pro-gay rights. If everyone wants to talk about the potential appeal of a right of GOP pure conservative small government party, it’s fine by me. But in the context of NY-23’s special election, Hoffman is appealing to angry people who hate socially liberal ideas. Well, you don’t think “angry people who hate socially liberal ideas” form a majority in the state of New York, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/68 "2009-10-26T20:49:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, you don’t think “angry people who hate socially liberal ideas” form a majority in the state of New York, do you? No I don’t. But I do think that fiscally conservative people **could** become disgusted with the angry people running the GOP and field their own candidate. Then your useful data would support the fact that there aren`t enough of them to ever be a serious party. I was merely pointing out that that hasn’t happened. Instead of fiscal conservatives splintering off from deranged angry people, we have even angrier people splintering off from the deranged angry people. None of them are really serious about fiscal conservatism, some are just really mad about supporting gay rights and reproductive rights. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/69 "2009-10-26T20:55:22Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > She’s Al Sharpton for white people. Ouch. Insightful, but ouch. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/70 "2009-10-26T21:06:35Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > First, I’m aware of the history of the New York Conservative party. I wasn’t suggesting that the existence of this party or a candidate from it was in itself news. The news is that so many former Republicans broke ranks to endorse the Conservative Party candidate ovrer the one from their own party… Oh, where to start? If they are former Republicans, they didn’t “break ranks” with their party to endorse the Conservative candidate. If they are former Republicans they did not fail to endorse the candidate from “their own party.” Are they “former Republicans” because they no longer hold elective office? Are they still Republicans who broke ranks to endorse the candidate from another perty? I think the interesting story in this is not the election at all – it’s the breakdown in Republican party discipline. If there was one area in which Republican were far and away superior to Democrats it was in maintaining a united front and a solid voting block for their leadership. All the people listed in the OP are CLEARLY associated with the Republican party. I don’t think they want to leave – I think they want to complete a takeover that has been happening for some years. I think they are daring the more moderate Republicans (it almost makes me gag to think of Newt Gingrich as a moderate) to try to discipline them – they are looking for a showdown. I think the idea is to cast out the leadership that makes it possible for nominal moderates to get a Republican nomination. And it if costs a few seats in the House, it will be worth it to them, or so they think. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/71 "2009-10-26T21:13:46Z")
Right. They’d rather be absolute rulers of a small unified party than players in a large coalition party. The fact that their rump party will never form a majority in their lifetimes doesn’t concern them, because as we have seen from the history of Republican majorities, they aren’t interested in passing “conservative” legislation. They are interested in being members of think tanks, appearing on TV, having books ghostwritten for them. The whole K Street project wasn’t about transforming the country in a conservative direction, it was about selling themselves to the highest bidder. The modern conservative movement is all movement and no conservatism. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/72 "2009-10-26T21:21:37Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > That’s the key feature of this whole Teabagger “movement.” It’s just a bunch of generalized anger and frustration with no real unifying focus. […] Anyone who thinks they can unify this scattershot discontent into a coherent political movement is in for a rude awakening. I know a way. It would involve sheer _Blut-und-Boden_ demagoguery and would probably lead to organized mob violence, but it could be done. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/73 "2009-10-26T22:42:20Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Mswas, Sarah Palin IS finished. She’s never going to hold another elective office. She might have a future as a ultraright hood ornament, but she’s a nobody who has nothing going for her besides identity politics. > > The teabaggers don’t love Palin because of anything she’s done or any skills she might have, they love her because she’s “one of them”. She’s Al Sharpton for white people. Sure, but **Diogenes** is engaging in wishful thinking but trying to say that a movement of people he is politically opposed to isn’t ‘really’ a movement. It is ‘really’ a movement, whether he likes it or not. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/74 "2009-10-26T22:48:53Z")
It’s a temper tantrum, not a movement. A movement needs a coherent goal or cause, and needs to actually _move_ somewhere. The teabaggers are just people whiming because they lost the last election. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/75 "2009-10-26T23:24:41Z")
I think “End the Poor” would be a compelling cause. Not “End Poverty,” mind you, but focus on the _people:_ career leeches who think they’re too good to have to support 2 kids on minimum wage, people with funny colored skin, people claiming exotic “diseases” you suspect they made up, oh, and of course eggheads preaching compassion and humaneness. Start dressing up in khaki and breaking their windows, then being beating them silly. Maybe a few lynchings. Oh, I can see that being a _very_ effective cause under the right leader. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/76 "2009-10-26T23:43:36Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Right. They’d rather be absolute rulers of a small unified party than players in a large coalition party. > > The fact that their rump party will never form a majority in their lifetimes doesn’t concern them . . . No, it’s worse – they’re in denial on that point. They think they really are in the majority, or would be if the independents would just wake up to common sense. **Sam** has made comments to that effect in this very thread. It’s very similar to the thinking that led the left-liberal [New Politics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_politics) wing to take over the Democratic Party in 1972, and marginalize it. > [@Lemur866](#): > > The modern conservative movement is all movement and no conservatism. No, it’s all conservatism and no movement. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/77 "2009-10-26T23:49:40Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > I think “End the Poor” would be a compelling cause. Not “End Poverty,” mind you, but focus on the _people:_ career leeches who think they’re too good to have to support 2 kids on minimum wage, people with funny colored skin, people claiming exotic “diseases” you suspect they made up, oh, and of course eggheads preaching compassion and humaneness. Start dressing up in khaki and breaking their windows, then being beating them silly. Maybe a few lynchings. > > Oh, I can see that being a _very_ effective cause under the right leader. But, there are too many of the poor in America; and, except for the noncitizens (and convicted felons in some states), they can vote – they usually don’t, but they can, and will if pushed into a corner. They can also riot. Hitler never had to worry about the Jewish vote; there were just enough Jews in Germany to make them a plausible scapegoat, but too few to matter electorally, let alone play any significant role in the street-fighting politics of the period. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/78 "2009-10-27T01:26:49Z")
Luckily for us, there’s a brand new Gallup poll out today: [Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group](http://www.gallup.com/poll/123854/Conservatives-Maintain-Edge-Top-Ideological-Group.aspx) While you guys are trying to paint conservatives as a tiny, fading group of people, the reality is that there has not been a single time since at least 1992 when more people identified as conservative. In fact, it’s the liberals that are shrinking, which is what I said above. And it’s not even close: Conservative: 40% Moderate: 36% Liberal: 20% These numbers are based on surveys from January to September of this year. In any event, this marks a high-water point for people self-describing as conservative (40% was matched in 2003 and 2004, and has been lower in every other year since 1992). Within the Democratic party, liberals are also losing. In 2008, 39% of Democrats called themselves liberal and 21% called themselves conservative. In 2009, liberals made up 37%, and conservatives 22%. But even worse for Democrats, Independents are not only growing in size, they are becoming more conservative. In 2008, 29% of independents identified as conservative, vs 20% who identified as liberal. This year, the split is 35/18 - a 10 point shift in favor of conservatives and more than double the previous gap. It gets worse for liberals: On most specific issues, the people are trending towards conservative positions. For example: > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]Perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business and industry jumped from 38% in September 2008 to 45% in September 2009.[/li][li]The percentage of Americans saying they would like to see labor unions have less influence in the country rose from 32% in August 2008 to a record-high 42% in August 2009.[/li][li]Public support for keeping the laws governing the sale of firearms the same or making them less strict rose from 49% in October 2008 to 55% in October 2009, also a record high. (The percentage saying the laws should become more strict – the traditionally liberal position – fell from 49% to 44%.)[/li][li]The percentage of Americans favoring a decrease in immigration rose from 39% in June/July 2008 to 50% in July 2009.[/li][li]The propensity to want the government to “promote traditional values” – as opposed to “not favor any particular set of values” – rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.[/li][li]The percentage of Americans who consider themselves “pro-life” on abortion rose from 44% in May 2008 to 51% in May 2009, and remained at a slightly elevated 47% in July 2009.[/li][li]Americans’ belief that the global warming problem is “exaggerated” in the news rose from 35% in March 2008 to 41% in March 2009.[/li][/ul] These are not small changes. Conservatives now outnumber moderates for the first time since 2004. The biggest increase in conservative attitudes comes from political independents. 76% of the country now defines itself as conservative or moderate. So in truth, it’s you far lefties that are getting hammered. You’re losing your support of independents, and even Democrats are moving to the right. And we’re not even through the first year of the Obama administration. Wait until you see what the numbers look like next year. Gallup’s conclusion: > [@](#): > > All of this has potentially important implications at the ballot box, particularly for the 2010 midterm elections. The question is whether increased conservatism, particularly among independents, will translate into heightened support for Republican candidates. Right now, it appears it may. Although Gallup polling continues to show the Democratic Party leading the Republican Party in Americans’ party identification, that lead has been narrowing since the beginning of the year and now stands at six points, the smallest since 2005. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/79 "2009-10-27T01:29:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, there are too many of the poor in America; and, except for the noncitizens (and convicted felons in some states), they can vote – they usually don’t, but they can, and will if pushed into a corner. > > They can also riot. > > Hitler never had to worry about the Jewish vote; there were just enough Jews in Germany to make them a plausible scapegoat, but too few to matter electorally, let alone play any significant role in the street-fighting politics of the period. You, my friend, need to get angry and cynical, and stop falling back on the tired old intellectual jack-off game of learning from history. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942/80 "2009-10-27T01:32:47Z")
> [@cn8of10](#): > > Hoffman is going to lose, and I think the endorsers are well aware of it. By endorsing a strong core conservative they are highlighting their core credentials. The loss will be blamed on big liberal dollars, liberal media, etc. But these will be good credentials to take to the polls in the 2010 mid-terms. New poll out today: Hoffman 31%, Owens 27%, Scozzafava 20%. And since then, Tim Pawlenty has also endorsed Hoffman. Still sure he’s going to lose? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possible-3rd-party-forming-on-the-right/514942.md?page=5)