There have been a number of articles on Slate this week regarding the efforts of Democrats to appeal to moderate Republican voters. This is utterly reasonable and necessary in order to a) win and b) have some mandate when in office.
Here's my question: are those same moderates upset or alienated by Democratic efforts to oust Republican moderates in order to obtain Democratic control? Jeffords and Lieberman come to mind, though a case can be made that Joe skews more to the right.
Is this an issue? Or are moderates just seeing an opportunity to screw the GOP as a message that will be (hopefully) inescapable? Moreover, even if moderate Republican voters are upset by the strategy will it matter?
The laws of unintended consequences are mysterious and powerful. Why not just concentrate your efforts on the neocons, instead of risking a loss of credibility as you paint moderates with a righty brush, and risking the loss of powerful allies on the other side who might disdain their colleagues as much as you do?
This post has been pre-rated "troll" by DailyKos.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
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4 comments:
I hear you on the "disdain" thing. When we elected Mr. Bush I enterd a long, dark tunnel as a moderate Republican. I have no use for the man, his politics or his soi disant morals.
This is much of the genesis of my absolute "disdain" for the voter regulations that effectively cast your vote for you when you declare your party. I'm talking about stuff like closed ballots, subtle gerrymandering, the tradition of endorsing encumbents to the point that no one from that party can effectively run, and all those other trappings of our current partisan political system.
They all seem so reasonable on their own but taken together effectively disenfranchise anyone who is part of the current leading party but doesn't agree with the choice of suit-shaped Velveeta that's been put into office.
Is there a particular GOP moderate under fire who fits this profile?
Chafee, Specter, Snowe, etc. are not up for re-election. The ones in trouble like Talent, Allen, Santorum are prety middle-of-the-road conservatives.
And if the Dems let the moderates off the hook, wouldn't that open the field to a Lamont-like challenge from the right, which would be lose-lose?
Maybe I'm missing something.
Hi guys. You know, Birkbeiner on the Fray made the same point as you, John McG, and it's a fair one. Maybe I have misconstrued what I've heard but my impression is that the Dems are just trying to win every race, and targeting every GOP candidate indiscriminately. (See august's post for some ideas). I guess that makes sense for the overall strategy, I just wonder whether, in general, it will have a backlash.
I do see the effort to slay Lieberman as part of the problem. You can easily disagree with his stance on Iraq while noticing that he's been pretty liberal on a lot of other issues in his career. The treatment of him just seems pissy.
Hi swit, I heard that interview too. Rove really has no choice though -- what's he going to say? "I'm an ineffectual idiot who spent much of the last year distracted by a criminal inquiry into my behavior. My President is a moron and everyone else in the Administration is a zealot, and I guess the country is really, really mad at them and that all my candidates will lose." Try getting any money for your candidates after that.
Thanks to everyone for commenting.
Hey switters, by the way, I seem to have been banned too. I can login, but I can't post. And that's despite the fact that I had a number of comments outstanding that had been recommended. I obviously also had a stalker who followed me around to troll-rate me, even though the comments were most decidedly pro-kos-family. I just hate nitwits, and like the blackhead that I've had since puberty, I just can't stop picking at it.
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