The Republican party is currently in free-fall.Conservatives have all but elected bloated political pundit Rush Limbaugh as their leader - a pill-popping blowhard who has successfully alienated most moderate Republicans.
Meanwhile, in an effort to counter the popularity of President Obama, the GOP billeted their token African-American, Micheal Steele, as leader of the Republican Party.
This is a decision they automatically regretted. Steele quickly revealed a sharp mind and an unwillingness to do as he was told.
Coming from a family of old-school Roosevelt Democrats, it was inevitable that Steele would have different opinions than the stuffy, white party elite. After all, he was the one who promised to bring a little 'hip-hop' to the GOP.
But in a recent GQ interview, those opinions raised more than eyebrows. Steele argued that topics like abortion and gay marriage should be dealt with by individual states, rather than by constitutional amendments - a sharp deviation from the pro-life, anti-gay party's policies.
When asked if homosexuality was a choice (which many Republicans believe) Steele replied: "No. I've never subscribed to that view. You just can’t simply say, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being gay.” It’s like saying, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being black.”
When asked if women should have the right to choose abortion, he declared: "Yeah. I think that’s an individual choice, absolutely."
It's a tug of war at the moment, between right-wing conservatives and Republican moderates. This dispute threatens to tear the GOP right down the middle - giving even more impunity to President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress and the Senate.
It's unfortunate, too. Michael Steele's progressive attitudes offer a glimmer of hope for the Republican party. In the interview with GQ, he called the Republican party a 'Big Tent' party - one that can embrace people with fundamentally different views and opinions.
The party can go one of two ways now. It can retreat further to the right, embracing Rush Limbaugh and their core supporters in defence of guns and bibles. That way, they'll never again offer an adequete opposition to the Democrats.
Alternatively, they could embrace Michael Steele and become a more moderate party. It would infuriate the right-wing, but open the GOP up to millions of moderates who believe in 'small c' conservatism.
In reality, that's the only direction the party can afford to go in. A shift to center-ground will gain more voters than it loses. After all, even if the far-right are infuriated by compromise on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, who the hell else are they going to vote for?
4 comments:
Roland, you silly liberal.
This, you need to become more democrat to fix the party, line is bull crap.
Keep in mind that had all the Republicans showed up to vote in 2008 that did in 2004 the election wouldn't have been near the blowout we all saw. Obama would have still won, but not as he did.
The reasons so many Republicans stayed home is that McCain is a bad Republican. One of those 'moderates'.
Take some advice from Ronald Reagan and Bush. You do not grow your part by becoming the other party. You grow your party by being your party. But the fact is that the Republican party did act like the liberals and went hog wild when it came to spending, and THAT is why they are out of favor.
If you listen close... the only people that say this line are freakin democrats that wouldn't vote for a Republican anyways. That includes you, regardless of what you say.
Abortion is not negotiable. Period. Its off the table.
Fair comments, CK. I have to keep reminding myself that the election was closer than I realised (but maybe that was BECAUSE McCain was a moderate.)
But as far as abortion being off the table - that's the problem. Michael Steele's the head of the GOP and he's saying it's NOT off the table.
This is where the problem is.
Who's going to win. Him or Rush?
That's a false argument.
Its not who is going to win, him or Rush. Its who's going to win, the base or him.
The base of the party, to which Rush is a member of, will not negotiate abortion and he won't be the party head for much longer with positions like that.
Funny little thing.. I've NEVER listened to Rush.
I wonder if this might be the birth of a third party.
I wish abortion could be an issue like the stem cells - I loved your post when you linked to the Washington Post article, about it being on the brink of becoming a non-issue because of mastery of other stem cell sources.
That girl whose blindness was cured used cells from an umbilical cord - the story was pitched like it was a direct result of allowing embryonic stem cell research, but it was totally misleading. When our baby was born, we donated cord blood, so there's no reason that process couldn't have been developed in America WITHOUT any ethical problems.
As for abortion... If there weren't 3,700 abortions per day (1996 figure) than perhaps we could look at it more objectively. The underlying issue is that 1.37 million women every year (1996 figure) have an unplanned pregnancy they want to terminate.
That's a problem that needs to be addressed - either by better education, or better access to birth control, or whatever.
This is the 21st century. We shouldn't have this level of demand for abortions any more. We can put men on the moon and clone people.
We should be able to provide the means for women to have total control over their bodies and only become pregnant when THEY want, on THEIR terms.
I mean, that technology already exists!
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