Conservatives process Tedisco loss
Another interesting response to Jim Tedisco's humiliating loss in the 20th race is featured on the conservative website newmajority.com.
It's David Frum's brainchild, but the writer is Tom Qualtere, who has connections in the North Country.
Here's the nut of his argument: About a quarter of registered Republicans are voting for Democrats on a regular basis.
And that's enough to destroy a conservative movement that had engineered itself (in some cases through congressional redistricting) for narrow, 51% majorities.
Qualtere lavishes scorn on the national Republican committees who backed (and shaped) Tedisco's campaign.Voters who are still registered Republican have simply stopped voting with their party in recent years and cannot even be convinced to come home for strongly assumed “safe candidates” like McCain and Tedisco. In fact, 25% of registered Republicans in NY-20 voted for Barack Obama while 26% claim they would support Andrew Cuomo over Rudy Giuliani for Governor in 2010.
It is because of these lapsed Republicans, in New York and elsewhere, that Washington looks the way it does right now. Yes, these “Obamacans” (or whatever we call them) should be focus-grouped and their reasoning thoroughly analyzed. And yes, the Bush-to-Obama transition has breathed vibrant new vitality into the Democratic Party that has not yet subsided. But beyond NY-20 and George Bush and Barack Obama lays a party and a movement in a coma, dying on life support, in emergency need of new doctors and new treatments.
"While we hold therapeutic tea parties and keep looking to the past for inspiration and much-needed energy," he concludes, "liberal Democrats are winning once-unthinkable elections."
Labels: election09
posted by Brian Mann @ 4/28/2009 01:28:00 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
It's pretty simple. As long as the Republican party allows the likes of Rush Limbaugh to rule its image the average centrist conservative will be afraid of whomever the party's candidate is. If the Republicans get a majority, even of moderates, but bow low every time Limbaugh & company speak we will get far right policy. Reagan built a majority by making overtures to the far right and the Bushes followed suit. Meanwhile the far right didn't get everything they wanted and the more moderate elements of the party got more rightist policy than they wanted. Neither group was happy and there was nothing that appealed to conservative Democrats. When the Republicans stop kissing Limbaugh's ring that will be a step toward restoring the party.
R.I.P.:
Federalists-1800
Whigs-1860
Republicans-?
All basically represented the economic elite against the interests of the common "mob" (sometimes sensibly).
Tough act to sustain, but, thanks to using various American phobias (anti-communism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia) to recruit members, the Republicans had a pretty good run.
I don't see how they can come back now, at least nationally. Too much awful governing under the bridge, too many brown voters down the road.
New York 20, if I remember correctly, was especially carved out for the likes of Jerry Solomon. A ribbon was run from the Adirondacks all the way down to Dutchess County. They never counted on the fact that different types have moved into the district. So the next time Republicans get control, if they ever do, you can be sure the 20th will be much different.
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