More advice to the Republican Party – kick the loons to the curb.
On this, you need to learn from the Democrats.
About 20% of the voting public is far left and about 20% is far right. The far left are used to being a minority in
American politics. Since about 40% of
the public claims to be conservative, the far left don’t expect to get
everything they want every time. However,
for some reason, the far right think they should always get everything they
want.
When elections roll around, the far left of the Democrat party tends to be
relatively quiet – they don’t want to screw up their chances for getting some
of what they want.
Not so with the far right. They crank it
up. It’s all or nothing.
So most of the time the far right gets nothing.
Or sometimes a Pyrrhic victory that ultimately bites them in the butt
when general elections come around.
In the primaries the far right pushes warriors for their causes. In the general elections those warriors
become martyrs. They get crushed. And who can blame the public for that? When you have Republicans like Richard
Mourdock claiming pregnancy from an act of rape is what “God intended,” or Todd
Akin stating there’s such a thing as “legitimate rape” that prevents pregnancy,
what do you expect?
How stupid and insensitive can anyone be?
They may have thrilled the right-to-lifers, but their bone-headed
comments exposed a dirty not-so-secret of the Republican Party – there are way too
many nut jobs in their fold. Nobody
rational in the mainstream -- which includes a lot of Independents and otherwise conservative-leaning Democrats -- is going to take the Republican Party seriously
until they clamp down on their loons.
The Republican Party is always afraid to do this. They seem incapable of parsing the
differences among varying degrees of being a conservative. In reality, a lot of people are conservative
about some issues, and not so much on others.
I’ll use myself as an example. I am a
registered Republican; have been for years.
I am generally conservative about a lot of things; somewhat liberal
about other things, especially when it comes to social issues. I vote in every election.
And I’ll be completely honest with you – there are some folks in the Republican
Party that scare the Hell out of me. Some
of them couldn’t lead me out of a burning building, much less get my vote. They
embarrass me. At the same time, they are embraced by some extremists
in the Republican Party as “true conservatives,” and keepers of the legacy of
Ronald Reagan.
Reagan must be rolling in his grave. He
was a fiscal conservative, but in truth also governed as a social
moderate. These latter-day Reagan
wannabes have as much in common with Ronald Reagan as Mary Poppins did with
Lizzie Borden.
Still, too many Republican Party officials keep thinking their strength – their
“base” – is the far right, the evangelicals, and the extreme social conservatives
who want the red meat politicians to preach what they already agree with. No matter how off kilter that may be to what
reality is, or, in the case of Akin, what actual science is.
Some prominent Democrat called that base the “flat earthers”; he’s pretty close to
correct.
Here’s the math Republicans need to understand:
yes, 40% of the public consider themselves to be conservative – but to
different degrees, and that’s far short of a majority. And majorities win elections. Of that 40% conservative audience, no more
than a quarter or a half of those are far right extremists; in fact, the number
might be much lower than that.
Given the numbers, why does the Republican Party pander to them? Or even let them out of their cages?
Every time an Akin or Mourdock speaks, they stab common sense in the
heart. Every time a Christine O’Donnell
wins a primary you set yourselves up for failure.
The real base of the Republican Party
is made up of some of these folks, just some, but a lot more people who simply don’t
believe that big government and wasteful spending are the answers to every
problem. They think their government
should focus on what’s really important to them and their families – like keeping
them safe, keeping them healthy, access to a good education, and getting and
keeping a good job to provide for their family.
They don’t need government to tell them what to do, what to think, who to hire,
who to help, or who they should have a relationship with and what that
relationship should be called.
Are there enough of them in the Republican Party to win elections? Not alone – you have to find more people like
them outside the party to win. The good
news is they are there to be had.
But as long as the party allows the
loons to take center stage, and doesn’t muzzle the most extreme elements,
Republicans don’t have a prayer.
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