Another nail in the GOP coffin

[Talon]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the...l?hpid=topnews

Summary: The Republican senator from Pennsylvania Arlen Specter is no more. He will be running as a Democrat in 2010.

The Democrats now have 59 out of 60 potential votes needed to ensure a filibuster-proof majority. As for the 60th, Al Franken(D) has already won the election, as certified by Minnesota's State Canvassing Board. It's only a matter of time before Coleman(R) decides to stop being a sore loser and concede.

As I've said in another post, I don't relish the idea of one-party rule. But the Republicans brought this on themselves. Wake up and taste the Karma, baby.

[guywithashovel]

I was pretty surprised to see this, too.

I actually have been wondering if we will be seeing a change in the set-up of political parties here in the US. I really don't think we'll go to one-party rule, but I have been wondering if maybe one of the minor parties will rise up and become a major party, perhaps taking the place of one of the current major parties.

I actually can see the Libertarian Party doing such a thing in the near future. I don't have any statistics to back this up (but I will look if the discussion warrants it), but it seems like more and more people are identifying themselves as Libertarians, especially people my age (20-somethings). I know this is a bit of a stretch, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see the Libertarian Party take the place of the GOP as a major US political party. That would actually make a lot of sense, because the Libertarian Party would actually be a better counter for the Democrats than the GOP currently is, because unlike the GOP, the Libertarians really are conservative. The Libertarian Party opposed the bailout this past fall, they favor fiscal discipline, and they literally want a "small government."

Now, the GOP says they want "small government" and "personal freedom and responsibility," but then they turn around and try to tell everyone what kind of marriage they can have, what religion they should belong to, what they can and can't do in their own bedrooms, what they can and can't look at on TV and online, etc. In short, the GOP of today is comprised mostly of social conservatives, and as any rational person knows, "social conservative" is very restricting on people's personal freedom and in no way fits in with "small government."

[AFPheonix]

If the Libertarians don't step up to the plate, then I suspect there will be a schism in the Republican party itself. Specter already saw that the moderate base had eroded to a point where there would be no way that he could win a Republican primary in his state despite having overall good approval ratings from independents and democrats.
I also wonder if other moderates like Olympia Snowe will jump ship too. They're being marginalized by their own party, I can imagine it would be tempting to get out of there.
There is a vacuum for middle-right people in the country. Democrats currently have the support of most moderates, but they're a party with a lot of different mindsets pulling it in many places. I wouldn't be surprised if the US took a page from Israel and set up a party like Kadima to hold the middle path.

[Boozy]

According to the Cato Institute, only 9-13% of Americans agree with statements that would identify their views as "libertarian". I don't always trust the Cato Institute, but as a libertarian/conservative think tank they would have no reason to deflate these numbers.

What's more, many of these people either vote Republican regardless, or more likely, don't vote at all. The Libertarian Party's candidate for President in 2008 received a mere 0.4% of the vote.

The internet has the tendency to make a very small minority sound like an army.

[Talon]

I'm thinking if the Republican base doesn't wake up and realize they're being left behind, the GOP will end up splitting apart between the Libertarian wing, and the so-called Religious Right.

I don't care much for Libertarians, but given a choice between them and the Sarah Palin crowd, the drill-baby-drill chanting book-banning anti-science types, I'll take Libertarians in a half-heartbeat.

[smileyeagle1021]

I don't care much for Libertarians, but given a choice between them and the Sarah Palin crowd, the drill-baby-drill chanting book-banning anti-science types, I'll take Libertarians in a half-heartbeat.

I'd simply settle for someone who doesn't view me as a threat to be removed with all due haste. And frankly, I don't give a crap anymore whether or not most republicans honestly believe that, the republicans that have been voted into office in Utah believe it, and after 4 years of watching them get off to denying even the most basic protections to homosexuals (they took pride in ensuring it was legal to fire someone based on their sexuality), my attitude has become one of 'the sooner the party of bigots is nothing more than a footnote in this once proud, now shameful, country's history book, the better'.

[tropicsgoddess]

What I never liked about the GOP's are their extreme right-wing conservative views on religion that they use as their reason to attempt to deprive people of certain rights: same-sex marriage, abortion, etc. Besides that, the GOP tends to side more with the wealthy and big business and that party has had a history of politicians accused of corruption, embezzlement, etc. But then again there are some exceptions. The less right-wing nutjobs and greedy GOPs the happier I am.

[Slytovhand]

A poll that was conducted a year or 2 over here indicated that traditional conservative voters (Liberal or Nationals, as they're called over here) sometimes tend to only be conservative when it comes to economics, but are more liberal when it comes to society as a whole.

So, using a single label doesn't really do much of a job in identifying how people vote.

It would make sense to me to have the people actually look at the things their governments are doing before actually voting on them... IIRC, that's called 'democracy'... but I could be wrong