lee:
If you abandon the religious right (which includes protestants and Catholics), who’s left to vote for the GOP? Secular seniors, farmers and militray personnel?
No, the goal is to reattract the people who once gravitated to the Republican Party that the Religious Right repels. Women, the middle class, the college-educated, middle class Catholic ethnics including hispanics. The techies, scientists, engineers of a libertarian bent that used to flock to Republican ranks now completely put off by “southern-fried” morality and the ambition of theocrats to use government to enforce their morality.
To reattract youth who see the Republicans tarnished by relious types like DeLay, Lott, Tauzin, Hastert looting the taxpayer – acting like Al Sharpton blacks. Youth and Midwesterners who also have no taste for endless neocon-evangelical wars calling for them to risk their asses for countries other than the USA
Parker’s type of argument assumes that there’s a whole lot of untapped “moderate” or “independent” voters who will flock back to GOP if the party decideds to be a variant of the democratic party.
There are. Look at Reagan and Nixon’s electoral maps. Even Clinton and Bush’s close ones. There is a lot more to being a national party than just Sarah palin throwing out red meat to increase the rural Alabama turnout.
How many of their principles must the GOP abandon to attract the manna? Nationalized healthcare? gay marriage? Illegal immigration?
Probably a few real loser ideas have to go.
Nixon called hard-working Americans living their lives and their families unprotected from losing everything with a major accident or illness “unconscionable” and proposed a universal health insurance plan. Republicans like Chaffee were also key players in getting health access to welfare kids..Reagan opposed it thinking that “free market genius!!” would somehow fix this stain on America. Reagan was wrong. Since his time, the healthcare inequities have gotten worse, private health insurance increasingly unaffordable, and costs have skyrocketed to 50% more per capita than our competitor nations while not covering 1/6th of the American population.
Republicans must get in the boat on health insurance, or the 1/3rd of the country that see it as one of the three biggest issues America must address will leave them in the water.
Screaming “gay marriage, gay marriage!” with massive problems America must address that 95% of the country thinks matter far more than “gay marriage” wedge issue politics – is a big a non-winner as trying to make the 2008 Election all about Obama’s long-past association with a creep or two – as what voters should care about.
Illegal immigration – A great place to start would be for Right-Wing Republicans to knock of the racism and xenophobia..
