Posted on 02/22/2010 5:52:58 AM PST by grace522
Head Strong: Sorry, but for me, the party is over By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist
It took only the single tap of a computer key, and just like that I'd exited the Republican Party after 30 years of active membership. The context might sound impulsive, but I'd been thinking of becoming an independent for a long time. I just hadn't expected that a trip to renew my driver's license would mark the end.
Just before my photo was snapped, I was asked if I wanted to register to vote. For me, the question was borderline offensive. I first registered after turning 18 in the spring of 1980 and haven't missed an election since. And I'm not just talking presidential races. I mean all elections. Congress, town council, school board, whatever.
"I'm already registered," I offered. Next came the unexpected question of whether I wished to change my political affiliation. I'm not sure why that is asked of someone renewing a driver's license, and I question whether it is even appropriate for most. But in my case, it was the only impetus I needed.
Years ago, I grew tired of having my television or radio introduction accompanied by a label, with some implied expectation that what would then come from my mouth were the party talking points. That was me 26 years ago, when I was the youngest elected member of the state delegation to the Republican National Convention, but not today. I'm not sure if I left the Republican Party or the party left me. All I know is that I no longer feel comfortable.
The national GOP is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn't fit neatly within its parameters. Instead, the GOP has extended itself to its fringe while throwing under the bus long-standing members like New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a McCain-Palin supporter in 2008 who told me she voted with her Republican leadership 90 percent of the time before running for Congress last fall.
Which is not to say I feel comfortable in the Democratic Party, either. Weeks before Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh's announcement that he will not seek reelection, I noted the centrist former governor's words to the Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib. Too many Democrats, Bayh said in that interview, are "tone-deaf" to Americans' belief that the party had "overreached rather than looking for consensus with moderates and independents."
Where political parties once existed to create coalitions and win elections, now they seek to advance strict ideological agendas. In today's terms, it's hard to imagine the GOP tent once housing such disparate figures as conservative Barry Goldwater and liberal New Yorker Jacob Javits, while John Stennis of Mississippi and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts coexisted as Democratic contemporaries.
Collegiality is nonexistent today, and any outreach across an aisle is castigated as weakness by the talking heads who constantly stir a pot of discontent. So vicious is the political climate that within two years, Sen. John McCain has gone from GOP standard-bearer to its endangered-species list. All of which leaves homeless those of us with views that don't stack up neatly in any ideological box the way we're told they should.
Consider that I've long insisted on the need to profile in the war against terrorists. I believe that if someone like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has actionable intelligence on future terrorism, you try the least coercive methods to extract it but ultimately stop at damn near nothing to get what you need to save American lives. I want the U.S. military out of Iraq, but into Pakistan. I'm for capital punishment. I think our porous borders need to be secured before we determine how to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants already within them. Sounds pretty conservative. But wait.
I think that in 2008, the GOP was wrong to adopt a party platform that maintained a strict opposition to abortion without at least carving out exceptions in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life. I was appalled that legislators tried to decide Terri Schiavo's end-of-life plan. I don't care if two guys hook up any more than they should care about my heterosexual lifestyle. And I still don't know what to think about climate change.
I think President Obama is earnest, smart, and much more centrist than his tea party caricature suggests. He has never been given a fair chance to succeed by those who openly crow about their desire to see him fail (while somehow congratulating one another on their relative patriotism). I know he was born in America, isn't a socialist, and doesn't worship in a mosque. I get that he inherited a minefield. Still, the level of federal spending concerns me. And he never closed the deal with me that health insurance is a right, not a privilege. But I'm not folding the tent on him. Not now. Not with the nation fighting two wars while its economy still teeters on the brink of collapse.
All of which leaves me in a partisan no-man's-land, albeit surrounded by many others, especially my neighbors. By quitting the GOP, I have actually joined the largest group of American voters. According to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 39 percent of Americans identify themselves as independents - compared with 32 percent who say they are Democrats and 26 percent who are self-described members of the GOP. Nowhere is this more pronounced than locally, where a shift away from the Republican Party has taken place in the four bellwether counties surrounding Philadelphia.
I will miss casting a ballot in the spring, as current state election law prohibits unaffiliated voters from voting in GOP or Democratic primary elections. Instead, I'll join the others who bide their time until fall, when we can temper the extremes of both parties.
"My decision should not be interpreted for more than it is: a very difficult, deeply personal one. . . . I value my independence. I am not motivated by strident partisanship or ideology."
Those are Bayh's words, not mine. But he was speaking for both of us.
Good riddance RINO.
He’s brilliant!!! brilliant!!!
The only talk radio show Obama went on should have been a clue.
He’s like Kathleen Parker. A faux “conservative” with no following who is put forth as a “foil” by the MSM to make it look like they’re recognizing other viewpoints when in fact, they are used to bash real conservatives who do have a following and ideas. He also endorsed Obama.
Just how tasty IS that kool-aid, Smerky?
Once this guy was not an idiot. Not anymore. The last straw for me was his “am-I-not-just-so-very-clever?” criticism of Sarah Palin’s hand notes. No, wait...the last straw might have been his soggy sympathetic remarks about Evan Bayh’s decision to leave the Senate; how Bayh was such a moderate and how moderates just can’t survive in today’s Senate. Never mind that Bayh hadn’t uttered word one about his party’s shift to the left until it became painfully obvious they were heading to the dumpster.
Gee, I thought he left years ago.
Good Riddance an take the illegal aliens with you!
another obama voter leaves the GOP
buh bye! be sure to check under your seat and in the overhead storage bin for any personal beloingings
My thoughts exactly! Thank God this RINO is “outta here”!
Oh please. What a crock.
We have your number and your explanation is well suited to the other bull spewing from MSNBC.
Nice try Mike at trying to draw some attention to yourself.
And just like that, he rendered himself totally irrelavant to anything that happens within the Republican Party.
I suspect this idiot is being paid to write this with the prospect of luring conservatives to also leave the Republican Party, so the RINOs and Democrats can maintain their 100% control of government.
“It took only the single tap of a computer key, and just like that I’d exited the Republican Party after 30 years of active membership. The context might sound impulsive, but I’d been thinking of becoming an independent for a long time. I just hadn’t expected that a trip to renew my driver’s license would mark the end. “
...Yawn. Spare us your melodrama. And why should we care ans be so attuned to your life and what you do?
I guess I’m somewhat of an absolutist. To me, something is either right or wrong-—Either abortion is the murder of a child, or it isn’t.
This guy is one of those who oppose abortion, except, except, except.
I have never been impressed with folks who think of themselves as “moderates”—either you believe something or you don’t......
Just MHO this morning........
From the author's words: "I think President Obama is earnest, smart, and much more centrist than his tea party caricature suggests. He has never been given a fair chance to succeed by those who openly crow about their desire to see him fail (while somehow congratulating one another on their relative patriotism)."
Still think he's brilliant? (Forgive me if you were being sarcastic, as I'm not attempting to pick on you.)
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