[Peace-discuss] Fw: [laborsmilitantvoice] GOP Confronts Its Future Viability

Thu Apr 30 14:14:44 CDT 2009

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Richard Mellor 
To: lmv 
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 12:52 PM
Subject: [laborsmilitantvoice] GOP Confronts Its Future Viability

Comrades,

we had talked about the possibility of the Republican Party havign the potential to split with its Christian right wing footsoldiers abandoning the party or the fiscal conservative but socially moderate elements leaving it due to the social views of the Christian right.

But in the light of all the economic mess I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the party is in its most serious crisis in a long long time.  It is a political crisis that we need to keep tabs on.  This article gives a little glimpse of the situaion it is faced with.  The other thing is that as it loses its importance, even temporarily, the Democrats will find it harder to use them as an excuse for their own political failures with regard to worker's rights and conditions.

Richard

Wall Street Journal

    * APRIL 29, 2009

GOP Confrnts Its Future Viability

By GREG HITT and SUSAN DAVIS

WASHINGTON -- Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to become a Democrat underscores his former party's political downward spiral.

In losing control of the House and Senate over the past four years, congressional Republicans have also lost much of their ideological and geographic diversity -- raising questions about the GOP's viability as a national party. The party has suffered in particular in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, and among moderates.

"We have to broaden the party," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) Tuesday. "We have to find places in the party for people who couldn't win in South Carolina," he added, vowing to help recruit moderates back into the Republican fold. "I'm a right-of-center guy, but ideological purity is not going to win the day."

Senate Republican leaders denied they had sl! ipped in to the danger zone. "I believe that we will be able to regain our status as a national party by being competitive nationally, as we should be," said Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), who runs the Senate campaign operation for Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) rejected the idea that moderates are not welcome among Senate Republicans, who now total 40. But moderate ranks have dwindled sharply -- by some counts down to two: Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. "We have moderates in our conference who have an enormous amount of influence," Mr. McConnell said.

After Mr. Specter's departure, questions loom about whether Sens. Collins and Snowe might also switch parties. Both said they intend to remain Republicans. But Sen. Snowe offered a strong warning to her GOP colleagues, arguing the party needs "to be more broadly inclusive" and that many voters are "alienated and disaffected" with the images and agenda put forward.

In his post2008 analysis, veteran election expert Curtis Gans calculated that the Democratic Party scored gains in every geographic region in the country, most notably in the South and Mountain West, effectively the last Republican strongholds on the political map.

"The GOP is out of contention in New England and the West. It is getting out of contention in the mid-Atlantic states and the industrial Midwest, its bases of former support in the farm Midwest, Mountain States and South are eroding," he wrote in his December report for American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

Mr. Gans calculates that the Republican Party currently enjoys a "durable advantage" in just 10 states: Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas. Currently, the Republican Party controls none of the U.S. House districts in the six states that make up New England. In New York State, Republicans now control just! three d istricts, compared with 13 just three years ago.

David Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report says the party is "deeply divided" between centrists and traditional conservatives.

"You have some Republicans who believe that the course back is to amplify their conservative message and not to alter it, and then you have those who want to alter and not amplify," he said.

Mr. Wasserman noted that GOP moderates can still run and win in Democratic-leaning states -- citing the 2008 victories of Erik Paulsen in Minnesota and Leonard Lance of New Jersey. Part of the problem Republicans face now is convincing prospective candidates to run for office when there's little hope on the immediate horizon of serving in the majority.

Write to Greg Hitt at greg.hitt at wsj.com and Susan Davis at susan.davis at wsj.com

"Capitalism teaches the people the moral conceptions of cannibalism are the strong devouring the weak; its theory of the world of men and women is that of a glorified pig-trough where the biggest swine gets the most swill." -James Connolly 1910.

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