Elephants Go RINO Hunting
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With news of Arlen Specter’s defection to the GOP, it seems only two Republican moderates remain in Congress. Both of them from Maine—Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins—these women represent the last of a dying breed. To die-hards like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele, they are known as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), and they, too, should be hunted to extinction.
Yes, Specter’s move was one of self-preservation. But the need to swtich parties to win re-election also says something about the state of the incredible, shrinking Republican party, too. Limbaugh himself tried to cast Specter’s announcement as a good thing for the party. Why? Because there’s no longer room for dissent inside what has become a very small GOP tent.
Connecting the Republican dots gets easier and easier, probably because there are so few left. The party is getting smaller, as is the geographic area in which it thrives. At least for the moment, anyway, Karl Rove’s dream of a permanent Republican majority seems nothing short of a psychotic hallucination.
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I liked your title, David, it made me laugh. It’s true too, though I can’t say anyone’s really surprised by this news.
A minor win for the Dems, a MAJOR loss for the repugs. It’s a good thing, I’m an unashamed partisan Democrat and I have no problem with my party tossing Arlen a life line, he’s basically an honorable man, cares for his country, he’s welcome to come on board!
You can’t really lose what you never had.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well here’s newsmax’s take:
“Arlen Specter Defects: Five-Term GOP Senator to Become Democrat
Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who already had defected to support Obama’s massive stimulus package, is planning to announce that he is becoming a Democrat. The five-term senator, who narrowly survived a conservative challenger in his last election, again is facing an angry backlash for his move toward the left since the election of President Barack Obama.”
The quantity of spew we will see over the next few days will be amazing, better wear a slicker and boots.
Hannity had a funny headline on his show tonight, “Benedict Arlen”. Guess we know how this will go over in right wing circles.
Nothing is certain in politics. After Jimmy Carter won in 1976, people thought the last thing the GOP needed was Ronald Reagan as the nominee in 1980. But then, Jimmy Carter screwed up so badly that Richard Nixon could have beaten him.
People thought that Nixon had no future after losing the Calfornia governor’s race in 1962 and Goldwater losing to LBJ so badly.
After Newt led the Republican Revolution in 1994, people thought Bill Clinton had no chance in 1996, and people thought the Democrat Party was dead in 2002, after the GOP increased its majority in the mid-term election. No party had done that since the Democrats did it in 1934.
The fight in the GOP isn’t between moderates and conservatives. It’s a fight between conservatives who base their philosophy on the Bible and conservatives who base their philosophy on conservative philosophers, such as Bill Buckley, Ayn Rand, and Barry Goldwater.
This isn’t going to be pretty as its resolved, but it will.
The Progressive Conservative Party was the dominant party in Canada, when Brian Mulrony was Prime Minister. After Kim Campbell became Prime Minister and party leader, the Liberals won. The party splintered into two factions, the eastern Progressive Conservatives under Joe Clarke and the western Canadian Alliance under Stockwell Day.
The two parties realized that neither could beat the Liberals alone, so they reunited as the Conservative Party with Stephen Harper as party leader. After losing one election to the Liberals (they did gain seats in Ottawa), they won the next two elections.
So don’t write off the GOP, yet.
The whole country needs a viable opposition party for many reasons. Ultimately, two-party rule involves both positions staking out their positions from the middle, whereever that middle moves to. That’s the balancing act of American politics. And no matter how well-intentioned at first, one-party rule always turns out to be a bad idea.
steveintransit,
You make a good point, though one can argue about whether or not the “opposition” party in this particular case has anything meaningful to offer by way of dissent. Just say no, isn’t really all that productive, either.
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