Conservatives certainly have every right to push the Republican party to only have politicians in their party that are "pure" conservatives. At the national level they have had great success at achieving their goal. The national Republican party is pretty much in the thrall of the Tea Party activists-types (Palin, Beck, Fox, etc.)

Isn't there a disconnect, though, between the increasing success of conservative purists controlling the national Republican party and calls for the Democrats to be bipartisan? Bipartisanship implies compromise. Purism implies no compromise. Of course, congressional Republicans, as creatures of politics (as are congressional Democrats), aren't generally concerned with logical consistency or hypocrisy, so I wouldn't expect them to see a problem with insisting on conservative purity and insisting that Democrats be bipartisan. But I would hope that most independent voters and the media would see the disconnect and hold the Republican party accountable for insisting on two incompatible things. I haven't seen much that gives me reason to think the main stream media are going to shine a light on this disconnect, so I'm afraid the Republicans in Congress will be able to continue to get away with it. What happened in the 23rd district in NY does give me a little hope, though, that at least independent voters - even if they are not fully aware of the disconnect - are sending a signal that moderate Republicans who are willing to compromise with Democrats should not be driven off.

The next year will be interesting in this respect. In next year's elections the Republicans should make major gains in their numbers in the House of Representatives and some gains in the Senate. The Democrats, by that time, will have had control of congress and the White House and the economy will still be in the tank - especially in terms of high unemployment numbers, so voters are naturally going to tend to look at the Republicans as an alternative. If Republicans continue to insist on conservative purity of their candidates and they make big gains in next year's elections then it is likely that they will conclude that the voting public in general will be becoming to have a more favorable attitude toward conservative purism. That may push them to be even more vigorous in their pursuit of conservative purism, but I think that would be a misreading of the sentiment of the electorate in general and independents in particular.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2009 08:23AM by Ted King.

The problem is - if they continue to force out moderate republicans, they will simply have fewer bodies available to run for office. This severely mitigates their growth opportunity next year.

They might make inroads, but not nearly what they might accomplish with a larger tent.

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The Democratic call for bipartisanship has failed because of Republican purism, as it should. Bipartisanship is understood as a call to work with both parties to create a reasonable compromise, not attempting to engage with lunatics.

The basis of your argument is on the general notion that Dems will get voted out because of the economy which you predict to be in poor shape a year from now. Thats a pretty shaky argument.

Does anyone else remember where the economy was one year ago? Free fall. We're now at a relatively stable recovery point and we're expecting employment to catch up in the next 3-6 months. The recovery is going _extremely_ well but nobody wants to say so because either they're in power and don't want to get people's hopes up or they're not in power and they'd prefer to slam the economy.

That said, attempting to not only understand, but divine the logic behind voters is an extremely difficult undertaking.

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mick e is not enthusiastic about the state of the economy. Not the least bit.

That said, if the public reaction to this is to vote in a bunch of Paultards, Teabaggers, and Palinites, then The Rapture is upon us.

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mattkime
The recovery is going _extremely_ well but nobody wants to say so because either they're in power and don't want to get people's hopes up or they're not in power and they'd prefer to slam the economy.

.

Cardiff Giant has a bridge for sale.

I'm curious what people expected out of the worst economic slump since the great depression.

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mattkime
We're now at a relatively stable recovery point and we're expecting employment to catch up in the next 3-6 months

I do not share your expectations, particularly if we take recent history as a guide.

Jobless Recovery

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mattkime
I'm curious what people expected out of the worst economic slump since the great depression.

Until all the data is in 1937 and 1973-75 and 82-84 may yet prove to have been worse.

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mattkime
The Democratic call for bipartisanship has failed because of Republican purism, as it should. Bipartisanship is understood as a call to work with both parties to create a reasonable compromise, not attempting to engage with lunatics.

The basis of your argument is on the general notion that Dems will get voted out because of the economy which you predict to be in poor shape a year from now. Thats a pretty shaky argument.

Does anyone else remember where the economy was one year ago? Free fall. We're now at a relatively stable recovery point and we're expecting employment to catch up in the next 3-6 months. The recovery is going _extremely_ well but nobody wants to say so because either they're in power and don't want to get people's hopes up or they're not in power and they'd prefer to slam the economy.

That said, attempting to not only understand, but divine the logic behind voters is an extremely difficult undertaking.

Good post, and mostly agree, but if you had bought property in the last decade you'd have a harder time feeling optimisic.

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Try to forget this,
Try to erase this,
From the blackboard.

It's like the mid-air collision that almost but didn't really happen, it takes an actual collision to get most peoples attention and that's after the fact when then can't do shit about it.

At this point it seems the collision was averted but the principals involved have yet to come in for any sort of safe landing.

Would it be stretching the analogy too far to say it's all still up in the air?