Who's killing the GOP?

To what extent are the GOP and the NeoCon movement being crippled, as shown in the recent election, by their most outspoken spokespeople, such as Bill O'Riley, Ann Coulter, Lush Rambo, Mathews, and others of their ilk? (Pleased excuse me if I misspelt any of their names. I personally don't think any one of them is worth the effort to look up the correct spelling.) Did a lot of people just get sick and tired of the overbearing, overwrought, and over hyped nonsense that these people continually dish out? I've been around long enough to know that the political pendulum lazily swings back and forth, but behind that there are usually easily discernable forcing functions that effect the timing and strength of each swing. Are the above mentioned the swingers that brought on the liberal democrat victories? Will we now see the (re)emergence of a moderate, centrist (a la Eisenhower) GOP?I personally would put this in the Faith and Belief forum, but coffeehouse is probably a better choice. I'm going to be down in Baja for a couple of weeks, so I won't be able to resond to the admins for a while if you aren't ready to promote this yet. Yeh, I know: I should have waited until I got back to post a PNT, but I didn't want the porridge to get too cold.

I suppose you could blame Nixon, with his "dirty tricks" group and his Southern strategy. However, I place most of the blame on Newt Gingrich. He emphasized the use of smear (making "liberal" a dirty word was one example). Policies were no longer important, it was the innuendo that mattered. Principle was abandoned, and winning became the only goal. Party discipline became a requirement, and independent judgement was not tolerated. This approach was continued by Dick Armey and Tom Delay (to mention just two).By the way, "Coffee House" does not need a PNT, and since you started your thread in the Coffee House it went straight through.

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Just say no to McCain 2008; he abandoned principle when he caved on habeus corpus

I too would say, Newt Gingrich. Newt saw quite clearly that any party which could but through a Universal Health Care Plan was likely to hold control of the Congress for a quarter century at least. Since the Republicans (even though it had been a major part of the Republican Agenda since Nixon) were in no position to do so, he decided that the best course was to make sure that the Democrats could not. His campaign though used such scorched earth rhetoric that it then became impossible for the Republicans to propose one even when they were in position to implement one.The long term effect of Newt's actions will likely mean that there are only two possible outcomes, either the US will continue to be the only industrialized nation without Universal Health Care, or that if implement, only a NON-Republican administration and Congress can implement one, fulfilling Newt's prediction. The Republicans will then be locked out of government for at least a quarter century.

We've got to give some blame to Ronald Reagan, too, for giving such political power to the Religious Right, which was politicized and emboldened with his and his party's encouragement.Over the years since then, the RR has become crazier and more extreme in their views, and bolder and more outspoken, all because they had an aly in the GOP.The GOP made their deal with the devil when they became beholden to the RR, and now they are paying for it.

Well, the seeds of the problem began in the 60s and 70s when the conservative movement (and the GOP in particular) began to unite very different streams like the libertarian capitalists, the corporate protectionists, the religious evangelicals, the national security nationalists, the anti-drug anti-sex paternalists, and even the racists and misogynists. It isn't surprising that once the movement achieved power and finally had to make good on all the promises it had made in the previous 25-30 years; what is surprising to me is that it took 12 years for it to happen. What surprises me even more is that it seems that it wasn't so much that this very strange, unwieldy coalition crumbled, but that the non-ideological "undecided" voters finally decided to cast their votes for the other guys.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

quote:

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What surprises me even more is that it seems that it wasn't so much that this very strange, unwieldy coalition crumbled, but that the non-ideological "undecided" voters finally decided to cast their votes for the other guys.

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Maybe it's not that they decided to vote for the other party.Maybe it's that they decided to vote at all.Or, it could be that the Democrats, in the last 12 years or more, have been trying to be "Republican Lite".Here's an intersting view on the swing voters:Eschaton Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

Tom Tomorrow - The Modern WorldBush & Co.: Pushing the limits of a radical liberal plot!http://dir.salon.com/...mics/tomo/2005/09/19/tomo/index.htmlThere is an index of TT - TMW cartoons at Big list of This Modern World Cartoons by Tom Tomorrow from 2003-2012 with links to all of them.Moose

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Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment. "Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham

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"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith

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"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

That's no longer true. As of last year the Netherlands no longer has Universal Health Care.Based on the same argument US reps have used forever (market forces will make it cheaper and easier), they actually chose to switch to essentially the same HMO system we are using. This was in spite of protests by doctors and consumer advocates. And of course just having been implemented the costs are already rising. Whoops.Oh but here is the kicker. In order to make sure no one would be uninsured they made it a crime NOT to buy private health insurance. So everyone (even the poor) are forced to pay into an HMO system. Some fatcats sure must be licking their chops on that one.About the only redeeming feature is that no one can be denied a policy based on things like pre-existing conditions. And I believe they must be covered for at least life threatening aspects of such conditions.Ironically, years ago I had to go to a doctor here and he actually kept me in his office making fun of the US system, and suggesting how backward we were. I suppose I should try and find him and get the last laugh.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I LOVE Tom Tomorrow.Been reading that comic for years.

Hi scraf.I wasn't so much commenting on the swing voters as expressing amazement that the coalition of different movements that get labeled "conservative" has managed to survive for so long.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Gotcha

The other night while I was driving, I was listening to npr talking about the political scenes in the US. They had a speaker who's the author of so-and-so book. Can't remember his name for the life of me.Anyway, the guy talked about how the current conservative position is not the traditional conservative position at all, that it's been hijacked by the religious right. For example, he talked about how the true conservative position would be to include as many people into mainstream society as possible and therefore would actually encourage gay marriage (or gay civil union) to encourage long term relationships among gay couples.Does anyone know what books and who I'm talking about? I was driving on a rather busy highway, so I was only giving the program half my attention input.

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Place yourself on the map at http://www.frappr.com/evc

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The thread about this map can be found here.

I don't remember the name. But (assuming it was the one I heard), the guy is a Brit, and might have a slightly different idea of conservatism than is common in USA.I have long noticed, and occasionally pointed out, that the traditional conservative position favors minimal government intervention. In particular, the pro-choice position on abortion should be the conservative position. Ronald Reagan started to unravel traditional conservatism with his opposition to "pro-choice", and his attempt to stack the courts with judges who agreed with him on that position.

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Just say no to McCain 2008; he abandoned principle when he caved on habeus corpus

I don't think conservatives in this country understand that a constitutional amendment is the highest law of the land, which means more federal government intervention in people's lives.

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Place yourself on the map at http://www.frappr.com/evc

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The thread about this map can be found here.

One of the highest laws of the land. Treaties are also among the highest law of the land and can even supersede the Constitution.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion