Posted on 07/22/2009 12:48:29 PM PDT by Salena Zito
A recent Gallup poll found that twice as many Americans have become more conservative than liberal. Yet, at the same time, twice as many Americans now identify themselves as Democrats as opposed to Republicans.
How did this seeming paradox come about? What, if anything, can the Republican Party do to restore itself? Or are these so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats the new placeholder for the conservative spot on the block?
First, let's look at the origins of conservatism. British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, defender of the colonists' cause to preserve their rights against oppressive taxation, was conservatism's founding father. He spoke in favor of limiting government power and railed against ideologues who, divorced from reality, drove the French Revolution into a reign of terror and eventual dictatorship.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
I agree this nation has gone to the dogs.
Twice as many people identify themselves as Dems? Twice as many? Am I the only one who thinks these numbers are screwy?
“What, if anything, can the Republican Party do to restore itself?”
Kick out the RINOs of course. Easier said than done.
it’s fear, my fine feathered friend plain old fear
the rats are so mean, so dirty and will kill anything they can so people say they are a rat so they can live to fight another day esp if they have a family to raise
The reason so many Americans call themselves “conservative” in these polls is because they simply do not know what “conservative” means. There also is this phenomenon to factor in: many people are personally conservative, but when the subject of politics comes up, they suddenly become blithering socialist idiots. They truly believe it is the duty of government to take care of them.
There are relatively VERY few actual, real, genuine conservatives in America.
>> “What, if anything, can the Republican Party do to restore itself?”
Kick out the RINOs of course. Easier said than done. <<
Kick out the RINOS for sure!
I think the Founding Father of Conservatism was God.
The biggest problem with this article’s premise is that it links conservatism with the Republican Party. People who talk with me would say that I’m “conservative” in my personal and political views, but I am not a card carrying member of the Republican Party. I think what’s really happening is that fewer and fewer people, particularly conservatives, are choosing to be bound to a word, and are instead choosing to embrace an idea. In the past, when I was much younger, if you were conservative, you HAD to be a Republican. Nowadays, I think people are finding such a distinction too restrictive.
Love your vegetarian tag line, too funny. :)
Today, well lately we are hearing all about blue dog dems. There is something missing, what could it be???
Easy, where the heck are the conservative repubs. Come on people, do they even exist? Who are they?
This is why conservatism is lost to the repubs, because there are very very few to identify conservatism with. Definitely not the party. Bush fixed that!
I seen a bumper sticker the other day. It had a pic of Pres Regan and two words: AVENGE ME.
Pres Regan lived and breathed conservative values. 90% of the current repubs would not know it if it slapped them across the face
I totally agree and I believe that the American Revolution was inspired by God and the United States Constitution is a holy document
I don’t think it is necessary or useful to dredge up Edmund Burke to understand the phenomenon.
I think it is simply the case that on many issues, viewed in isolation, such as crime, national defense, high taxes, etc., the instinct of many people is to have a conservative view on these issues.
At the same time, both the popular culture in television, movies, music, books and magazines, etc. and the education establishment in schools and universities stigmatize Republicans, with the result that people without strong party feelings, especially young people who absorb more of this spin, naturally tend not to associate themselves with Republicans.
No surprise, Americans don’t have a clue. We have plenty of evidence of that in the 233 yrs of our existence.
I agree with Mark Levin, Blue Dogs are liberals who go home to right of center districts and lie. I would’nt count on them blocking anything, they are Pelosi’s toadies.
Nope they are about accurate. It is surprising the Republicans elect anyone anywhere given the Treason media’s constant attacks for the benefit of the Party of Treason.
It’s pretty hard for me to figure out how David Brooks and David Frum are successors to Edmund Burke. I don’t think Burke would have acknowledge these two.
Of course, kicking out half the party will really make things sooo much better. Lead that drive to 10% of the electorate.
Republicans must compete in the cities or the party is eventually doomed.
It is only when the RATS screw up big time that the GOP can win the presidency.
60% of the electorate is moderate. Extemism rarely wins in American politics. And that is exactly the label hung on the GOP even filled with “RINOs” as you believe.
Effective conservatives are Republicans. Those for whom perfection is a higher goal than winning chase all manner of will-o-the-wisps offered by fringe parties.
There are relatively VERY few actual, real, genuine conservatives in America.
Agreed.
Too many would rather be personally liked then conservatively principled.
It is abundantly clear that what the Republican party needs is a real equivalent to the Democratic Leadership Council of the Democrat party. (Now, I say “real” equivalent, because the DLC is a fake more-moderate organization created by the Clintons to look more mainstream than the raving Moonbat Democrats.)
Likely the founder of a “Republican Leadership Council” would be Sarah Palin, and its membership would be *exclusive* to conservative Republicans—no RINOs need apply.
This would not be easy, because the RINOs are terrified of being identified as the liberals they are (gosh, for some reason), and so would fight and threaten, and most certainly lie, to get into the RLC.
Already it would be risky for conservative Republicans to join the RLC, because the RINOs are actively campaigning against conservative Republican candidates, sponsoring other RINOs to run against them.
The open primary system in many States also works against conservative Republicans, because if a liberal Republican is running in the primary against a conservative Republican, many Democrats will cross over to vote for the liberal Republican, in complicity with the RINOs.
In fact, this is likely how John McCain got the Republican nomination—with the crossover votes from Democrats in the Republican primary.
RINOs are so disloyal, in fact, that they would prefer that a liberal Democrat wins a national seat, instead of a conservative Republican. They also fight very hard to monopolize the leadership positions of the Republican party, and team up to prevent any of them being taken by conservatives.
So the RLC would have its work cut out for it.
WTF is a blue dog?
Democrat victories were RED until we suddenly swapped color mapping and THEN we got this “Red State/Blue State” nonsense (only a couple election cycles ago).
Yellow dog Democrats are those who’d vote for a yellow dog before they’d vote for a Republican.
Do Blue Dog Democrats buy the kitchy poster prints of blue dog art?
It is SUPPOSED to somehow refer to “moderate” Democrats who were run by the party to secure crossover Conservative votes (and a majority control of Congress in 2006 and 2008). But how does the DOG part figure in with the State color?
What is “extreme” and what is “moderate”?
To the media and Democrats, “moderate Republicans” are those who will sign onto Democrat sponored legislation.
To the media and Democrats, “moderate Democrats” are to sit down and shut up. They are only run in key districts to secure total power. Their views won’t actually be given acceptance within the halls of Congress.
Zell Miller refused to switch parties to the bitter end. So did Joe Lieberman even when his own party kicked him out.
The Congress will pass anything Pelosi tells it to.
A “Blue Dog” Democrat is still a Democrat and therefore a dog.
Such alleged self identification is irrelevant.
Republicans got 44% of the vote for US house in the last election.
Good point!
Good point!
I agree and they also let people like Pelosi be the majority leader. Also by caucusing with the democrats they help bad legislation get passed even if they vote against it.
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Why is this falsehood, that Democrats nominated McCain, keep rearing its stupid head? That is not why McCain was nominated. Democrats were too busy fighting over the nomination to cross over.
McCain won because the Right could not make up its mind to support the only candidates who could beat him, Guiliani and maybe Romney. It kept throwing up people with NO chance: Hunter, Thompson, Huckabee rather than form a united front against McCain. Those who warned about this were thrown off the forum.
Extreme is taking positions that 90% of the electorate does not support. Extreme is public rhetoric which brands most the nation as an enemy. Extreme is finding no politicians sharing your views who can win a statewide election.
Look at how Reagan was able to prevent the media from branding him as such.
Moderate can mean many things: sharing views which are commonly held, being wishy-washy, having views from both ends of the political spectrum, being eclectic, not having an opinion on most things. It is what politicians pretend they are even though radical Left or Right. To the media every Democrat is a moderate and only the most extreme Liberal Republican. McCain was cosistently said to be a “conservative”.
Actually the Blue Dogs have been around longer than the designation of “Red” for conservative states.
Blue Dogs were the southern conservative democrats who supported many of Reagan’s defense and spending positions.
They are very similiar to liberal republicans in their votes on other issues. Some of them actually switched parties in the 80s: Phil Gramm?, senator from Texas, Shelby, etc.
“Why is this falsehood, that Democrats nominated McCain, keep rearing its stupid head?”
Not a bit of falsehood. The last elections had some of the highest crossover votes in many races ever recorded.
Republican crossover votes were likely responsible for Obama beating Hillary. Her negatives were in the stratosphere, whereas Obama was an unknown empty suit.
For their part, many Democrats were happy with either Hillary or Obama, and so crossed over to support McCain. McCain, being a RINO, also had “top down” support from the other RINO party leaders.
So with Republicans *not* voting for conservative Republicans, so they could vote *against* Hillary, and Democrats voting *for* McCain, he was a shoe-in.
You can believe that if it makes you feel better but none of it resulted in Obama or McCain. In fact, Rush’s witty Vote Hillary campaign must be considered a great failure.
McCain won because no other Republican could beat him considering the splintering in the party. It was a clear demonstration of the out of touch nature of the Right wing of the party.
That’s an interesting theory. Is that what they say on KOS?
While I wouldn’t know what they think there even a brainless Leftist could figure it out. It really isn’t hard.
I’m glad you think that leftists are neurotic, defective units, but I disagree that the last elections accurately reflected appropriate voter intentions.
“In Wisconsin, Republicans made up 9 percent of the Democratic primary vote. Obama won them 72-28 over Clinton. Just as tellingly, 14 percent of primary voters said they were “conservative,” and Obama won them 59-40, a bigger margin than he won with liberals or moderates.”
“In Texas, 10% of the votes in the Democratic primary were from Republicans.”
“Sen. Joseph Lieberman called on Michigan’s Independents and Democrats on Tuesday to come out and vote for Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary... McCain’s rival for the Republican nomination, former Governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass., suggested Tuesday that if McCain wins in Michigan, it will be because of the crossover votes from non-Republicans.”
What is the extreme position on illegal immigration?
if 45% want the borders closed and 45% want amnesty, that is 90% who oppose the government’s handling of illegal immigration currently. But there is no middle ground among those who disagree.
Same with those who wanted us out of Iraq and those who wanted us to have a bigger role in the government there as we did in the rebuilding of Japan.
Recall that in Michigan and Florida, the Democrat Party didn’t actually hold presidential primaries (it led to Hillary pursuing claims for delegates because the others had urged Democrats to vote in the Republican primaries).
Voter intentions are pretty easy to figure. They vote for a person they want to win. Now what they are hoping will happen is a different matter.
No one who fits any definition of conservative did NOT vote for Urkle no matter what they say since he is not conservative on ANY issue. So those claiming to be conservatives who voted for him are lying.
It is one thing to be confused about a moderate RAT but entirely another to believe a far left radical has anything conservative about him. If we try to attract such voters then it is Three Stooges time.
My assertion was not that McCain received no RAT crossover but that he did not win the nomination because of such votes. Had the events you cite in Ws (Pro-Abort Republican women I would guess) and Michigan not occurred he still would have won the nomination even if a couple of states had gone against him.
The extreme position on any issue is the one which has no chance of being implemented for political or other reasons.
As regards II one extreme is the idea that all illegals can be rounded up and shipped back home in any kind of non-fascistic manner.
Your Iraq example is not one showing irreconcilable views. Rather oppose going to war and not going to war. Since the Treason media was taken aback and unable to control events after 911 sufficient unity was achieved among the People that the initiation of war was possible.
Only because of the shortsightness and impatience of the American people (not a new phenomenon in our history btrw) was it later able to change public opinion with a masterful combination of outright lies (torture of prisoners, Abu Ghab)) and suppression of major successes (the dismantling of Libyan WMD programs and Libya’s surrender of Saddam’s nuclear weapons research program previously COMPLETELY unknown to our “intelligence” agencies.) Inflation of the number of our casualities was another of its weapons. Ironically the small number of deaths made it possible to put a face on most if not all of them which made them more significant to the tv viewer. The total wouldn’t even make up a middle-sized battle in the Civil war or the cost of taking a small island in the Second.
But the point is we have to be able to pull 15-20% of the moderates to our side. They won’t agree on every issue but we should be able to keep those concerned with National Security and Taxation.
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