{"id":4671,"date":"2009-04-29T06:45:50","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T11:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4671"},"modified":"2009-04-29T08:00:45","modified_gmt":"2009-04-29T13:00:45","slug":"spector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4671","title":{"rendered":"Specter"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was writing my “What the hell is wrong with the MNGOP<\/a>?” series, a conundrum appeared.<\/p>\n

A party – especially a party built around multiple principles, rather than getting swag for constituents – needs to embrace many different variations on the same message.<\/p>\n

But…<\/p>\n

That same party needs to have <\/em>a coherent message.<\/p>\n

My position: the party needs, on the one hand, to find the things that everyone agrees on.\u00a0 And by “everyone”, I mean of course the overwhelming majority.\u00a0 I suggested (at a Minnesota state party level) Security, Education and Prosperity; I can’t imagine a Republican who wouldn’t support these.\u00a0 The idea would be that everyone – tax hawks, pro-lifers, even moderates – could bury their differences publicly for the greater good of the party.\u00a0 Make no mistake – there is value to having more “R” votes than “D”, even if not all of them are purists for whatever ones’ pet cause is.\u00a0 If you’re a pro-lifer, having a mushy-“choice” Republican is better than having a Dem in the Senate when it’s time to confirm Supreme Court justices, for example.\u00a0 There is a time for being a purist; one of the things, problem or blessing depending on your point of view, with the two-party system is that purism is less important than numbers, even from the purist’s view<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If we lived in a parliamentary system – where everyone can strike out and start a party if they don’t feel their current party reflects their beliefs – it’d be different.\u00a0 Sort of.\u00a0 With enough votes in an area, almost anyone get a seat in a Parliament.\u00a0 Of course, if you have one seat in Parliament, you have to join with other parties to actually affect policy, which means exactly the same compromises that one makes within one of the two major parties we have today.
\nThe complement to “vast majority” is the “infinitesimal minority”.\u00a0 And while I’m the kind of person who’d much rather win that minority over to the majority – especially when the message is <\/em>something this state and nation need – at some point there will inevitably be some people who realize the party’s not for them.<\/p>\n

Arlen Specter was a “60% Republican”.\u00a0 He may have been part of the “infinitesimal minority”, but he was certainly a drag on the party as a whole.\u00a0 And given the immense power his seniority gave him, his many “40%” moments over the years hurt the GOP badly.\u00a0 He was a “Sturdevant Republican” of the lowest order; the only kind of Republican the mainstream media “like”, the one that votes like a Democrat.\u00a0 I’d like to say that Specter is being intellectually honest with his switch…<\/p>\n

…but of course it’s not true.\u00a0 It’s naked careerism; the Pennsylvania GOP is moving to the right (moderates defected to Obama during the past election), and his prospects in the primary were bad enough even before that, having barely beaten Toomey in the ’04 primary.\u00a0 Pennsylvania law won’t allow him to run as an Indy like Joe Lieberman did in Connecticut.\u00a0 And so he bailed – to keep himself in office.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to say “good riddance” to Specter; Republicans have to get better at finessing, rather than bashing, differences within the party, if we’re going to recover from this past two elections.<\/p>\n

But it’s probably a good thing in the long run.\u00a0 In the next four years, Obama is going to take a lot <\/em>of the luster off the Democrat brand.\u00a0 Of course, we’ll need the GOP to come around with a message to have the vacuum filled when the opportunity presents itself.<\/p>\n

And it’s fairly clear that that message is going to have to be pushed up <\/em>in the party.<\/p>\n

Good.\u00a0 That’s what we’re here for.<\/p>\n

Adios, Specter.\u00a0 I wont’ say “good riddance” – but you won’t be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was writing my “What the hell is wrong with the MNGOP?” series, a conundrum appeared. A party – especially a party built around multiple principles, rather than getting swag for constituents – needs to embrace many different variations on the same message. But… That same party needs to have a coherent message. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}