GOP self-destruction

It’s been a little over a year since the Republican Party suffered its painful electoral defeat last November. Around this time last year, members of the GOP were desperate to try to see how they could move forward from their dismal position with voters around the country. There were some that even said the party is on its way to nonexistence. And while there has been progress with the party in states like New Jersey and Virginia, Republicans are still having malicious friendly fire sessions that will ultimately make their party worse off than it already is.

There has always been a simmering of tensions between moderate GOP members and the more extreme wing of their party. But it didn’t seem to really come to boil until New York’s 23rd Congressional District special election came into play. Eleven Republican country chairs chose GOP moderate Dede Scozzafava to run for the special election. All of a sudden, high profile party players such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty pounced on the moderate Republican nominated to run and, in essence, told her she wasn’t good enough to run just because she didn’t step exactly in line with what they thought a Republican was “supposed” to be. And because of their squabbling, the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, won the congressional seat that hasn’t been held by a Democrat in over 100 years.

The GOP is about to do the same thing in other races across the country. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is facing heat from his own party now that he’s running for a Senate seat. A wave of conservative groups and politicians are descending on Crist because they see him as moderate on some of his policies, as well as for his support of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package. Quoted in The New York Times, Sen. Jim Demint, R-S.C., said, “What’s going to happen, the voters are going to weed out these Republicans who no longer share the core principles that make our country great.”

It’s understandable that you would like people in your party who stick to your core values, but you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water. Instead of telling moderate Republicans that they aren’t good enough, position them in places that they can have the biggest impact. Use them in purple states and swing districts. That’s the only way they’ll have a chance to return to being the dominant party.

The Democrats would have never gotten to congressional majorities by telling everyone who wasn’t a staunch 100-percent progressive to get out of their party. You have Democrats like Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who are more conservative and the more liberal Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. They are tolerant of each others’ views despite how much they may disagree. It’s baffling to me that at a time when the GOP needs as many people in the party as possible they push more people out.

One of the biggest if not the biggest idol of the GOP, Ronald Reagan, had this concept about the “Big Tent” of the Republican Party where they take in moderates and even conservative Democrats. But ironically it seems like the GOP is moving farther away from this concept than it has ever done before.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 20 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry