Big government fauxpublican Olympia Snowe provided cover yesterday for ongoing liberal attempts at a health-care takeover with her committee vote for the Baucus bill.  She ignorantly summed up this betrayal of the American people by saying, “when history calls, history calls.”

If the erosion of personal freedom and the destruction of prosperity are what history asks for, then next time it calls, hang up.

Comments  Print This Post

---

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic asks for an explanation:

The GOP has basically been eliminated from the Northeast by the purists so there aren’t many great examples.

Contrast that with how Democrats treat people like Mark Prior, Jon Tester, and Ben Nelson.  These Senators aren’t anywhere near ideal for Democrats, as a quick glance at the Netroots sites will affirm.

But they don’t have to fear primaries by party mutilators like Pat Toomey.

Why do Dems treat their Dogs differently

Is it a function of power? Or party traditions?

The difference, such that there is, is explained by the different manner in which Republicans and Democrats secure votes.  Democrats do not have a cohesive ideology; rather, they are a party existing purely to win power.  They do so by launching money at key interest groups and voting blocs.  Essentially, they bribe enough constituencies to vote for them until they have a majority.  This tactic requires little ideological conformity from party members, beyond a simple willingness to go along to get along.

Republicans win by representing an ideology.  Specifically, one of small government and fiscal restraint.  They lose when they do not represent this ideology or try to be like Democrats.  When they hurl money at constituency groups, they bleed ideological support while gaining little new adherents.  Those receiving this largesse are thankful, no doubt, but they know they could always get even more if Democrats were in power.

Because the Republican party has to sell itself ideologically, it must, on the whole, convincingly represent that ideology. Party members such as Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins consistently undermine that image. This costs the party more seats than they provide.  Cutting out enough of these miscreants, such that the party can once again be seen as representative of the small government ideology, is necessary to its regaining majority status.

But so long as the media trots out only liberals, who treat the parties as two sides of the same coin, to explain the significance of events within the Republican party, they will reach conclusions that are 180 degrees off.  But that’s fine by me, as it means the liberals will, once again, be taken completely by surprise when they are booted out of office.

Comments  Print This Post

---

I heard this morning that Arlen Specter was changing parties.  Upon investigation I was sad and dismayed to learn he’s still a democrat:

Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move intended to boost his chances of winning re-election next year that also will push Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.

“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected later in the day or Wednesday.

…Specter faced an extraordinarily difficult re-election challenge in his home state in 2010, having first to confront a challenge from his right in the Republican primary before pivoting to a general election campaign against a Democrat in a state that has trended increasingly Democratic in recent elections.

What’s amazing here is that he would just come out and admit that this is nothing more than naked opportunism.  He was getting crushed in the early polls by Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, who narrowly lost the last primary battle, and that was before Specter sealed his unprincipled betrayal by supporting the porkulus bill.

Practically this makes little difference.  The talk will be about how this gives democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority (counting the soon-to-be Senator Smalley), but that just obscures the fact there was already a 60+ seat liberal majority, thanks to the likes of Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

The upside is that now even the morons at the RNC will be able to figure out to stop supporting Arlen Specter at the expense of principled conservatives.

Comments  Print This Post

---

Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.