Kathianne
02-17-2010, 07:09 PM
What the next election should be:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gop-risks-being-swept-away-unless-they-adopt-tea-party-principles/2/
GOP Risks Being Swept Away Unless They Adopt Tea Party Principles
Posted By William T. Quick On February 17, 2010
In a recent blog post I wrote [1]:
If the GOP cannot find some way to align itself with the Tea Party and its ethos, then it will be swept away.
This contention, as well as the title of the post — “Tea Party Versus Socialist Party” — generated a fair amount of discussion, requiring, I think, further elaboration on the ideas involved...
...For the first time (if not publicly, at least in private councils), both party leaderships began to take the tea parties seriously. Concurrently, Barack Obama’s popularity began to leak away, as he pushed ever more encompassing policies that, to many, verged on hardcore socialism. Then came the earthquake that rocked everyone’s world: the election of Scott Brown to the old “Kennedy seat” in Massachusetts and the destruction of the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The tea parties had rallied around Brown’s candidacy and raised millions for him almost overnight. It was a flexing of political muscle to equal the support the far left had put together for Obama in 2008.
Which brings us to today. No one can doubt that the tea parties — and the fiscal conservatism and respect for traditional conservative and libertarian values they represent — are a legitimate and growing force in American politics. The question is: to what purpose will this force be directed? Will it become a third party, on the order of the powerful but short-lived Perot uprising that led to both the election of Bill Clinton and the destruction of fifty years of Democrat dominance in the House of Representatives but eventually faded away? Or will it wield its influence to retake the GOP and reinvigorate the Grand Old Party?
Today the heart of the Democrat Party stands exposed as beating to a socialist drummer. The party no longer has a “conservative” wing in any meaningful sense, and as such, would easily fit into any European-style “center-left” designation, an appellation best translated as “socialist but not doctrinaire Marxist.”
The GOP has not yet decided what sort of blood runs through its own veins, which brings us to my contention that if it continues to resist the tea parties, if it continues its business-as-usual policies of endorsing and supporting candidates who are noxious to tea party principles, then it will be swept away. It will force the tea partiers into the formation of a third party that could guarantee Democrat domination for a generation unless the tea party movement supplants the GOP, much as the GOP supplanted the Whigs 160 years ago.
One of the biggest problems in American politics is the blurring of principle inherent in the strategies of both major parties. The Democrats pretend to a conservatism they actually loathe, but which inattentive voters think the party supports. That faux conservatism is, of course, never actually translated into legislation, the bulk of which is almost uniformly socialist in nature. The GOP, on the other hand, pushes legislation only somewhat less socialist — or statist, if you will — than the Democrats, on the toxic notion that their base has nowhere to go, so the leadership is free to enter into a legislative bidding war for votes beyond the base. This ends up giving the American electorate a choice between a socialist party and a “not quite as socialist” party.
America would enjoy a much healthier and more vigorous politics if the tea parties either become the dominant force in the GOP or sweep it away entirely, so that for the first time in at least a hundred years Americans are given a clear-cut choice between a socialist (Democrat) party and a liberty-minded, fiscally responsible party that is represented by the tea party movement. At the end of the day the names don’t matter so much, but the policies and principles certainly do.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gop-risks-being-swept-away-unless-they-adopt-tea-party-principles/2/
GOP Risks Being Swept Away Unless They Adopt Tea Party Principles
Posted By William T. Quick On February 17, 2010
In a recent blog post I wrote [1]:
If the GOP cannot find some way to align itself with the Tea Party and its ethos, then it will be swept away.
This contention, as well as the title of the post — “Tea Party Versus Socialist Party” — generated a fair amount of discussion, requiring, I think, further elaboration on the ideas involved...
...For the first time (if not publicly, at least in private councils), both party leaderships began to take the tea parties seriously. Concurrently, Barack Obama’s popularity began to leak away, as he pushed ever more encompassing policies that, to many, verged on hardcore socialism. Then came the earthquake that rocked everyone’s world: the election of Scott Brown to the old “Kennedy seat” in Massachusetts and the destruction of the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The tea parties had rallied around Brown’s candidacy and raised millions for him almost overnight. It was a flexing of political muscle to equal the support the far left had put together for Obama in 2008.
Which brings us to today. No one can doubt that the tea parties — and the fiscal conservatism and respect for traditional conservative and libertarian values they represent — are a legitimate and growing force in American politics. The question is: to what purpose will this force be directed? Will it become a third party, on the order of the powerful but short-lived Perot uprising that led to both the election of Bill Clinton and the destruction of fifty years of Democrat dominance in the House of Representatives but eventually faded away? Or will it wield its influence to retake the GOP and reinvigorate the Grand Old Party?
Today the heart of the Democrat Party stands exposed as beating to a socialist drummer. The party no longer has a “conservative” wing in any meaningful sense, and as such, would easily fit into any European-style “center-left” designation, an appellation best translated as “socialist but not doctrinaire Marxist.”
The GOP has not yet decided what sort of blood runs through its own veins, which brings us to my contention that if it continues to resist the tea parties, if it continues its business-as-usual policies of endorsing and supporting candidates who are noxious to tea party principles, then it will be swept away. It will force the tea partiers into the formation of a third party that could guarantee Democrat domination for a generation unless the tea party movement supplants the GOP, much as the GOP supplanted the Whigs 160 years ago.
One of the biggest problems in American politics is the blurring of principle inherent in the strategies of both major parties. The Democrats pretend to a conservatism they actually loathe, but which inattentive voters think the party supports. That faux conservatism is, of course, never actually translated into legislation, the bulk of which is almost uniformly socialist in nature. The GOP, on the other hand, pushes legislation only somewhat less socialist — or statist, if you will — than the Democrats, on the toxic notion that their base has nowhere to go, so the leadership is free to enter into a legislative bidding war for votes beyond the base. This ends up giving the American electorate a choice between a socialist party and a “not quite as socialist” party.
America would enjoy a much healthier and more vigorous politics if the tea parties either become the dominant force in the GOP or sweep it away entirely, so that for the first time in at least a hundred years Americans are given a clear-cut choice between a socialist (Democrat) party and a liberty-minded, fiscally responsible party that is represented by the tea party movement. At the end of the day the names don’t matter so much, but the policies and principles certainly do.