Republicans, Remember When We Weren't Crap?

[Aaron]

Link

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered a harsh and sobering assessment of his party's political ills, sounding an alarm that the GOP faces a chasm from which it could take years to emerge.

The Senate GOP leader told members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) that the party must return to its core message - smaller government and lower taxes - while seeking to broaden its base with a more diversified voting bloc.


"Every so often, there comes a time when a political party has to re-examine itself. For Republicans, now is such a time," McConnell told RNC members at the annual winter meeting in Washington.

The surprisingly candid speech came as RNC members gather for a biennial reorganization and after two consecutive cycles of massive losses. McConnell himself fought back a stronger-than-expected challenge in 2008, besting businessman Bruce Lunsford by a 53 percent-to-47 percent margin.

"We're all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us," McConnell said Thursday. "And we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one.

"In politics, there's a name for a regional party - it's called a minority party. And I didn't sign up to be a member of a regional party," McConnell said. "As Republicans, we know that common-sense conservative principles aren't regional. But I think we have to admit that our sales job has been. And in my view, that needs to change."

McConnell declined to attack President Bush, whose deep unpopularity rubbed off on Republican members of Congress, though he did note Bush "wasn't winning any popularity contests."

"[H]istory shows that unpopular presidents are usually a drag on everybody else who wears their political label. It happened with Truman. It happened with Johnson. It happened with Nixon. It happened with Clinton in '94. And it happened with President Bush in '06 and '08," McConnell said.

"My concern is that unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery," he added. "The situation is challenging, but it's far from irreversible."

In order to return to power, McConnell said, the GOP needs to resist the urge to abandon its traditional message while appealing once again to voters who have left the party.

McConnell said the party must appeal to black and Hispanic voters. To diversify the party, Republicans should remind African-Americans that the GOP was founded in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, an 1854 law that gave those states the right to determine whether or not to allow slavery, and seek culturally conservative Hispanic voters, who may be more inclined to side with the party on social policy, he said.

Now Republicans must explain their ideas to average Americans in a way that enumerates their practical benefits, the Senate GOP chief told RNC members. From cutting taxes to fighting card-check legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize, McConnell urged members to frame their message in a way that appeals to voters Republicans have lost recently.

As members of the RNC prepare to vote on new leadership tomorrow, many in the party have set upon each other in a battle over candidates' ideologies, a divisive dispute McConnell urged members to avoid.

"We should avoid the false choice of being a party of moderates or conservatives. America is diverse. The two major parties should be too," he said.

It's no secret that I think the Republican Party is a joke, not just for what they've done recently but going back as far as Reagan but this is a refreshing thing to see. Rather than frame Obama as the anti-christ of politics, this member offers a sobering look at the parties troubles and what they should do to fix them.

[Mikey]

It will be telling to see the response of the party.

[Teaos]

It will be telling to see the response of the party.

LALALALALALA, I cant hear you!!

[Mikey]

It will be telling to see the response of the party.

LALALALALALA, I cant hear you!!

Unfortunately, you're probably right. Hell, their response for the last election was, "Let's try getting a chick - that'll help! No, she doesn't need experience or qualifications, why?"

[Sionnach Glic]

I'm somewhat curious about the possibility of a split in the Republican Party at some point in the near future, perhaps when it's time to choose a new presidential candidate.
The moderates are going to see the 2008 defeat as what it really is: the majority of the populace getting fucking sick of the Republican Party's BS, and so will probably attempt to moderate their views to appeal to the centrists and lefts.
The more extreme right-wingers, however, will probably bury their heads in the sand over the defeat, and probably try to go further to the right.

If one half of the party is going one way, and the other half is going the opposite way, there's going to be serious problems.

In a hypothetical situation in which the RP did split into a centrist/moderate-right party and an extreme-right party, how would US politics be affected? I (and pretty much everyone over here that I know) have always found it bizzare that the US only has two real parties. What's up with that? Why the lack of any other parties?

[Nutso]

Michael Steele Accepts RNC Chairmanship.

[Teaos]

In a hypothetical situation in which the RP did split into a centrist/moderate-right party and an extreme-right party, how would US politics be affected? I (and pretty much everyone over here that I know) have always found it bizzare that the US only has two real parties. What's up with that? Why the lack of any other parties?

Because it is insanely expencive to field a full blown political party in the US. Literally tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. They might be able to pull off a third (Not now the economy is in the tank but 5 years ago or in 10 years maybe) but probably no more than that.

It would also make things far more complicated in the houses. If a third party did form it would probably just end up voting with one of the other parties the majoirty of the time voiding the point of it in the first place.

If a split does occure it will mean the Dems are all but assured of the next 2 elections.

[Lazar]

I (and pretty much everyone over here that I know) have always found it bizzare that the US only has two real parties. What's up with that? Why the lack of any other parties?

I think it's due, in large part, to our British-inspired electoral system, in which all elections are first-past-the-post, and all legislators come from single-member districts. (Britain isn't quite as bad as we are, because their parliamentary constituencies only have about 100,000 people each, so a third party like the Lib Dems can at least win a few seats; but the average US congressional district contains 600-700,000 people, making it practically impossible for anyone to compete outside of the entrenched two-party system.) Then there's the fact that most districts, on the state and federal levels, have been gerrymandered into "safe" districts for one party or the other, which limits competition; then there's the fact that our races require large amounts of fundraising which is very hard to do outside of a party apparatus; the whole system reinforces the duopoly of the two parties. In fact, with our plurality voting system, third-party candidates often do more harm than good, serving as spoiler candidates, as when Nader received about 1% of the votes in the 2000 presidential election. Exit polls showed that had Nader not been in the race, his voters would have gone disproportionately to Gore, who would then have taken two additional states and won the election. Therefore, even though Nader espouses a lot of progressive, leftist views, he is widely blamed for helping put Bush in office, and he is absolutely despised by most left-wing Democrats (such as me). Over in Ireland, you've got preferential voting and multi-member constituencies, both of which would strike most Americans (sadly) as quite alien.

In a hypothetical situation in which the RP did split into a centrist/moderate-right party and an extreme-right party, how would US politics be affected?

I imagine that such a fragmentation would ensure electoral domination for the Democrats. But it would be messy as hell, and the idea of a dedicated far-right party seems quite scary to me.

[Graham Kennedy]

If you have half a dozen parties of approximately equal power, it can lead to a situation with its own problems. Government essentially passes into the hands of whoever can swing parties behind a particular coalition - imagine if control of congress changed hands every few months, or even weeks. Constantly passing legislation and then abolishing it again when other factions combine to gain a majority. It can be chaotic and damaging.

[IanKennedy]

There's a name for it, it's called Italy.

[Captain Seafort]

Or Scotland.

[Mikey]

The way the US legislature is built, a major third party would gum up the works even worse than the two bags of cats we have now.