Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party was “a function of personal survival” and is “further proof that high taxes, big spending and big government are unacceptable to Republican voters,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote in the Washington Post. But Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, wrote that the switch reflects how the GOP is headed toward having one of the smallest political tents in generations. “We simply cannot expand a majority by shrinking the ideological confines of our party,” she said.
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34 Comments
Olympia Snow will be the next to go. Gingrich is old news.
The Incredible Case of the Shrinking Pary.
The GOP is getting back to its roots, soon they’ll be nothing left but roots.
Most people thought is was a demo.
“Olympia Snow will be the next to go.”
I doubt it. There isn’t nearly as large a wingnut/coalition conservative contingent in Maine as there is in Pennsylvania, and she isn’t up for re-election until 2012 anyway. And her popularity is so great up there that large numbers of Democrats would cross party lines to vote for Snowe in a primary.
However, Snowe is sounding a warning that the Republican Party should heed (and in fact, some Republicans were warning about this right after the 2004 elections when the Republicans appeared to be large and in charge). The right overplayed their hand, and is still overreacting to their losses in 2008 (as John Stewart put it, they are confusing “tyranny…with losing“). They drove away moderates and their most extreme voices are dominating. The Democrats have their own problems, including weak leadership in Congress, particularly Harry Reid (and to a lesser extent, Pelosi), although in all fairness some of the apparent weakness in congressional Democrats has come from their becoming the “big tent party”. Democrats are now going to have to do the juggling act that the Republicans botched in the past 15 years by ceding their local organization to truly wingnut coalition conservative activists. The danger for Democrats is more along the lines of really coming up with a coherent message. “We are not THOSE guys” only lasts so long.
One thing is for sure, the Republicans should not only listen to Snowe, they should try to follow her lead in establishing a new image for the party. I am not sure they can do that, but Newty although no longer toxic, still has some serious drawbacks.
Actually it shows the GOPs unity. Specter sided with the dems too many times. Make no mistake, he WAS going to be voted out of office by the republicans, and still may be. He switched parties to try to save his political careeer. Pretty sad really. After 30 years, why doesn’t he just retire and go home.
Man, he must have one UGLY wife.
“biased1
Posted April 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm | Permalink”
your posts are always so negative and attacking. is your glass always half empty?
Uh-huh. “Switch” highlights man that can’t win his own party’s primary grasping to save his political life.
BIG part of the problem with Washington. That goes for both sides.
Only hope is he and his don’t put the final nail in the country’s coffin before November of ‘10.
Specter was a Democrat until 1966, then switched parties to Republican and is now a Democrat again. One might accurately say he’s come home. Welcome home :-)
Americans really need a lesson in what the role of government ought to be.
But Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, wrote…
“We simply cannot expand a majority by shrinking the ideological confines of our party,” she said.
__________________________________
With any luck, she can follow. She wants to be all things to all people. Leave, Snowe, leave.
When you chase votes, you inherently will cause some ideas within the party to shift to that of the new group you reached out to.
Seems to me the best way to do it is to have amessage that appeals to every individual in this country. Freedom and liberty are popular and easy to rally around.
If only we had a candidate that preached Freedom and Liberty. We could have a rLOVEution.
brian_nuevo
Posted April 29, 2009 at 1:00 pm | Permalink
“biased1
Posted April 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm | Permalink”
your posts are always so negative and attacking. is your glass always half empty?
———————————–
No, sometimes it is COMPLETELY empty.
(are you mrs. spector?)
The ideal unity is one man left, biased.
The Cons are still posting that they are the majority.
Big tent means a party that stands for nothing. Like Specter, Snowe, Brownback, and Roberts.
Specter leaving was political reality. He voted with libs, he had ticked off his own support base at home in PA, and he wants to be reelected again.
Has nothing to do with the republican party really.
Had he been a democrat voting with republicans on important issues contrary to his democrats at home – he would have switched to republican.
It’s political reality. Not the will of the people. In fact, it’s in spite of the will of the people who elected him.
Get a grip people.
“Five O’Clock Charlie”I mean, “Parkay” drives by with –“Big tent means a party that stands for nothing. Like Specter, Snowe, Brownback, and Roberts.”
Are you advocates of illegal abortion really going to throw Brownback under the bus over Secretary Sebelius’ appointment? Or were you just blowing smoke?
Well biased! you do have a point, many of the Republicans left in the Conservatives party retired from the Congress and Senate rather then to continue to be associated with the party in public.
The Conservatives are driving the GOP to be relegated to the same standing as one more marginal hate groups.
But I can respect what Snow said when asked if she would switch parties. She stated that she would rather continue to fight the forces that is dragging the party down. I have kept the R beside my registration for the same reason. The Conservatives have selected their agenda that has blinded them to all other concerns.
Latching on and holding above all other thing including the welfare of the country to the abortion issue.
They seem to if the choice is between the success of banning abortion or the success of the country.
They are willing to left America fail and fowler if it mean they can stop abortion.
They are not capable of thinking beyond the simple answers no matter the issue. Whether the simple answer works or not. Or if they do not know then the solution is to do nothing at all and let all fall away.
“Big tent means a party that stands for nothing. Like Specter, Snowe, Brownback, and Roberts.”
And right there, ladies and gentleman, is the tip of the spear on which the GOP is fatally impaled.
They can’t win without their whackaloon fringe and they can’t win with them. SO, it is now that very fringe along with a handful of hardheaded egos that is running that party.
“Specter leaving was political reality. He voted with libs, he had ticked off his own support base at home in PA, and he wants to be reelected again.”
“Voting with libs.” Interesting turn of phrase. Specter was and truly is a mixed bag. Did he vote with “libs”? Sure. He also voted with “cons”. Those of you who insist on ideological purity, good luck with that. If Specter would likely be elected by the full population of the state of Pennsylvania, but not by the remaining Republican faithful in Pennsylvania, whose problem is that?
It’s not Specter’s, and that’s a fact.
The fact is, the Republican party was the big tent party, even as recently as 20 years ago, after the Reagan Revolution was well underway and Bush the Elder was in his term in the Oval Office. However, the Christian Right Revolution and the talk radio/coalition conservative build up began to insist on ideological purity within its ranks, and it is the obsessive compulsive party faithful who control who gets in and who runs. The problem in Pennsylvania seems to be, the moderates have hopped onto the Obama express, and left the party to the wingnuts. There are parts of the country where the Republican party can be safely left to the wingnuts, including some (but by no means all) of Kansas and most of the Old South. It is not safe to to that for Republicans in the NE, and that may tip the advantage to Democrats for some time, much as the social conservative boom in the sourth tipped the advantage to Republicans for a generation.
And to say that a guy’s problem is that he voted with “libs”? That is a symptom of the problem of the Republican party. A lot of us are saying, we didn’t leave the Republican Party, they left us. No, that’s not right, they pushed us out.
Bit of trivia. How many people realize that as recently as the late 1970’s early 1980’s, the majority of the membership of the Audubon Society was Republican, and the Sierra Club was pretty evenly split?
To be a viable national party, the Republican Party is going to have to tolerate the dwindling moderates in their midst without dismissing them as RINOs.
It should be noted, the hard right still has a strong presence in Pennsylvania. But they are about the only Northeastern state where that is true, and even there they aren’t enough (ask Rick Santorum).
And to say that a guy’s problem is that he voted with “libs”? That is a symptom of the problem of the Republican party. A lot of us are saying, we didn’t leave the Republican Party, they left us. No, that’s not right, they pushed us out.
=================================
BOOL SCHIT
Seriously, “Regular” –
How’s your brain recovering from your November 4th stroke?
You seem do be sundowning.
#
Monkeyhawk
Posted April 29, 2009 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
Seriously, “Regular” –
How’s your brain recovering from your November 4th stroke?
You seem do be sundowning.
=================================
Seriously MonkeyHOCK,
How’s your job opportunity doing since you got fired from the Kansas City Radio station for being a vulgar a.z.z…?
American_Way
Posted April 29, 2009 at 4:56 pm | Permalink
Specter leaving was political reality. [...yet...]
Has nothing to do with the republican party really.
—
lol
Specter’s leaving can’t be a political reality unless it deals with the Republic party: a conditional the truth value of which approaches tautology.
It has EVERYTHING to do with the Republic party and its current relationship to the market for political ideas (or lack thereof, to be more precise). It has to.
The GOP has apparently become enamored of the frog that sat in the warm water in the warm pan that sat atop the warming burner. Apparently neither will acknowledge it’s cooked until it’s well cooked.
“has nothing to do with the republican party” my patoot.
“Regular” name-calls like an 8th grader with –
“How’s your job opportunity doing since you got fired from the Kansas City Radio station for being a vulgar a.z.z…?”
Not that it matters, but my career took off pretty good. Seven years in the Hollywood hills writing and producing for outfits such as Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers, Rhino Records….
Seriously, though. Although I sometimes question my compassion, your November 4th stroke scared the hell out of me. I was one of the first to insist you seek emergency medical help that morning.
Regular, we are very happy you are a Con.
“BOOL SCHIT”
Re: Regular
DNFTT
Monk,
Reggie wouldn’t know compassion if it bit him on the ass.
“Specter says party switch driven partly by desire to keep seat… 30April09
So much for the discussion about Specter leaving for idealogical reasons or the superiority of the democratic party or the rising tide of liberism.
Certainly kills those blogs which inferred Specters move asa a sign of the death of the republican party….
Good old fashion selfish reasons….
He should make a good democrat.
“So much for the discussion about Specter leaving for idealogical reasons or the superiority of the democratic party or the rising tide of liberalism.”
I would agree that there is not a “rising tide of liberalism”. The perception that there might be is coming from the confusion between “not conservative” and “liberalism”. Of course, that confusion comes primarily from self declared conservatives.
“Certainly kills those blogs which inferred Specters move as a sign of the death of the republican party….”
No it doesn’t, particularly if you replace “death of” with trouble. Specter really hasn’t changed much, the Republican Party has. Apparently, in Pennsylvania it has shrunk down to being dominated by talk radio/coalition conservatives. That is sufficient to defeat Specter in a Republican primary. However, the reason that it is is because only those true believing conservatives are sticking with the party. Thus, the conservative disenchantment would probably not be sufficent to defeat Specter in a general election. The contraction of the Republican party to the extent that a sitting, long serving senator feels that his best chance to keep his seat is to leave the party should be considered a very troubling sign for Republicans. Republicans can’t win with just coalition conservatives and far right ideologues, particularly in the NE (and their best chance to win with conservatives would be Pennsylvania).
“Good old fashion selfish reasons….”
Yes, no question about that. But the very fact that they are selfish makes the turn an ominous sign for Republicans.
American_Way,
Specter leaving the party only highlights the divide within the party. The really ominous news came last week when Democrat Scott Murphy narrowly defeated Republican James Tedisco in a district in which there were 70,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats.
Voters who identified themselves as Republican crossed party lines in droves to vote for Murphy. If that doesn’t serve as a wake up call for the GOP, nothing will.
More 8th Grade “class” from the CONs –
http://tinyurl.com/cyfgfc
Arlen Specter is compared to Michael Myers’ “Dr. Evil” with a photo from when the Senator was undergoing chemotherapy.
C’mon, CONs. Ridiculing a cancer patient?
What’s the matter? You couldn’t PhotoShop any images of him crushing fluffy kittens?