How the Republicans Let It Slip Away By David Ignatius The Washington Post Wednesday, October 12, 2005 Watching the Republicans floundering over the past week, I can't help thinking of a school of beached whales. The leviathans of the GOP have boldly swum themselves onto this patch of dry sand, and it won't be easy for them to get back to open ocean. The Republicans come to their present troubles from different directions: President Bush thought he was making a safe, pragmatic choice in nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, but this soulless maneuver enraged the party's right wing and set it on a fratricidal binge. Tom DeLay thought he was ramrodding a permanent Republican government, but he managed to get himself indicted and, well before that calamity, had angered House Republicans who concluded that "The Hammer's" leadership style was marching them off a cliff. Looming over all these little problems is the crucible of Iraq. What's interesting is that most of these wounds are self-inflicted. They draw a picture of a party that, for all its seeming dominance, isn't prepared to be the nation's governing party. The hard right, which is the soul of the modern GOP, would rather be ideologically pure than successful. Governing requires making compromises and getting your hands dirty, but the conservative purists disdain those qualities. They swim for that beach with a fiercely misguided determination, and they demand that the other whales accompany them. Read the rest of the story (requires free registration).
washington post = liberal rag. like half the media. You HOPE it's right. I wouldn't bet the farm just yet. :dis:
I was as GOP as it gets, and now it is merely a party without principle. They have sold out on so many of their core principles in an effort to simply stay in power. They have run up the deficit and spent money foolishly all the while proclaiming they favor small government. They used to be the party that was an illegal immigrants worst nightmare. Now they court the hispanic vote and have turned their back on the principle of becoming an immigrant the correct way, thus enabling big business to hire cheap labor. They passed the largest gov't entitlement program in 40 years with the Medicare prescription drug act. Bush has not used a veto one single time in office to curb pork barrel spending. The list can go on and on. They have lost me as a once very stout Republican, but at this point I really have nowhere to turn. I hope a 3rd party can somehow get it going, but I just cannot see it happening. The GOP needs a wake up call in 2006. What good is power without principle? I wish one of these assclowns in the Senate could explain it to me.
Well-stated USCPuke. While a third party will not be viable by 2006 (or 2008), I think your sentiments are shared by a stunning % of people and that will invariably result in a political change (either development of a 3rd party -- Libertarians, hopefully!) or a change in platform from the self-serving and self-interested big parties.
Lots of truth in what's being said. And I am a Republican. But, that being said, the Dems will screw this all up anyway and not take advantage. It's akin to fumbling the football at our own 1 yard line and the Dems fail to score on 4 tries.
I agree. Rather than a 3rd party, my (Republican) party needs a kick in the A$$ to turn it around. We need someone like.....like.....Reagan. Those types though are all gone. I think what's happening though is the 2 parties will become something of a blur.....a mix of both with the ultimate goal being for each individual to stay in office. They would kill to stay in office and get their free stuff.
The trouble is that third parties always end up being to the right of the Republicans (Ross Perot, George Wallace) or to the left of the Democrats (The Green Party, Ralph Nader). The political vacuum is in the middle. If a third party rises in the political middle it could dominate in short order. But I think that before they let that happen, one or both of the old parties will move towards the middle. But I sure don't see many signs of it.
