I agree.

I've been a registered Republican all my life, but have been voting primarily Democrat for years.  For my money, the Tea Partiers and similar ultra conservatives have forgotten that in order to be conservative, you have to conserve something.  And that requires a contribution to the common good, if nothing else in one's own self-interest.  Instead they insist on eating their own seed corn, as my dear old sainted mother would have said. 

Being essentially anti-intellectual, they push singularly unintelligent agendas.  As a result the best brains in the party have been migrating for years.

+100....and add "as long as I'm alive."

I missed you. Welcome back!

I'll still be checking in from time to time on pertenent issues.  I must say though - SB from a spectators perspective is far more entertaining!

I know, what a juicy topic... ragging on the GOP!

I disagree with a premise of your post.  Yes, the GOP is divided.  But "divided as ever"?  No, traditionally, the GOP (despite internal fighting) has always done a great job of coming together.  It was Ronald Reagan who said that the 11th Commandment was "Thou Shalt Not Criticize Fellow Republicans".

But now what has happened is that the party the past 2 decades has moved much further to the right.  You don't just have disagreements, instead you have purity tests and if you don't pass the test, you're a RINO.  The democratic party has probably more division and infighting but has always been reasonably inclusive (by this, I mean that you don't have people being kicked out of the party b/c they're liberal or a blue dog or a moderate).

If you look at this objectively, things have to be depressing. After Reagan was elected over Carter, you saw Democrats saying "we need to move more to the center."  It took 8 years (and 2 serious presidential butt-kickings) before that happened.  This kind of party transitions don't happen overnight, they don't happen quickly.  I look at the GOP and I don't think they've begun that transition.

The GOP could win the Presidency in 2016.  But they have a very narrow path to do so.  Their best shot is to nominate a governor who runs against both parties (basically run against Washington, Congress, blame both the Democratic Senate and Republican House) and say "I've got a track record of getting stuff done, of working across the aisle."  That might work.

Ed

Considering the current realities of the GOP - this is a discussion that needs to occur at the national level.

Isn't that how Romney positioned himself...?

* Balancing the budget is not considered radical right.
* Lobbying to balance the budget with cuts to unemployment, Social Security, and Medicaid while pumping tax breaks to the rich is.

* Bombing a country that's a threat to the U.S. is not considered radical right.
* Making up shit to invade a country is.

* Engaging in partisan debate is not being radical right or left.
* Saying, "Our goal as legislators is to deny the President a second term" is.

* Discouraging abortions is not considered radical right. (Remember Clinton's statement that he wanted abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare"?)
* Trying to ban abortions in all cases and making the focus of promised Supreme Court appointments those who will vote right on abortions is.

Bosnia was a threat to us? Was Haiti? Clinton did hundreds of bombing missions in Iraq... and was the one that got Congress to approve "regime change" there in his final year... setting the stage for the inevitable invasion since the weapons inspections were going so poorly.

As for balancing the budget.... no matter what gets cut, the left complains that it's affecting *someone*.... because every cut does in fact affect someone.... but cuts still need to be made in order to save the future of the country/system.

A liberal thinks it's "radical right" to not tax one person to pay for others' abortions... or for free condoms...etc.

The country has gone way off to the left.

It's upsetting to give up freedom to those who prefer that everyone be wards of the state.

Some folks (those who don't know any better) don't realize what a blessing freedom is until it's gone.

It seems like you are less levelheaded than before when you were more centered in your opinions... But lately, you seem to have changed. Is that true?

BTW, this is just an observation, not a criticism.

We're part of the UN.

Arguably a mistake - arguably to the right. Sending in troops to promote democracy rings far too close to other things we've not been proud of. Ultimately, the UN, having authorized the US, took over. I'd say that letting UN feet feel US boots would be considered a left thing.

BTW, Clinton was a moderate.

Had to make some type of actions and gestures with the puerile pushbacks from Hussein. If we're going to blame Clinton, though, for the Iraq War three years after Clinton's term, that's laughable.

It's not "radical right" to try to balance the budget.

No. That's conservative. Saying abortions shouldn't be allowed even in cases of incest or rape - that's radical right.

I see.

So what?

Some people seem to have forgotten a few basic things about the UN.

1. The UN does NOT pass legislation. Nothing they do is law.
2. UN representatives are NOT elected. They don't represent the people of anywhere. They have no legitimacy in that regard.
3. The UN depends on the power of their members being given voluntarily. No member can be forced to provide troops, military power, etc.

It's just radical right to point out that it is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE to balance the budget without significant cuts to Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare.

So I mistyped.

I meant, "We're part of NATO." I was thinking Bosna/NATO, Haiti/UN, and brain-farted it. My bad.

It's just radical right to point out that it is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE to balance the budget without significant cuts to Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare.

Take away ALL the rest of the budget, everything except Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, and the US is still deficit spending.

Wow, really well written. I am a Democrat, life long, so I wish the GOP no good. However, I do wish the country well and that means the country needs a healthy Republican party.

As it stands the decent people in the GOP have been hamstrung by the Tea Party faction. Fact, sans running extreme, almost wacky, Tea Party candidates the GOP would easily have a majority in the Senate as well as the House.

Truth be told if the GOP had not been pulled so far to the right Obama was easily beaten in November.

2014 will tell the tale. My opinion is the Tea Party faction will lose significant seats in 2014 and the GOP will change and return to the Republicans your father knew.

The late Senator Kennedy used to have Republicans to his house for Thanksgiving dinner each year. That's when Republicans and Democrats referred to each other as "friend."

So did Huntsman.  But to be brutally frank, GOP voters weren't interested in picking someone who's strength was in working across the aisle.  They hated Obama with a passion.

I think my argument was that Romney also tried hard to position himself with the national GOP, had many buddies within the Congress, and was also guilty of shifting all over the place.  Every non-incumbent tries to run as "I"m an outsider, I work across the aisle, I get things done."  Just b/c you say those things doesn't mean they're credible with the national audience and in Romney's case (fairly or not), they weren't seen as credible.  To really make this work, you'd probably have to have a GOP candidate who'd be running against the GOP House and Senate leadership as well...a challenging position.  This person would probably have to repudiate some standard GOP positions (much like candidate Bill Clinton went out of his way to attack Jessie Jackson and Sistah Soulja publicly as a way of demonstrating he wasn't a "traditional democrat" who was beholden to special interests).

Ed

If it's true that I'm less level-headed than before... no, I don't think I've changed like that. Of course, I doubt that anyone here would agree that that statement would apply to them.

If it's true I was more centered in my opinions before .... no, I don't believe that's true, either. With a few exceptions, my opinions are pretty much the same. If there are examples to the contrary, I'm happy to look at them.

If it's true that lately, I've seemed to change... in terms of politics, the Republican Party has moved away from me. To those who moved with it, as Einstein would predict, I would appear to be moving away and changing in opposition.

It may be that over the course of thousands of posts and a number of years with people here both tolerant and intransigent, I may be less diplomatic than before. That often happens with geezers. As illustration:

Sure, I didn't take "less level-headed than before" as a criticism.

To plenty of American perspectives, too.

In 2008, Obama got a higher percentage of the popular vote than Bush or Clinton did in the four preceding elections. And the Republican response was to announce that they would fight the guy we'd elected, work to his defeat, and spend four years spewing invective. That approach got them defeated the next election - during a bad economy.

Not many like a sore loser. For many of us, it seems like "sore loser" is the Republicans' personality profile, and we're tired of it. "Those who voted for Obama want socialism/welfare for all/handouts," whatever. Sorry, you're not getting mileage with that weary crap, particularly from the majority who voted from him.

Bush ran two successful campaigns - especially his second campaign - almost exclusively on fear, paranoia and anger, though.

No what got them defeated was their position on women's issues and gay issues. The fact that the far right religious nuts are gripping hold of the GOP's balls.

Amazingly that's what got Obama elected a second time

In this, we agree.

However, there are those who say that's not correct - rather that the country is moving left. But the candidacies of Ryan, Bachmann, Perry, and Santorum, and the subsequent pandering of Romney to this faction doesn't help me go there.

Norwegian playright Henrik Ibsen in his 1892 play "An Enemy of the People" made the point that in a Democracy we are taught that the majority is always right when in truth the majority is usually (he may have said aways) wrong because the majority of people are, in his words, stupid. I would use uniformed.

Getting a lot of votes does not prove you are right or the better candidate but that you had the better campaign, just like being found"not guilty " means you are innocent.

Interesting is the issues of the play, long before the advent of the EPA and environmentalists, is as timely today as when it was written more than 100 years ago a continent away.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People

I have thought for years the Democrats had gone far left and the Republicans far right, we are in desperate need of a more centrist party

I think my nuance got lost in the retelling.

I'm saying that the Republicans took the untenable position of telling the majority of Americans, "We're going to work like the dickens against your choice." And that wasn't smart or honorable.