Quotes of the day

He’ll lose to Sestak in the primary. Mark my woids.

Akzed on April 28, 2009 at 11:37 PM

You know, for a moment, I thought that said “He’ll lose to Sleestak in the primary,” and I started thinking about moving to Pennsylvania just to watch that race. I’m pretty sure the smart, friendly brown Sleestak would just own Arlen Specter in a debate.

Well there are moderates who might be pro life, free trade, fiscally conservative, but maybe they don’t really care about issues like gay marriage. Or maybe they are not as hawkish as some conservatives. Or maybe they are not against abortion in all instances. Or maybe they think that the idea that we will get rid of all social programs is not feasible and are willing to support some limited government safety net. Maybe they say they are moderate because they support embryonic stem cell research or the legalization drugs.

There are lots of reasons why people might call themselves moderates, but still be GOP.

Terrye on April 28, 2009 at 11:43 PM

Granted that one man’s “moderate” is another man’s deficit-busting, industry-nationalizing, Chavez-hugging neo-Marxist, I don’t think the Republicans need a heavy population of “moderates” right now. In the face of the radical transformation of America that is under way, we’re going to need to do a lot better than people who will give the Democrats bipartisan cover in exchange for a 2% reduction in Obama’s 400% spending increases. This is ultimately my biggest problem with people like Specter or Snowe: the media attention they receive, and their tendency to vote approval for the worst excesses of Democrats, means the paltry influence they give the Republicans comes at the price of diluting the GOP message. There’s nothing liberals on shout shows like to rant about more than how some socialist bill was “bipartisan” because three Republicans signed on to it.

No one could seriously believe that Specter or the worst of the RINOs would vote against Obama on the really “historic” legislation. The best they would do is trim away some fat around the edges, but when the national budget is 400 pounds overweight and starting to suffer heart palpitations, we need to do more than switch to Diet Pepsi with our seven-course pork dinners. Some degree of conservative “radicalization” is necessary to provide an effective counterweight. Being agreeably “moderate” while the political center of gravity swings wildly to the left accomplishes very little.

If there’s any hope of saving the country from the utter systemic crash the Democrats are pushing us toward, it will require something “moderates” are constitutionally incapable of providing: bold leadership. And even if nothing can be done to prevent that crash, there will be pieces to pick up afterward… and an angry, confused public will not be inclined to put their trust in people who served as valets to the liberals who destroyed the American system. Whether the Republicans are trying to get into fighting shape to fight off the darkness to come, or they think disaster is inevitable but want to be in position to help rebuild the country afterward, it makes more sense to cut away the dead weight and raise a clear banner. Let the people who want to help Obama and the Democrats implement policies that have been a tragic failure around the world, every single time they have been tried, go and stand with them… and let us never allow our neighbors to forget who those people were.

Doctor Zero on April 29, 2009 at 12:10 AM

The thing is that not all that long ago the Republicans were not always seen as conservative in any extreme. Back when Eisenhower and Republicans like him were around, the entire idea of conservative vs liberal was not really what pushed politics. Politics were really local, they were regional in fact.

But over time more and more conservatives came to think that Republican meant conservative, as if they were one and the same thing. I just think there are a lot of people out there who still think in the old terms of region.

For instance, was Dwight D. Eisenhower a moderate or a conservative? How often was he ever heard to describe himself as either of those things?

Terrye on April 29, 2009 at 12:18 AM

It’s tough to put modern political labels into a historical context, especially since modern observers and partisans are always battling to define what those terms mean. Read a JFK speech to a modern liberal, and he’ll think you’re reading the monologue from yesterday’s Rush Limbaugh broadcast.

The constant factor among politicians is the burning desire to be called moderate, no matter what your actual positions are. Obama and his media sycophants labored mightily to apply that label to him, which is morbidly amusing to anyone who was paying attention to his statements and history during the 2008 campaign… but that’s the point. The “moderate” label is attractive to people who aren’t paying attention, but want to sound intelligent and thoughtful… and a lot of the swing voters who are truly up for grabs each election are people like that. In fact, the media’s ability to label someone a “moderate” is one of the most significant powers left to them, along with the ability to ignore scandals and mistakes from their preferred politicians.

It seems to me that what a politician actually does has very little effect on whether he is labeled moderate, conservative, or (gasp!) liberal. As proof, consider that virtually none of them are labeled “liberal” by the press. They’ll call Arlen Specter a moderate, even as he votes in favor of fascist control of private industry, or nationalizing the health-care system… but if any of the mushier fringes of the Republican crowd suddenly find their spines and register a solid, principled objection to Obama’s health-care scheme, they will instantly be transformed into an “arch-conservative,” with a speed that would impress Harry Potter.

Just as you said, politics used to be more regional than national… but they are irreversibly national now. As Mark Steyn said recently, calling it the “federal” government no longer seems adequate, even as a figure of speech. This collectivization has moved the geometric center of politics very far to the left. A position that would have been widely considered reasonable and centrist in Eisenhower’s day would be universally regarded as fringe right-wing radicalism now. Even suggesting that a given problem is not the purview of the central government is “wingnut talk,” no matter what you think the locally-administered solution to that problem would be.

It will take a great deal of willpower, leadership, and creative energy to reverse this trend. The Specter types may enjoy the “moderate” label in the media, but they don’t meet any sort of rational criteria for moderation in absolute terms. I think it’s better to be rid of the worst of them, which is something we can do without conducting a brutal “purge.” That will leave the rest of the party better able to polish its message, develop effective conservative leadership, and keep its fingerprints off the Obama disaster. I suspect that, with the way things are going, those people who gravitate mindlessly to the “moderate” label, because they’re not really paying attention to what the candidates are saying, will not be given the option of remaining politically oblivious for much longer. That’s the thing about the Total State: it turns political expertise into a requirement for survival. People trying to deal with double-digit unemployment, crushing tax burdens, self-destructing state-run industries, and possibly a health care system that decides their elderly parents will have to be rationed right into a funereal home, will find considerably less hypnotic power in the word “moderate.”

Doctor Zero on April 29, 2009 at 12:54 AM