Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Future of the GOP
How important for American Democracy is it, for the Republican Party to become a reasonable counterpoint/alternative to the Democratic Party? I think it is very important. I saw this story about Mitt. If there is going to be a Mitt Romney wing and a Sarah Palin wing of the Republican Party, I really hope the Romney wing prevails. Romney was my favorite among the Republicans because I saw him as a pragmatist. Of course, he may not be. He may be as conservative as he represented on the campaign trail. Anyway, Sarah Palin as the new face of the GOP makes me pretty scared.
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3 comments:
Long term, yeah, we need (at least) two viable parties. The Dems do not have a monopoly on virtue, and given enough time with the corrupting influence of power, a check will be needed.
Having said that, we're coming out (I hope) from almost three decades of conservative dominance, and a decade or two of progressive expansion would be a good thing.
And yes, the Palinites (meaning ideological social conservatives) are scary and I hope their movement dies away.
The thing that would be nice would be if a center-right (aka moderate) wing of the republican party would re-emerge. There has been a large center-left democratic contingent for about 20 years, including Clinton. It would be cool if there were a reasonable center that could actually get things done. But that's crazy talk.
I think it is vital to have a healthy political discourse, a discussion which recognizes and respects legitimate disagreements between people. I am hopeful that the republican party can develop a Rockeffeller/Nixon/Specter-type core in opposition to the democrats; i.e. something free of the culture war flamethrower battles we have had for the last 15-odd years.
I don't think it's important at all.
If the Republican Party goes South--literally and figuratively, something will rise to oppose a single party rule, maybe not in 4, 8 or 12 years, but it will come.
But that leads me to a thought I'll post on in a minute as its own post.
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