Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
...if the rapidly declining number of "base" Republican conservatives continue to steer their ship to the hard right. There are some attractive ideas among those conservative core values, but not a broad enough or specific enough number of campaign planks to even begin to win 50% of the vote plus 1.
It's a simple matter of electoral arithmetic. Until the GOP begins to move more towards where the majority of Americans are, more center-right, they have no chance of winning very many elections.
The Democrats are probably clicking their heels each time proponents of the "hard right" make claims or allegations unacceptable to the majority of Americans who are closer to the "middle". The base GOP is killing itself and the two-party system along with it.
What's better? To for the GOP to move more to the center, win some elections and regain some political currency...or maintain strict adherence to largely unpopular hard right core values at the expense of becoming a weaker and weaker political force?
The answer seems pretty clear to me. I'd love to return to the days of a two-party system and the checks and balances that would result. But the way things are going, it isn't going to happen anytime soon. All the claims that "60% of Americans are conservatives" fall in the same category of totally unsubstantiated, whistle-in-the-dark wishes as some of the other partisan stuff that gets posted here.
Like I've said before...it's a matter of electoral arithmetic. Politics is fundamentally a business. A product (candidates) must be created, financed and marketed to achieve the desired result. Until the GOP embraces that concept, all of the complaining and accusing that's been done by the "base" will continue to have no particular effect. That would be a shame.
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Hmmmm Seems people have a short memory. I remember the 80's when the country was very conservative and nobody dared speak the "liberal" word. Unfortunetly, the GOP has steadily declined by electing pseudo-conservatives to the white house. Bush senior and his son have done more damage to the party than 10 Nixons could have.
The first Bush raised taxes (read my lips) and his son with the "compassionate conservatism", was a disaster.
The democrats are very glad that some republicans are moving to the center. With less and less true conservatives to vote for...people might as well vote democrat and get it over with.
With the country going down the fiscal hole very rapidly....the only real hope is a fiscally and socially conservative to save this once great nation. When will the people come to the conclusion that the Great Society myth is really just that...a myth. It (socialism) has been tried many times in the past and every one of them failed.
I don't think we need a left or right or a middle. I think we need a morally and fiscally responsible leader. Sorry for the spelling.
Keedy