I say Amen, you hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned. They talk of government control over our lives and try to do the same thing socially.
I feel much the same way Dob. I grew up in a family of Reagan Republicans. I supported the party in the first election in which I was old enough to vote. My father spent most of the 90s despising Bill Clinton. But in 2008 he voted for a Democrat for the first time, because he felt the GOP had become such a farce.
My own attitudes started changing in the late '90s when I went to college. I was never a big fan of Bush, but still felt good enough about him at first that I didn’t worry much about his election. The next eight years really opened my eyes, however. I thought when the party nominated McCain that there was still hope that it was a rational entity open to moderate ideas. But then he was forced to pick Palin as his running mate.
Seeing the party let the crassest, most loathsome elements take charge and make fools like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin its spokespeople pretty much destroyed what little faith I or my family had left in it.
Me too. Any moderate Republican (pro-choice, pro-SSM, whatever) is being driven from the party but what are our options? Any third-party is flaming liberal except the teabags who are the ones claiming we’re not real Republicans because I honestly don’t care who’s banging who or that I don’t believe this country should be run by their misinformed and hypocritical interpretation of the Bible.
Democrat? That’ll never happen as long as a moderate Republican believes in fiscal responsiblity. Yes, the Reps have their own pork-barrel spending but as bad as they are the Dems are worse and at least we have a few that think we should curb spending. Who on the left-side of the aisle would even consider reducing spending?
Start a party? I’m actually considering this when I get settled in Colorado (the preliminary platform is posted in a thread somewhere) but it is nearly impossible to get a third party in one state let alone nationally and unless you’re in Vermont third-parties are noted for their lack of success.
Support the Third Way who are on the brink of a rise to power! People like Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Meg Whitman and Tom Campbell in California.
Hey, everyone thinks they are in the minority on this board. It’s our shtick. Me, I’m a gun totin’ left-wing, Christian Peace Creep.
The moment you referred to, McCain’s attempt to rebuke the woman’s comment about Mr. Obama being a Muslim was a pivot point. They booed him. Their own candidate pointed out a true fact, and a respectful attitude toward the process of democracy, and the GOP faithful booed. It was in that moment that John McCain realized who was on his side. I cry to think that this fine man could not bring to bear that core self direction that once marked his politics, and fire his entire staff, and publicly point out that demagoguery is not the path for his administration to pursue.
I must say, had it been a choice between Clinton, and McCain, (Assuming Sarah stayed up in the snow, shooting moose.) I might well have cast my very first vote for a Republican Presidential candidate. That choice would have been on the basis of character. Not the silly trappings of church membership, and chaste behavior, but on the true quality of character that makes a person choose to do what will be unpopular because they know it is the right thing to do. Before the last election cycle, John McCain had it, Hillary Clinton did not. Sadly, since he is now no longer a Maverick, it appears he has joined the forces which so surprised him on that night when the Republican Party Machinery rolled over him.
We on the left really lucked out. Now we need to stay at the plate, and swing at the tough pitches. As they always do, the Republican Party will seek victory at any ethical cost, and our only possible choice is to stake out the low ground, and stay the hell off of it.
Turning out at the polls in the off years would be a delightful surprise for a change.
Tris
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I’d like to see less use of the word “liberal” and more use of the word “progressive”.
George Lakoff points out that conservatives have been intentionally making the word “liberal” carry undesirable baggage since the early sixties. Terms like “Tax and spend liberals”, “Hollywood liberals” and “East coast liberal elites” allow conservatives to frame our messages of progress in a negative way. When we use the term, we reinforce conservative frames of who “liberals” are.
I am none of those things and I’d say many here are not as well. I remember a poll a while back where people came back saying “I’m socially liberal, but fiscally conservative” etc. Well, then, don’t let someone hang a “liberal” sign around your neck it that’s not who you are.
Lets use the term “progressive” and frame our own message our own way.
Well, it would be a really good thing for the American Electorate to spend less time and effort trying to come up with nifty ways to explain what we have done, and more time actually trying to find out what we really did. The we could move on to how the hell to fix the things we screwed up, and support the very few things that actually worked.
I don’t care if drooling hyper-patriots of the extreme neo-conservative wing use capitalism to deliver appropriate nutrition to infants and nursing mothers. I just want the kids fed. We got more money than everyone, and oddly enough, we don’t have anywhere near the lowest infant mortality rate. Who the fuck cares whose fault it was, let’s start feeding everyone under a hundred pounds. Even the rich ones. Let’s not do means testing, let’s just feed folks who need to eat.
That way, folks who are against feeding hungry children will have to vote against feeding hungry children, instead f voting against communism.
Tris
“There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.”
– Winston S. Churchill
That’s a very interesting interesting comment.
I’m trying to remember who was in government the last time the federal budget was in the black? And then who was in government when it next returned to a deficit?
You are listing republicans from MA and CA though. I don’t know enough about Whitman and Campbell, but any GOP candidate with a fighting chance in a strongly blue state like CA or MA has to be moderate.
The bulk of the GOP still comes from deep red areas in the south, midwest and northwest. So they will still get to define the party, and punish anyone who doesn’t follow the protocol. Specter had to switch parties. Collins & Snowe are ridiculed. Brown has been targeted for supporting the jobs bill and other bills.
I agree. I really wanted to vote for McCain in 2000, and I was extremely disappointed when he did not get the nomination. I honestly thought he was the best candidate, showing integrity, courage and convictions. When his campaign collapsed in South Carolina under an extremely negative and (IMHO) despicable attack that appeared to come from Governor Bush’s campaign, I turned to the Democrats.
I didn’t really like Al Gore, but I didn’t dislike him either. I thought President Clinton was a liar and a philanderer, but all in all I thought he was a decent President. His foreign policies were OK. I liked NAFTA in principle, if not in practice. I liked that he pushed to balance the budget (under the tutelage of Alan Greenspan). Welfare Reform was mostly good. The Family Medical Leave Act was good. Other things were mixed. Regardless, I thought Al Gore would most likely stay the course, albeit less effectively. I had no problem casting a vote for Al Gore in light of the tactics employed by Karl Rove, though I had no beef with George Bush himself. I thought that Florida 2000 was a CF, that the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore was questionable at best, but overall I was not too concerned when the election went to President Bush.
Then things really changed. There was no fiscal conservatism: the budgets exploded, the pay as you go rules were allowed to expire, the Republican congress passed and the President signed the 1 trillion dollar Medicare bill, went to war on two fronts (one of which was was unnecessary to my mind) and cut taxes. On the civil side, we had the Patriot Act, free speech zones, extraordinary rendition, illegal wiretapping, water boarding (which our military recognized as torture during WW II), faith based initiatives, and the inclusion of creationist literature in our National Park Bookstores. All of this, coupled with things like the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, his energy policies, and what I perceived as contempt for environmental protections really alienated me from the Republican Party.
But I could still have turned back. I am a Libertarian at heart and there are a lot of things about the Republican Platform that I believe in, that is if they actually stood for them. When McCain became the Republican front runner, I thought it was a return to sanity and away from President Bush’s Policies. While I never really thought he was a centrist, he was always a little right leaning for the civil libertarian in me, at least I thought he was someone who would work across the aisle and would dismiss the rhetoric coming ever louder and more partisan from right wing radio and Fox News. I thought he would try to appeal to middle and would maybe bring the country together that had been badly divided since the partisan witch hunt headed by Ken Starr (I had hoped Bush would try to heal this rift also with his talks of compassionate conservatism, but he quickly dashed these hopes for me with his cabinet talking about permanent Republican majorities and his complete dismissal of the Democrats in congress). Then the election came and John McCain never went for the middle, but moved even further right. When he chose Sarah Palin, with her manipulative populism, as his running mate I despaired. Now, I cannot imagine voting for a Republican candidate. People like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Joe the Plumber, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh seem to be setting the agenda and tone. There is nothing to respect there.
Sorry for the rant…
It’s also worth noting that congressional earmarks (as defined by Citizens Against Government Waste) are down 15% this year ($19.6 billion to $16.5 billion) after peaking at $29 billion in 2006.
You kind of missed the biggest, most relevant point here. They claim to stand for these things, but other than low taxes (and arguably free enterprise if you concede that they’re all for empowering the enterprises that are already established and powerful) they don’t actually do these things. It makes a nice soundbite and claimed party platform, but they do quite the opposite. So even before you get to the other stuff (which I agree with), you can simply say “they say they stand for this stuff, I agree with that stuff, yet they do quite the opposite of their supposed beliefs” and that’s enough reason right there not to vote for them.
Hear hear!
It seems implied that the pubbies get another chance if they change their ways. I don’t think they get another chance. Flush 'em. Let the teabaggers be the new conservative party. Get rid of the GOP.
By “Third Way,” do you mean the same thing as the “Radical Center” of the New America Foundation, or something else?
Third Way: (Wikipedia)
When the birther paranoi was in full swing a news channel went around trying to ask republican congressmen if they thought Barack Obama was a US citizen, a lot of them literally ran away from the cameras and the rest simply refused to answer. That is what allowed to continue means, let the morons keep believing their bullshit because it benefits us.
Were you equally disgusted by the Left’s smear of Bush’s National Guard service? I don’t remember any Dem leaders standing up for Bush.
You conveniently forget that the mother of the Birther movement was a splinter group of Hillary supporters. Shouldn’t you reserve some of that anger for the Left?
As an aside, were you equally as angry at the left for comparing Bush to Hitler constantly? Is that not as bad as comparing Obama as a Marxist? Which one is closer to the truth?
The difference between the Bush smear and the Kerry smear is the truth. The Swift Boat Liars for Bush denied that Kerry actually faced enemy fire and was actually hit. And it was true that Bush used family influence to dodge Vietnam by getting into the National Guard, then quit early because they were about to start testing for cocaine.
I don’t recall anyone from the left bringing up Obama’s birth other than the extreme whack job elements of Hillary’s diehards.
I’d say invading a country that poses no threat to the US makes Bush closer to Hitler than Obama’s passage of a Republican health care bill makes him a Marxist.
Oh, I see. The Bush allegations were PROVEN yet the Kerry allegations are ONLY allegations. I think you are letting your personal feelings get in the way of objectivity
And thus a movement was born…thanks to the Left.
And I’d say nationalizing multiple industries while trying to eliminate others makes Obama more like a Marxist that a war makes Bush Hitler. You see…it’s all perspective. You are just blinded by ideology and are trying to excuse the Left for equally, if not worse, bad behavior.