I meant addiction in a purely intellectual way, as a metaphor for something you can’t aren’t even aware of doing until you consciously look back and stop. Ironically, I couldn’t see that as I posted, or how easily that could be misconstrued. I apologize.
You’re still pretending there’s an equivalence today between Joe Wurzelbacher, who made racist comments this week, and John Stennis, who died eighteen years ago.
Depending of course what those issues they took the lead on were and what legislation they passed.
They don’t need an FDR or an LBJ; they need that combination of a Truman and a Humphrey. Humphrey led the charge forcing the platform change despite the objections of the Dixiecrats and their perceived necessity, and Truman was smart enough to see which direction that whistlestop train was going and jumped aboard. Yes it helped that the train had been set in that direction by his predecessor, but that was the big move telling the Dixiecrat racists that this party will move this way and give no compromise to the racist positions among it. If that means you leave, if that means you try to field your own candidate, so be it.
What you’d need is a visible primary fight with a candidate explicitly refusing to pander to those elements of the party, telling them to go to Hell, that he knows what conservative means and it aint them. Explicitly repudiating exclusionary tactics and even subtle racism. Who can actually fire up the center Right in a fight for the soul of the GOP. And then win the primary and the general.
It’s not impossible but given the current nature of the GOP primaries, pretty damn improbable. Maybe someone will try this time … hard to imagine a better time. But succeeding is a long shot. Christie may have the spine and is in most ways pretty damn conservative, conservative enough to be acceptable to large swaths of the party. There are those who have and who will respect his willingness to not pander. (“I don’t agree with all that he says, but I like how he is willing to say it without pulling any punches.”) But him doing that and getting past the first sets of primaries? I dunno.
Heh. I’m not the only one who thinks like this.
Christie telling the TP to leave already would buy him the center despite his actual pretty damn strongly conservative positions on most subjects. Against Biden he would walk into the WH.
But he’d have to get through the primaries first.
Keep in mind, if the latest shitstorm ends as badly for the extreme right as it looks like, then all that rich guys money going to them becomes available for “moderates” like Christie.
Yes, Marley, yes he would.
An improbable thing that. But maybe not so improbable.
Who else might be running? Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio … Jeb Bush? Nah. He knows it’s too soon for a Bush to run again. Ted Cruz? Maybe. Perry again? Possibly.
If it’s a crowded field with those who might support a TP or libertarian strongly small government candidate split between several pandering for them and only one strong candidate for the center right less batshit and more pragmatic conservatives (and big money) to support, Christie … then he could make it. Currently he is the only one who polls even competitively in a hypothetical against HRC. And the batshits could pull a Thurmond opening up Christie to pull a Truman.
It really is funny how history may repeat itself. The Democrats told the Southern racist “States Rights” wing to screw themselves in '48. The Dixiecrats came back to the Democratic Party but only for a few years until Goldwater and then Nixon courted them. Now it’s the GOP’s turn to realize what pandering to these “States Rights” folks means.
If they, after failing to have one of their own win the primaries and being told “go already” leave the GOP will they, like their antecedents, the Dixiecrats, come slithering back after defeat? Lawd knows the Democrats won’t come a-calling.
That’ll have to be a hell of an effort. The Tea Party gang believes the only reason Republicans lost in 2008 and 2012 is that they backed moderates, and over that time they’ve gained influence in the party instead of lost it.
Not so sure how much influence they’ve gained in the party, especially after this latest bit. But yes the scenario is contingent upon that segment believing that they are vital and that the error is in supporting “a moderate” (even if that “moderate” is actually pretty damn conservative). That would be what would give them the hubris to leave. Getting there relies on the fact that they will not back down … Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and whatever other wannabee for the States’ Rights crown is running … Pence? … they’ll shoot at each other for not being TRUE conservatives and fail to coalesce behind one of them … Christie’s ticket to get away calling all of them radical dipshits who don’t care about the party and who do not understand how to actually govern and get the other half of the party excited about him. In the general he’ll lose to HRC (I think) but he’d be very tough to beat in that circumstance if she does not run. A batshit party would pull off few votes from a Christie who moved to the center in the general (and did not have to move from his true positions in the primary).
[QUOTE=DSeid]
What you’d need is a visible primary fight with a candidate explicitly refusing to pander to those elements of the party, telling them to go to Hell, that he knows what conservative means and it aint them. Explicitly repudiating exclusionary tactics and even subtle racism.
[/QUOTE]
Which is exactly what Christie did, two years ago, when his nomination of a Muslim to the state Supreme Court was challenged because conservatives thought a Muslim would immediately implement Sharia law from the bench. :rolleyes:
Christie’s reaction:
Christie Blasts Critics of New Judge
(And as an aside, note the new judge’s skin colour; I’m sure that wasn’t lost on racial minorities in New Jersey, as well as Muslims.)
Being Canadian, I’ve got no dog in this fight, and don’t pretend to have the detailed knowledge of US politics that so many of you have - but I remember thinking that if Christie kept that up, he might have a shot at pulling the Republicans to the centre.
This incident, while admirable, very likely disqualifies him from the GOP nomination. For too many GOP primary voters, the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.
I say that not knowing how the debt ceiling thing is going to play out, of course, but I’m not sure it’s going to result in the far right losing influence. Right now they have definitely more clout than they did a couple of years ago. Ron Paul was an outsider in 2008 and now Rand Paul is expected to be a major candidate in 2016. So is Ted Cruz, who delivers crazy Tea Party Congressman rhetoric from a higher-profile perch in the Senate. Rubio has been hurt by his support for immigration reform and he doesn’t talk about that very much anymore. From the Tea Party point of view, the Republicans have lost the last two elections because they picked moderate candidates, so right now they sure don’t believe they need to move to the center. There are a couple dozen Tea Party candidates in Congress and a lot of the remaining Republican caucus lives in fear of a Tea Party-backed primary opponent, which is a major contributor to this debt ceiling impasse. Cain and Santorum and Bachmann were atrocious, comically inept candidates who had no business competing for a nomination, and in 2012 they all did better than they had any right to because they were closer to what the Tea Party wanted than Romney. Republicans have been cultivating these voters for decades and for the most part they have not been delivering what they promised, so now they’re demanding results. In a way I think we’re asking who is in charge. Can old guard Republicans can tell the Tea Party to take a hike, or have they already lost too much influence (partly because some moderates went to the other party?) Maybe the Tea Party is going to tell them to get lost.
That’s another problem. During the primaries McCain and especially Romney both had to move way too far to the right to fend off their opponents. They couldn’t move back to the center in the general.
The incident is not so much “admirable” but the bare minimum I would expect. That such standard decency might disqualify him from nomination speaks very, very badly about the Republican Party as it stands now, all it says about him that he meets the minimum standards.
Sure, what Christie said may count against him in the Republican primaries, but I meant that comment more in response to the OP: it struck me as a good example of why Christie may be pulling such good numbers from the black community in New Jersey. May not have the same strength as treating the President with respect and working hard after Sandy, but it does seem a consistent pattern.
To address the OP’s many protests that the Dems did not have to go as far to win minority votes back in the day, lets go back to the uncle analogy. Uncle Don in the 50’s and 60’s could get mad props for showing minimum courtesy and respect. It didn’t matter so much that he didn’t apologize for past behavior, or speak out against other racists because he was being compared to Uncle Ron who was so much worse.
Republicans can’t follow the exact path of the Democrats to minority votes because they are not competing with a party who is actually becoming more racist. The Dems had to not only embrace social policies that benefited minorities for a decade, but push through landmark civil rights law against the active opposition of the other party. Unless the Dems lose their minds, there is no way that could happen for the Republicans. If they did sponsor a major law that minorities saw as helping them, the Dems would not work tirelessly to derail it.
Even if the Republicans dropped all the active racism (or perceived racism, if you prefer), and you posit that the rest of their policy positions align with 30-40% of minority population, it will take a long time for people to forgive and forget unless the Democratic party decides to take up the racist banner.
You could add Dole in 1996 to that list also. These candidates all had to move to the right of their past record to gain the nomination and then ended up losing the election to a more moderate opponent.
Correct. And the point is that the GOP right now is triangulable. About a third that feel it is okay, a third that wants it to move to be less far Right, and a third that think it needs to further Right. Have a few pandering hard to the third that want to move harder Right and a single regular solid conservative (well funded and with name recognition and some ability to get press) can stake out all points center of that capturing that half to 2/3s to his/her own while the nutjobs third to half are split between a few stubborn (“I’m the true conservative!”) choices. For Christie that means no movement in the primary, just his honest conservative positions, and maybe a slight correction to the center for the general.
That much is pretty imaginable. Him having the spine to then deal with the “I’ll leave the party rather than support a RINO like him” with “Buh bye then … don’t bother to write.” is a bigger stretch but would be smart.
If two-thirds of Republicans say the party should stay the same or move further to the right, that’s not good news for Christie. A good poll for Christie would be one that says a lot of Republicans think the party needs to moderate its course. This poll doesn’t say that. As the survey says, “The more moderate wing of the party is a minority generally, and makes up an even smaller share of the likely primary electorate.” The people who think the party is too moderate are the ones who will probably be voting in the 2016 primaries.
Further, Ryan, Rubio, and Paul all had better favorability splits than Christie in that survey, and if they did it again today I bet Ted Cruz would, too. Christie is rated only a little ahead of Boehner there, but today Boehner’s ratings would be in the toilet.
That’s the most optimistic possible scenario, though. And again, the people who want the party to move rightward are probably the ones who will turn out for the primaries. That’s what usually happens.
Further along the issue of respect, there’s the point that at the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the only prominent Republican present was Mr Lincoln.
The organizing committee invited leading politicians of both parties, in an attempt to make it a bi-partisan celebration.
Obama came.
Carter came.
Clinton came.
Johnson and Kennedy were represented by family members.
Republicans were invited: Bush I, Bush II, Senator McCain, Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor. They all had other commitments.
Now, Bush I is getting pretty old and has developed Parkinsons, and Bush II had just had heart surgery, so their absence was justifiable on health reasons. But unlike the Johnson and Kennedy families, they couldn’t even scare up a family member to represent them? Like oh, maybe Jeb, who’s thinking about running for Prez? Wouldn’t that have been a nice photo op?
And even if you give the Bushes a pass for health reasons, what about the others? Not one prominent Republican leader thought it was important enough to attend an event that celebrates a major political and civil rights milestone for black Americans.
As the article linked to above notes:
Image matters in politics. So does respect. And the image from that day was that when there’s a major celebration of a black American who fought for civil rights, and was assassinated, Republicans don’t even mail it in.
I missed a step in the logic somewhere. What Republican policies are racist? The only thing I’ve seen in the thread is voter ID laws.
If someone is of the opinion that blacks or other minorities are unjustly effected by these laws because they are they are they just the type of people who don’t have a picture ID, then who is the one making racist assumptions?
Immigration laws? Yeah because all Hispanics stick together right? Those here legally and illegally?
I see more racist from the other side with these arguments than I’ve seen from my side.
Welfare? Food stamps? Is it really the Dem argument that those are minority issues?