I am considering leaving the Republican party for a couple of reasons.
One is that they were too easily bullied and pushed into taking precipitous actions that damaged their opportunity to get anything ELSE done. It killed the "nuclear option" solidly dead. Such a huge expenditure of both political capital AND goodwill should have two things, IMHO...a quid pro quo, and a good result for all Americans. This had neither.
The second is a bit more personal. It's like this...the Congressional Republicans were able to call an emergency session over a weekend, pass a bill through BOTH houses, resolve the conflicts, and get it to the President's desk by Sunday night. So, some things occur to one...
1. Why can't they do this EVERY TIME?!? We damned sure pay them enough to work a few weekends a month. Lord knows I do. Why isn't, say, Social Security Reform, which affects EVERY AMERICAN BTW, not handled like this?
2. Why is Terri Schiavo so damned special, anyway? Okay, she had a truly tragic and sad end, but so do hundreds of people, some FAR worse than that. Why then did SHE, and she alone, rate such action from the government? We have literally THOUSANDS of young, healthy, intelligent, and motivated men facing death or maiming each day. Where's all this concern in the halls of Congress for THEM?
The GOP showed that it is perfectly capable of moving on an issue in fast time. Unfortunately, it will only do that, it seems, on issues that do not concern it directly, that have no relevance to the vast majority of Americans, and are questionable at least, Constitutionally. Plus, it will do this and get nothing in return except lower poll numbers and people denouncing them for not doing ENOUGH.
They got played, lost some great chances, and proved how lazy they really are.
I still have great respect for the President, don't misunderstand. But the party overall needs to pull its head out.
A pity if you did leave the party. You sound like just the type of person the party needs to correct the problems you mention.
This is an oversimplification, but here goes: Political parties have factions. The factions in the Democratic party merely argue with one another. OTOH, the factions in the GOP are really more like separate parties and they hate each other. IOW, the GOP is a coalition party. Sometimes they do unite on issues. It's been this way for a least half a century. What you have in FR right now can be described as a microcosm of this phenomenon. Sometimes it's better to stay and fight. Sometimes not. I'm staying, for now. I'm also going out of town for a few days and I have no laptop. Sometimes that's all that's needed. :)