John Cole, about the following post: I’m still laughing.
James Wolcott: Club for Growth Shrinks Republican Party
The iron-girder he-men of the conservative blogosphere have greeted former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania Arlen Specter's defection to the Democrats with whiskery hoots of "good riddance/get lost/don't let the door hit your withered buttocks on the way out" and similar pleasantries. Many of them appear defiantly resigned to the Republican Party becoming a regional bastion of true believers, the Branch Davidian compound of the Confederate Jesus. To those, however, who still share the same sky as those in the real world and think that the best escape route out of minority status and possible extinction is to win elections (crazy, I know), the Specter defection is a disaster. Holding up a handful of debris to the mocking sun, David Frum muses:
If the Democrats do succeed in pushing through national health insurance, they really should set aside a little extra money to erect a statue to Pat Toomey. They couldn’t have done it without him!
Pat Toomey is of course the former president of the Club for Growth who planned to challenge Arlen Specter in the 2010 Pennsylvania Republican primary. Polls showed Toomey well ahead - not because he is so hugely popular in the state, but because the Pennsylvania GOP has shriveled to a small, ideologically intense core. Toomey now looks likely to gain the nomination he has sought - and then to be crushed by Specter or some other Democrat next November.
The Specter defection is too severe a catastrophe to qualify as a “wake-up call.” His defection is the thing we needed the wake-up call to warn us against! For a long time, the loudest and most powerful voices in the conservative world have told us that people like Specter aren’t real Republicans - that they don’t belong in the party. Now he’s gone, and with him the last Republican leverage within any of the elected branches of government.
For years, many in the conservative world have wished for an ideologically purer GOP. Their wish has been granted. Happy?
Sure am!
P.S. Delicious irony, courtesy of Strategic Air Commander Kos.
Joe Sudbay: In the wake of the Specter switch, I think we need to thank Dick Cheney, George Bush, FOX News, Hannity, Rush, Beck, Coulter, Newt, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and all the other rabidly right wingers. Sure, they annoy us. But, over the past few years, their inanity and extremism has led the Republican Party to its new weakened status. They've turned off the American people -- and a lot of former Republicans. So, sure, they're infuriating, but look where they've taken the GOP. So, to that whole gang: Keep it up. And, thanks. Thanks for a Democrat in the White House and large majorities in the House and Senate.
Down to two April 28: With only two moderate Republicans left in the Senate, Rachel Maddow wonders who will be the next to switch parties. Rachel is joined by Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Anonymous Liberal: Time to Aggressively Woo Collins and Snowe
Benen: LEARNING THE WRONG LESSONS....Based on her comments today, Olympia Snowe is not at all pleased with the direction her party is going:
“You haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words about how [the GOP] views moderates,” said Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of the few remaining moderate Republicans in the Senate. Snowe said the party's message has been, “Either you're with us or you’re against us.”I don't imagine Snowe's fellow Maine Senator Susan Collins is very pleased either. And the scorn being heaped upon Specter by his former Republican colleagues today will only add to their feelings of disenchantment. The Obama administration and Senate Democrats should seize this opportunity to make an aggressive pitch to Collins and Snowe. They should be strongly encouraged to follow Specter's lead.
The Democrats have nothing to lose by making such an overture; neither of those Senate seats will be up for election any time soon and both Collins and Snowe won reelection by a landslide in 2006 and 2008, years in which the Democrats otherwise clobbered the Republicans. Unless Snowe or Collins retires or gets embroiled in an unexpected scandal, there is no way the Democrats are going to unseat them.
But Specter's defection today leaves Snowe and Collins as essentially the only two moderate Republicans in the Senate (Specter, Collins, and Snowe were the only three Republicans to vote for the stimulus bill). They have to be feeling incredibly isolated at the moment. So why not make them feel wanted? They wouldn't even need to do a full party switch; they could follow Jim Jeffords example and become Independents (while agreeing to caucus with the Democrats). In exchange, they would get better committee assignments and wouldn't have to defend a party led by Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. That alone would be a huge burden off their shoulders.
While it's true that simply changing their party affiliation wouldn't change their substantive views--they would likely still vote more conservatively than most Senate Democrats--I think getting them to renounce their membership in the Republican Party would help in one crucial respect. I think it would make them far less likely to join in any proposed GOP filibuster. And that's all the Democrats really need. They have plenty of votes in the Senate as long as the GOP can't credibly threaten to block cloture. If Collins and Snowe could just be counted on to step out of the way on major legislation, it would make a HUGE difference.
So what's to lose? Let the wooing begin.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) of Maine, arguably the Senate's least conservative Republican, has an op-ed in the New York Times today, insisting that the GOP is making a terrible mistake by "fold[ing] our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand." Noting the Republicans' shift to the right, Snowe added, "There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party."Some of Snowe's fellow Republicans have come to a very different conclusion. Last night, for example, Fox News' Sean Hannity lamented, "I think if anything, the Republican Party is moved to the left in recent years."
Last week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina raised a similar concern. "I feel that Republicans are starting to get the message of the last two elections -- that the American people don't want a lukewarm agenda," DeMint said. "They don't want a liberal light agenda."
This is a surprisingly common sentiment in conservative circles. They're absolutely convinced that the only reason Republican numbers have fallen off in recent years is that the GOP hasn't been nearly conservative enough. It's why many were delighted yesterday by Arlen Specter's announcement -- the departure of moderates makes it easier for the Republican Party to coalesce around a common conservative agenda, which Americans, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, are anxious to embrace.
If Snowe really wants to encourage her party to recognize the mess it's in, she may have to follow Specter's lead.
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