A Republican Ridge to the future

Shep

James --

I don't think this analysis is quite correct. What Specter determined was that after Toomey entered the Republican primary, he (Specter) would surely lose the Republican nomination. He did not suddenly decide that he would lose the general election if he had run as a Republican (though, of course, he may well have).

AFPV

This is nonsense.

Specter didn't become a Democrat because he believed he couldn't get elected as a Republican, he did so because he realized he had no chance of winning the Republican _primary_ and therefore becoming the Republican senatorial candidate. If he'd thought he could get past the primary he'd still be a Republican (in name only, of course).

Specter has always been motivated by one thing only: what's best for Arlen Specter.

Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, the scum of the earth, men with no guiding principles, no core beliefs, and no reason to exist in the world of politics save for what they can get out of it. I'm a Pennsylvania Republican (and a transplanted Englishman), and I say good riddance.

Pat

From what I can gather Mr. Specter had little chance of the republican nomination next time round- whether he'll actually poll better as a dem, or indeed whether he gets through the dem primary, is an open question.

Jenny

I don't know anything about Ridge but if he is a performer, they must select him.

We are now in a position where we have in the White House a man who attended a racist church for 20 years, admits taking drugs etc, and in Britain, a man almost about to become PM who is, er, coy about whether he dabbled in narcotics.

It used to be the case that a potential character flaw or policy stance ruled so and so out of being a good potential candidate. That's not the case any more on either side of the Atlantic. The Republicans need to put aside that part of how they used to select candidates and focus on who can actually perform.

McCain just didn't cut it in those debates because he was chosen not on the basis of his performing (I know that's a bad word, but you get the gist) but on the basis of his positioning (ie, he ticked such and such boxes).

As Cam shows, you've got to deliver the goods in front of a camera or in a debate or it's good night.

Like it or not, that's the world we live in.

If the Republicans can learn anything from Dave, it's his demeanour, his attitude and his debating skills. That, not policy shift is why the Conservatives finally became electable (just look at some of the rubbish sat behind him and it's no wonder they've had problems for so long).

Rush-is-Right

AFPV..... absolutely right. Jumpin' Jim Jeffords and Arlen Specter are parasites that the GOP is well rid of. And it's a shame that John McCain didn't jump as well.

Susan Hill

I do think it time that we stopped blaming people for the rest of the careers for trying drugs when they were students. I would imagine the vast majority of people in public life under the age of 50 have done so at some point in their school or student days and few have come to real harm. We used to smoke behind the bike sheds. They did this. I am not pro drugs in any sense but there really are worse crimes they might have committed and which certainly ought to/would debar them from public office.

RMH

What is the view on those that go from Dem to GOP are they still scum?

For eg. Reagan, New Deal Democrat to Republican?

AFPV

RMH, study my comment again, carefully this time, and then take yourself off to the Common Room for a viva on the material you have just studied.

I must warn you that so far in the course you're graded at an F, so don't make a mess of this last opportunity to do better.

RMH

hmmm AFPV..... wasn't referring to you.....

Republicans who are former members of the Democratic Party, like William Bennett, Roy Moore, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott and Phil Gramm.

Conservative Cabbie

RMH

You forgot Arlen Specter in your list.

The difference between those on your list and Specter is that he switched sides because he couldn't win a primary, they switched sides because they were (or became) idealogically conservative. There is a difference.

For instance, with Reagan, not even the most anti-Reagan liberal could argue that his development from New Deal Democrat to conservative was anything other than idealogical and was a development over time rather than a sudden switch.

rmh

CC - fair points. No one is arguing that it is not opportunist, however he was ideologically left without a choice.

However, I would argue that Spector stood still and the loudest part of the GOP shifted right in a large shift, leaving him at the very left of the party.

The old I didn't leave they left me adage rings true.

Conservative Cabbie

rmh

I'm not sure I entirely agree. Let's look at the facts. Both recent leaders of the GOP supported Arlen Specter (ie Bush and McCain). Specter himself stated that he was happy to stay in the GOP a month ago (the GOP shifted right within a month!?!) and the Pat Toomey decision to run only came after Specter's vote on the Stimulus which the party as a whole were unhappy with. Indeed on the left leaning ontheissues.org, Toomey is listed as a moderate republican.

I take your point that a vocal base within the party has moved rightward, but the GOP is more than that base. If the party has shifted to the right, how does John McCain be elected to be it's leader? How does the previous leader get elected on a platform of "compassionate conservatism"? Some on the right have shifted further, I'm not convinced the whole party has.

Helen J

Cabbie, Pat Buchanan and Mary Ellen Synon agree with you:

http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-glimmers-of-hope-for-the-gop-1522

http://synonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2009/05/obama-down-and-downer.html

David Lindsay

Specter is a bit liberal socially, but the totally pro-life Bob Casey is pleased, so he must be all right really.

To those who say “good riddance”, was Teddy Roosevelt “a real Republican”? See http://patriot.net/~bmcgin/capitalismanddemocracy.html for how, in his autobiography, he wrote:

“I hold that a corporation does ill if it seeks profit in restricting production and then by extorting high prices from the community by reason of the scarcity of the product; through adulterating, lyingly advertising, or over-driving the help; or replacing men workers with children; or by rebates; or in any illegal or improper manner driving competitors out of its way; or seeking to achieve monopoly by illegal or unethical treatment of its competitors, or in any shape or way offending against the moral law either in connection with the public or with its employees or with its rivals. Any corporation which seeks its profit in such fashion is acting badly. It is, in fact, a conspiracy against the public welfare which the Government should use all its powers to suppress.

“If, on the other hand, a corporation seeks profit solely by increasing its products through eliminating waste, improving its processes, utilizing its by-products, installing better machines, raising wages in the effort to secure more efficient help, introducing the principle of cooperation and mutual benefit, dealing fairly with labor unions, setting its face against the underpayment of women and the employment of children; in a word, treating the public fairly and its rivals fairly: then such a corporation is behaving well. It is an instrumentality of civilization operating to promote abundance by cheapening the cost of living so as to improve conditions everywhere throughout the whole community.”

I have been hoping for years to read a proper study of the two Presidents Roosevelt in terms of their similarities, preferably leading to a synthesis of their thought as applicable in the present age. If anyone knows of such a work, then do please let me know - davidaslindsay@hotmail.com

The rural and Western half of the Republican Party supported the New Deal. Congressional Republicans (not all, but some) cast the votes that passed Civil Rights in the face of Dixiecrat resistance.

Their party historically and rightly viewed the wider world in strictly realistic terms, “not seeking for monsters to destroy”.

Republicans called for Europe to revert to pre-1914 borders and thus end the First World War, an outcome (also advocated by Pope Benedict XV) which would have precluded both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Theirs was the party of Eisenhower, with his even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians, and with his denunciation of the military-industrial complex.

The party of Nixon, who ended the Vietnam War as President Obama will end the Iraq War, and who began détente with China as President Obama is beginning détente with Iran, Cuba and beyond.

And the party of opposition to Clinton’s unpatriotic job-exportation, unpatriotic sweatshop-importation, and unpatriotic global trigger-happiness, all continued and expanded by the unpatriotic Bush Administration (except for when it came to protecting Pennsylvanian steel, the ingrates...).

But where is it now?

Much like the Tories, in fact.

Conservative Cabbie

Helen J

Thankyou for that, the Buchanan one was very interesting although it pains me to say it.

Gallup released a survey of party ID (http://tinyurl.com/dbaaf9) which showed that only 3 states were solid republican and one state was leaning Republican. That sounds disastrous for the GOP but the truth is somewhat different. The difference is that the GOP are (usually) much much better at getting out their vote than the Democrats were. Barack Obama was able to negate that effect but McCain still won plenty of states that were supposedly Democratic according to that Gallup survey of party ID. A future Democrat nominee will most likely not be able to generate the same level of support amongst the african-American and young voters. The point of this lengthy post is that there shouldn't be too much emphasis placed on party ID.