CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
September 25, 2009 08:18 PM UTC
12 Comments
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“why can’t the GOP be more like the Dems ?”
Great question.
Then again, if a person’s values align with the Dems, why not join that party ?
Why should people with conservative values abandon them ? Because they make you uncomfortable ?
Unstated, it sounds like you are trying to boil this down to the essence: partisan politics is about winning, and the GOP isn’t winning because their principles get in the way, so toss them overboard.
Frankly, the party leadership is extremely flexible in the pursuit of winning, and would dump the party’s principles in a New York minute if they calculated it would win. But it won’t win, because party rank and file believe in those values.
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Extreme wacko conservatism? Today’s GOP bears little resemblance to the GOP of old. There used to be a GOP that was aligned with a much broader alliance of Americans. There used to be a GOP that didn’t demand lockstep agreement on every issue and didn’t paint every proposal from any Dem as inherently evil with no room for compromise.
The difference I see is that the Dem party not only has room for those beyond it’s fire breathing base, it’s those beyond who are actually in charge and the base has the to take what they can get, which is more than they’d get from any R.
The GOP used to know how to use its own fire breathing base but somewhere along the way lost control. Rs now dare not contradict the wackos because they account for the majority of who they have left.
Until the GOP figures out how to be bigger than it’s fringe and put the sane grown ups back in charge, it will continue to shrink. Right now the GOP doesn’t even manage to gain approval when approval for Dems drop.
People who are disappointed in the Dems still don’t see the GOP as the answer. Tearing down, being hysterically against things and demonizing your opponents only takes you so far without offering anything positive.
Ever since the success of the southern strategy, then Reagan’s demonization of the mythic welfare queen, the GOP has increasingly come to depend more heavily on fear and bigotry until that’s about all they have left.
y’all do toss those values overboard in a New York minute to win elections.
Look at David Vitter. Paid a prostitute for sex (breaking both laws and marriage vows) yet the Republican party supports him for re-election. Very similar situation with John Ensign (difference is he didn’t pay for his piece of ass, his parents did). In both cases, no one on your side called for their resignation.
It does indeed beg the question, “Why should people with conservative values abandon them”. Simple, it is easier to hold other people to your values than it is to hold yourself to them.
It isn’t all about their own personal opinions. Plenty of Dems would like to have a Canadian style health program. But it isn’t going to happen – people aren’t there. So they mention that they’d prefer single payer, but then they get down to the business of at least making insurance companies at least insure people.
Repubs (IMO) need to do the same thing. Mention that they personally oppose abortion or same-sex marriage, sure, but then spend their time on what their constituents want and care about.
Like believing in the non-violent teachings of Jesus Christ while mindlessly supporting invasions and the wanton killing of tens if not hundreds of thousands of humans because a monkey in a suit told them it was good revenge? Like hating government because it costs too much but cheerfully paying more for privatization that skims hundreds of millions of dollars off the top for the fact cat CEOs because corporations do it better? Like screaming how important it is to protect the defenseless unborn but refusing to help a single mother afford health care for her vulnerable children because mom needs to be punished for being promiscuous?
If those are your precious values Barron then I hope your party rots in hell for a long long time.
The question is what has a better chance of election success – moderation, new leadership and focus on issues R’s can win
or
– just be more R than ever before while embracing and promoting the R fringe.
You say “conservative values” like everyone naturally knows what those are. but then your party insists on making some Americans second class citizens. And rallying around Glenn Beck and El Rushbo. Good luck with that.
I’m too busy this afternoon to post a long comment but may I recommend a great (short) book that is relevant:
The Death of Conservatism by Sam Tanenhaus
It describes the war within the Right that has gone on for over seventy years only this time the “revanchist conservatives” have won control of the Right and the Republican Party producing a decidedly unconservative political group.
More later. Again thanks for starting this thread.
How can Republicans possibly acknowledge the disconnect between screaming No Government control of Health Care at town halls and screaming for government control of women’s Health Care in front of the Planned Parenthood clinic? How can they acknowledge that they believe that government shouldn’t come between a doctor and their patients and ration medical procedures while at the same time believe that government should come between a doctor and a woman and ration or regulate certain medical procedures. It is such a Grand Canyon like schism in their personalities that they don’t even try to make sense anymore. It is now just incoherent screaming and emotional rage at being the “victim”. The problem for them is that rational voters look at this behavior and go “No way am I voting for such nutcases”.
Reading this it occurs to me that the Repubs are waiting for the Dems to mess up so they can win. This might happen in some places at some times. But it isn’t exactly a vision for the future or a plan for the government.
Federally, the Repubs have no health plan. Their plan is to hope nothing passes and people get mad at the Dems. In Colorado, the Repubs have no plan for closing the deficit. Their plan is to make the Dems do the unpopular cuts and hope people blame them and vote for Repubs. It might work. But it is awfully chancy and leaves Dems in charge of their destiny.
Not entirely true. They have returned to the same types of statements which got them where they are today only they become even more fanatical and demented in shouting those statements.
Think of the birthers, swatstika guy, Palin ranting about the death panels, and Michelle Bachman slitting her wrists.
As for the GOP’s racial homogeneity, they’ve got Pat Buchanan, Tom Tancredo, Joe Wilson and Pete Boyles to thank for that.
Nothing changed. The GOP did exactly what they’ve done before.
Ordinarily I’d say this might be the wake-up call the GOP needs – but they’ve steadfastly refused to change. The acknowledgement from Sen. Cornyn that the party needs to do some soul searching, and the contrast with Sen. McConnell’s absurd statement that President Obama should “move to the middle” indicate that the GOP is as fractured now as it was before.
There is, in my view, a real risk that the GOP will become irrelevant at the national level – it is well on its way. Very sad.
But your diary and response suit the bill.
The problem IMHO isn’t that the GOP hasn’t done any soul searching; it’s that most of them have decided (and might decide again) that they’re just not conservative enough to convince voters that they mean it, and that Democrats have somehow managed to subvert the election process and distort their candidates’ “real” views.
Sure there are the more rational people in the party like Steve Schmidt, David Brooks, and Sen. Graham. But they don’t lead the caucus and primary voters who pick the Todd Akins and the Richard Mourdocks who wind up running for office and failing. They’re not the ones leading the county parties.
The GOP is currently propped up by their own gerrymandering and by billionaires who don’t want a complete drubbing of the GOP. How much different would the House look today if Democrats had control or even shared control in Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio – heck, even if they used their advantage in California to gerrymander Republicans out of seats rather than making grand incumbent bargains?
Perhaps enough Republicans will stop and listen to those more rational folks to turn the party around. Increasingly, I doubt it.