Posted on 08/09/2005 5:42:13 PM PDT by EveningStar
Political moderates predominate in the U.S. electorate, but the two parties are increasingly captives of their extremes. Will the moderates ever rise up and assert themselves?
In the Republican Party, they ought to do so by defending Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) against right-wing attacks for bucking President Bush (and Christian conservatives) over embryonic stem-cell research.
Republican moderates also ought to start speaking up for "emergency contraception" before the right makes banning it a litmus test of party loyalty. Someone in the GOP ought to tell Bush that "intelligent design" is not a true scientific theory on a par with evolution. And moderates need to fight at the state level to prevent "ID" from being required teaching in biology classes.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
They are asserting themselves - they're no longer Democrats!
Someone ought to clue mort into the fact that evolution is still unproven theory and therefore, still has no more credence than I.D.
1=Karl Marx, 10=Thomas Jefferson
A "modern moderate".... about a 2.5, on a good day.
No, Mort, because if the RINOs throw their weight around, the millions of conservative Christians will stay at home on election day and the Republican Party will be back in the Rockefeller/Loser Era.
No.
What is these people's insane obsession with "moderates"? Don't they realize that's what loses elections? Bob Dole, anyone? George H.W. Bush? Yoo-hoo, anybody in there?
It's always interesting to get opinions from mush.
If the GOP is going to act like Liberals I'm voting for the real thing.
Shouldn't there be an article titled,
Can DNC moderates exert power in party dominated by Left?
No.
Of course not. By definition, moderates do not "assert themselves".
It takes FAITH to believe in evolution. It cannot be proven any more conclusively than Devine intelligent design.
What frosts me, is that Bush IS NOT a rabid right winger. Just because HE does good things, it does not mean those things are extreme, or that he is either.
Not wanting to benefit from the deaths of innocent unborn, is a moral issue. It is not extreme. It's a matter of concience. It's a matter leadership to represent that example of sterling coincience to the nation, yes even the world.
Bush is right with regard to this issue. When folks damn him for it, they damn their own lost souls.
Pro gay marriage, pro partial birth abortion, pro NO parental notification for abortion for minors.....
Those moderates.
Mort I love ya man, yer my favorite democrat but the answer to yer basic question is not just no but HELL NO.
If those of us in the conservative movement wanted to follow the lead of moderates, John "backstabber" McCain would have been nominated in 2000.
As a conservative and a Republican, I have yet to distinguish the fine line between moderate and right. Is it like the line between liberal and Democrat?
ping
To the original question: One would certainly hope not. Bunch of spineless, wishywashy, PC types that they are. Who needs more of that?
emergency contraception - PC for abortion pill
intelligent design - PC for atheists
moderate - PC for I ain't got no satisfaction (and no spine)
ID - PC for green card
right wing - PC for Christian conservatives
Embryonic stem-cell research - PC for kill anyone without a brain, but everyone with a soul
Civil Unions - PC for until death do us part (except when its convenient)
Pro-choice - PC for abortion (abortion - PC for kill)
anti-abortion mania - PC for live or let die
Roe vs. Wade - PC for rowing and wading
the religious right - PC for the religious wrong
Mort Kondracke - PC
power - no PC, that's us folks. Freepers rule!!!
Political moderates predominate in the U.S. electorate
then why were we fighting for 5-8% of the electorate last election? Duh. 'cause moderates do not dominate the electorate, they suck p to both sides to curry the best favors and annoy the hell out of 90% + of the electorate.
does anyone in the GOP dare to come out for civil unions for homosexuals and to resist the party's reliance on gay-bashing to win elections?
Rudy's for civil unions, Pirro's probably for civil unions, I'm sure there are others and I want Mort to flat out cite examples of gay bashing. Mort, just who was it that raised Cheney's daughter last year in a presidential debate and WHO defended her? Sit down and stop defaming Christians and Republicans for what the Democrats are doing. Such as "outing" santorum's staff member for being gay. I would also remind you that BLACKS are most opposed to gays marrying and homosexuality and they predominately vote Democrat.
It's almost impossible for a pro-choice candidate to get the GOP presidential nomination
At least pro Choice Republicans are allowed to speak at OUR conventions.
Polls show that two-thirds of the electorate wants Roe to remain the law of the land.
they also state the public wants restrictions on abortions so the polls flat out contradict each other. And IF they want abortion? That's the beuty of elections Mort! They can have abortion! They can vote for it rather than have nine judges sit in judgement of what we can and cannot do so turn down the hysteria.
But the Democratic Party has an influential moderate wing, led by the Democratic Leadership Council, with which a number of 2008 presidential candidates are affiliated, including frontrunning Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).
I bet Mort really believes that tripe too.
Moderate groups like the Republican Main Street Partnership are useful, but they are not powerful, and moderate office holders are regularly targeted for defeat by arch-conservatives from the Club for Growth, the Free Congress Foundation and the religious right.
Welcome to Politics Mort, where anyone can run and competition is allowed.
But Danforth, an Episcopal minister, has no organizational backup. And, while his articles gained some momentary attention, they sparked no moderate rally.
Because moderates are not predominant, nor are they political beings that are willing to spend their lives doing the grunt work to get people elected. they want to be courted at the last minute to boost their self esteem.
A July NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that a plurality of voters, 39 percent, regards itself as moderate, compared with 33 percent who say they're conservative and 22 percent who say they're liberal.
And yet, these so called "moderates" predictably lined up in majority either Dem or Rep last year with only a handful undecided as swing voters proving why you can't trust anyone that says they are a "moderate".
A new Pew poll shows that the public supports embryonic stem-cell research by 57 percent to 30 percent, and that 53 percent favors allowing gays to enter legal arrangements giving them the same rights as married couples.
Yes, and among those that don't support embryonic stem cell research a good number are in the GOP and since the GOP is in power and they helped the GOP get power, they have the right to petition for the result they like as the President who ran against embryonic stem cells and won as the right to VETO. And if folks want civil unions? there's this little invention known as a ballot where they can vote to have them Mort.
Even though this is a process quite distinct from abortion, the religious right is hostile toward the drug, and that opposition has led two potential 2008 candidates, Pataki and Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, to veto bills to make the pill available without a prescription.
How dare they! How dare they listen to people you don't agree with!
Despite all he's done for the right - including making it virtually certain that Bush's judicial nominees will get approved - Frist is now being attacked for his stem-cell view.
The filibuster is still intact and Frist didn't get the few judges through that have been approved. WE DID by leaning on their backs, and yet they STILL wimped out and left some in limbo. Without our pressure they would have done nothing. BTW, Mort, principles on life are not negotiable. You don't get to play politics with the issue. You don't get to compromise. pro-Lifers are not going to refrain from criticism when someone stands in opposition to life.
Yet, if this were truly the basis of its belief, fetuses should be baptized as soon as it's clear a woman is pregnant and miscarriages should be the cause for a funeral and a religious burial.
1) For Mort's better understanding, not everyone baptizes babies. Many Christians denominations wait till the children are of age to make the decision for themselves. Those that do baptize babies, I'm curious, how does he propose they baptize a fetus from within the womb without killing it?
2) This may shock him but many DO hold burilas when they miscarry. they also grieve, suffer depression, and experience the normal stages of grief when you lose a child.
yet there's ground for suspicion that some religious conservatives are as much about punishing illicit sexual activity as they are about saving "life."
Yes, we're all lining up to pin a scarlet "A" on someone's breast.
The religious right has every right to be politically assertive. So does the secular left. What's needed is for moderates to get militant and contest these extremes.
After expressing indignation and revulsion throughout the thread, he finally "graciously" allows we have a right in the process! Then slaps us with the title of extremist while urging moderates be extreme as well. LOL
Some of us consider "moderates" more worried about the preservation of the "civility" of the Senate than the preservation of the Constitution to be extreme already Mort. And there aren't enough of them to lead your glorious revolution. What upsets you is that the Democrats are out of power. Probably will remain out of power for awhile. So now conservatives are targeting the only people that can usher in your Liberal agenda- The RINO's. So, of course, you are afraid. because once they are gone are diminished by enough conservatives in Congress, Liberalism will suffer ony the occasional win as it does in the House.
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