For Republicans, how Right is Right?

First a concession and a warning:  Yes, I’ve been writing a lot about the Republican Party lately, and it’s only going to get worse as the September primaries approach.

We have some fascinating races underway, and (so far at least) the most interesting are within the GOP.

What’s more, this is clearly the big dynamic question in American politics right now:  Exactly how conservative should the Republican Party be in order to win votes and retake a majority?

What is the sweet spot that will capture all that tea party zeal out there, while also retaining the loyalty of Main Streeters, Wall Streeters, and Soccer Moms who aren’t interested in talk of revolution and “2nd amendment” solutions?

The latest front where this question is being debated is immigration.

In the wake of their 2008 presidential debacle, some prominent Republicans insisted that the party needed to soften its “build the fence” rhetoric and embrace Hispanics.

Then a conservative backlash developed, Arizona began formulating its tough-controversial enforcement law, and some prominent GOP leaders began arguing that we should amend the 14th amendment of the Constitution.

That’s the provision that states that anyone born in the US is an American.

A lot of Republicans think changing the 14th amendment is a terrible idea on moral grounds.  And the proposal is certain to push the growing Hispanic voting block further away from the GOP.

But this is just one front where the “how right is right” debate is underway.

Here in the North Country, Republican congressional candidate Doug Hoffman has been attacking his primary opponent, Matt Doheny, arguing that Doheny isn’t conservative enough.

The main difference between them is abortion.  Doheny opposes abortion in most cases, except in the first trimester of pregnancy for adult women.

Is that too liberal?  Is Hoffman’s total ban too conservative?

Again, the question is:  where is the sweet spot?

The perennial danger for any party, of course, is that their bedrock core voters will support candidates in the primary who are too far outside the mainstream for general-election voters.

Indeed, this is the central challenge in 2010 for the GOP.

In races from Florida to Nevada, it appears that Republicans may have put forward candidates who are so far to the right that easy, chip-shot races may now be difficult or impossible to win.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid may well retain his seat — and his leadership post — because primary voters in his state elected a candidate, Sharon Angle, who stands too close to the scary fringe.

This quandary is sure continue for Republicans going forward — in 2012 and beyond — as the “race to the right” continues.

The Bush Administration was already a smidge to the right of the Newt Gingrich coalition on many issues.  Gingrich himself was well to the right of Ronald Reagan.

But over the last two years, that era of conservatism — call it the Reagan-to-Bush Consensus — has been eclipsed by views and rhetoric that would have once seemed almost comically extreme.

Today’s startling positions include the canceling of Federal unemployment aid (viewed by the right as a give-away that stifles initiative), the roll-back of Social Security (“socialism”), repeal of the 14th amendment (an incentive for illegal immigrants to create “anchor babies”), and support for a government-imposed ban on some places of worship (the national mosque debate).

Given these issues, it’s fair to ask what tomorrow’s conservatives will campaign on.

How much farther to the right will they go?  And if they continue in that direction, will they take the country’s voters with them?

Your comments welcome below.

Tags:

18 Comments on “For Republicans, how Right is Right?”

Leave a Comment
  1. mervel says:

    Great topic.

    I think having a real debate within a major political party about fundamental issues is refreshing and Democratic.

  2. Bret4207 says:

    First off Brian, please provide proof any legitimate parties are advocating “revolution” in the traditional sense of the word- as in armed revolt. Second, please do the same for your “2nd Amend.” solutions. Please, PLEASE mention Glenn Beck so I can provide the proof that he has said just the opposite and that your past references to Beck “supporting violence” is seemingly based on cherry picked soundbites taken out of context! This isn’t the first time you’ve made these claims and it’s time you backed it up.

    As for the Republicans, big deal. So finally the party is breaking up between the RINO moderates and those who are sick to death of never ending spending increases while revenue falls shorter and shorter. Call it what you will but there’s nothing “scary” or “fringe” about people expecting responsible government and an overall fiscal conservatism, especially since it’s our jobs, taxes and money that are footing the bill.

  3. TurdSandwich says:

    I’m pretty sure Michelle Bauchman is trying to take our country back. From where I’m not sure. Yes, Brian the social issues are what kill the prospect of the GOP for me. Do they want to watch what I do in my house or do they want the government to stay away? Mixed message. Some other boards are talking about Gates’ decision to cut some areas of the defense budget. Conservatives are going nuts calling Obama a socialist. Should we be a military dictatorship?

  4. Betty says:

    Bret, when I hear a former public sector employee talk the way you do it rings hallow. Go check and see if any of your true conservatives(I’m not sure who you think is a true conservative) have layed off any of their staffers. I’ll bet the answer is no. I agree with you we need to layoff people in the public sector. Schools have done so. But I don’t see anyother parts of the private sector following suit in the same way.(only very small numbers or attrition)

  5. Betty says:

    edit previous post from “private” to “public”. Sorry

  6. Betty says:

    Edit #2 replace “hallow” with” hollow”; gotta be the humidity,whew

  7. Laura says:

    Bret, I visited my family in the Midwest this spring and my brothers and sister in law, all military veterans (as I am), freely discussed wiring bridges for demolition, stockpiling guns, etc for the coming revolution. These are all mainstream types with responsible jobs (coder in a medical clinic, science teacher, real estate appraiser). They all watch Fox News and all voted for McCain, but those probably are non sequiturs. I think there is more of that revolution talk than most of us would like to think.

  8. PNElba says:

    First of all Glenn Beck is not a “legitimate party” but he is very good at using a kind of reverse psychology whose purpose, from where I stand, seems to be to incite violence from his supporters.

    “Boy, I hope that’s not true, but I can tell you there will be rivers of blood if we don’t have values and principles.” Where will the rivers of blood come from?

    “When do we ever run those who are bankrupting our country and literally stealing our children’s future out of town? Grab a torch.” What is the torch for?

    Beck has called Democrats “vampires” then suggesting “driving a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.” Sounds a bit violent.

    Beck has mentioned poisoning Nancy Pelosi’s wine, tells us how he is a progressive “hunter” til the day he dies, tells Liberty graduates to “shoot to kill”.

    But what he is really good at is telling his supportes that violence from the left and the government is coming. Tell his supporters that progressives support armed insurrection. Asking President Obama, “why don’t you just set us on fire?” What is his purpose behind these kind of comments if not to incite “preemptive violence”.

    Beck tells his supporters time and time again that he is against violence. Why does that ring so hollow?

  9. JDM says:

    As we have seen on your blog before, no one wants to be caught in the middle.

    The other question becomes, “how far left do the rank-and-file Dems feel is comfortable with them?”

    Apparently, some are eying Hillary as a means to moderate the big-O.

  10. mervel says:

    I think it is a good sign I really do. Usually you get new ideas fresh outlooks it shakes things up a little.

    But you know the revolution talk is on the right and the left and it is not all about politics some of it is simply looking at a fraying society.

    I mean the concern is if we have a true depression what would happen to a society that has become so fractured from a family perspective, drug addicted and violent? I think parts of the country would be fine others would be pretty bad or maybe? I honestly think we would be okay, but I understand the concern.

  11. Brittanicus says:

    We should all remember that instant citizenship under the misuse of the 14th Amendment doesn’t end with taxpayers awarding illegal immigrant Mothers with the cost of giving birth? The actual expense commences after the baby is born, as the parents can collect welfare for the baby and access to low income housing. Afterwards the Mother who is always permitted to stay, even though she triggered a criminal act, now her husband and other children and parents can domicile in a section 8 home. Once settled the cycle isn’t over, as if she intentionally becomes pregnant again, knows those extra mouths to feed will also become the taxpayers burden. An sample of these costs is fully described in the Spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 2005.
    Its available for all to read and will certainly depress you, and then activating a rising fury that you are paying each year from your taxes, to accommodate thousands of illegal expectant mothers of foreign countries from around the world.

    The 14th Amendment must corrected, that one family member must be a citizen.. Consider this factual story from a report Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 2005. of one illustrative family to show how reality is the sum of the seen and the unseen. The Silverios from Stockton, California, are illegal aliens seen as hard-laboring fruit-pickers with family values. Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan, Mexico, in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa, plus three children aged 19, 12, and 8. Felipa, mother of the bride Lourdes (age 19), gave birth to a new daughter, her anchor baby, named Flor. Flor was premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator, and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby, Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby,Cristian. Anchor babies are valuable. A disabled anchor baby is more valuable than a healthy one. The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18,000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12,000 for being anchor babies. This illegal alien family’s annual income tops $30,000. Cristobal Silverio, when drunk one Saturday night, crashed his van. Though he had no auto insurance or driver’s license, and owed thousands of dollars, he easily bought another van.

    Now consider that FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) Illegal Immigration expenditures have reached $113 Billion annually, prejudiced Drain on U.S. Taxpayers. With an addition of $60 billion of illegal wages spirited out of the country as a legal remittance, with the compliments of numerous American banks. With probably the highest jobless rate since the great depression, it is estimated by FAIR, that 8.5 million illegal alien labor is still employed this side of the border. Not only has each subsequent president refused to build a solid obstacle, along the perimeter of our national border. But in most places it doesn’t even exist. The colonization of foreign nationals would never have happened, if the 1986 administration had honored its promise to the American people of enforcing employment laws and deploying the National Guard along the fence (s) .

    Since the inception of the Simpson/ Mazzoli bill in Congress every administration has neglected the laws. Now we have transplanted whole neighborhoods from other nations, which have culminated in Sanctuary cities. In the majority of these illegal alien havens, the prosecution of these people has waned. By tolerating these umbrellas of sanctuary cities and communities unknown numbers of citizens and legal residence have been murdered. Arizona and the city of Phoenix have been inundated with illegal national crime that as a border-state stepping stone of drop houses where thousands of impoverished people has spread to every niche around the country. So is it that a pregnant female can procreate here and have even more children, that owing to the misconstruction of the 14th Amendment the babies become instant citizens and then the family have an immediate stay of deportation and once again the welfare offices beckon the mother and an abundance of freebies are given. In California–a Sanctuary State is another border states with a massive population of illegal immigrants.

    California has tried to cater to literary millions of foreign households has brought the state to the very edge of bankruptcy. If the state was not overrun with illegal immigrants billions of dollars would be saved, and would be available to the rightful citizens This misplaced loyalty of elected officials supporting other countries poor, would have partially healed that states economy as with many other states. These extra costs have tabled many important health care, eye services and dentistry to the real citizenship and permanent residents. Look to your own states before it’s too late and throw out all incumbents, who are pushing for another Amnesty catastrophe. Many more millions will be ready to rush the border, should Sen. Harry Reid and his associates would have Obama sign this new law. The banner across the world will bring even more paupers, thinking that sometime yet another amnesty will be evident. Call your Senator and Representative at the Capitol or at the state level not to vote for any Amnesty at 202-224-3121 NumbersUSA has many answers?

    SOME MODERN COUNTRIES THAT RECENTLY ENDED THEIR BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP POLICY

    * Canada was the last non-U.S. holdout. Illegal aliens stopped getting citizenship for their babies in 2009. Australia’s birthright citizenship requirements are much more stringent than those of H.R. 1868 and took effect in 2007.New Zealand repealed in 2006. Ireland repealed in 2005. France repealed in 1993.India repealed in 1987.United Kingdom repealed in 1983.Portugal repealed in 1981

    America is the laughing stock of the industrialized nations. Only the U.S. values its citizenship so commonly as to distribute it status haphazardly to the progeny of foreign citizens visiting Disneyland or other entertainment mecca. Or a tourist, worker, student with visas from other foreign lands, who have violated their promises to leave once their visa expires, as well as to those who sneak across our national borders.

    H.R. 1868 by Rep. Gary Miller of California would merely change the federal law (passed by Congress) that currently requires giving U.S. citizenship to these babies. Today we should only be giving citizenship to the babies of whom either the Mother or Father holds US citizenship?

  12. Bret4207 says:

    Betty, there are very, very few people I would label conservative currently in office. And I never said “we need to lay off people” in the public sector. How we reduce costs and size of gov’t should be more than “lay offs”. We need to reduce gov’ts cost wisely and slowly so we don’t cause more damage.

    BTW- when I hear someone assume that a person can’t learn while working in the public sector, that he can’t recognize the waste and outright fraud and theft…then I have to question just who you do think is qualified to offer and opinion.

    PNElba- Glenn Beck show, 7/26/10, first 15 minute segment of the 2nd hour. Listen to that and you will hear every bogus claim you make clearly refuted and Beck telling his audience that violence or supporting violence is clearly not the right thing to do. But you just keep on spreading misinformation and out and out lies and taking descriptive speech and twisting it. You’re good at it. And tell me, where is your outrage at the other sides rhetoric, the “kill the whites and their babies”? Oh, that’s right, they’re just insignificant parts of the left. I keep forgetting.

    Laura, sounds like you have some doomers in the family. Are they rallying the public to violence? Are they organizing violent overthrow of the gov’t? If they are then you need to contact the local police and let them know. If on the other hand they are concerned that this fragile system is due to crash and want to prep…that’s a horse of a different color, although what the bridges and explosives have to do with prepping I can;t imagine. Was there beer involved?

  13. bob says:

    Bret, are you saying as a law enforcement officer you witnessed fraud and turned a the other way? Or only since retiring and reflecting you realized the fraud? Further the majority of NYS budget all comes down to employee wages and benefits no matter how you slice it. Without layoffs it will continue to spiral. Granted schools cut budgets, but look at the news today, the money to schools is being returned by the fed.

  14. PNElba says:

    So Bret, are you saying Beck did not say the things I quoted? I really want to know because I honestly try not to spread lies and misinformation. Althougth to you, lies and misinformation are basically anything you disagree with.

    “first 15 minute segment of the 2nd hour…”? You mean the Glenn Beck show is more than 1 hour???!!! Sorry, but from the clips of Beck I’ve had to watch on tv, I doubt very much whether I could stand 15 min of Beck. Besides, he’s goofy looking.

    “And I never said “we need to lay off people” in the public sector. How we reduce costs and size of gov’t should be more than “lay offs”. We need to reduce gov’ts cost wisely and slowly so we don’t cause more damage.”

    Slowly? That sure isn’t the impression you’ve been giving. The primary costs to State and Local governments is salaries. If you don’t lay off public employees you aren’t going to make much of a dent in the government budgets, especially in school districts and police departments. Look at the current problem states are having paying retirement benefits to people like you.

    We need to lower the number of teachers and other public employees in NYS, slow their salary and benefits growth and require those employees to pay more towards health and retirement benefits. Idon’t see why this can’t be done largely by retirements, temporary hiring freezes and maybe even firing the dead wood.

    Or, maybe we should take more “personal responsibility” and forget about public education and public safety altogether. There’s a good libertarian idea for you.

  15. Bret4207 says:

    Bob, fraud isn’t necessarily “illegal” in the sense that some Joe off the street cop can run in and make an arrest. I’m speaking in terms of fraud as in knowingly duplicating services or when the system knowingly overlooks wasteful practices that result in what to me are enormous costs. And I do believe there is theft within every bureaucracy. But what I consider theft on reflection of the way things change and what the bureaucratic mindset considers theft are probably two different things. I can recall a time when we had to literally beg to get tires for our cars. Now there’s no thought at all to changing all 4 when one gets a flat spot or nail hole. Big deal, so on State contract the tires allegedly only cost $25.00. You change 1 it’s $25.00, you change all 4 and it’s $100.00 plus the change and balance. Things like that add up fast. And that’s just the type of stuff I’ve seen, I’m sure there’s lots more that I can’t even imagine.

    I don’t think anyone expects miracles from gov’t in cost cutting, but
    simple oversight and a bit of ethical thought as to the employees responsibility to the tax payer might go a long way to saving some money.

    When you talk of reducing staff there’s more to it than just laying off 25% of the workers or something like that. I used to think it was that simple. Well, maybe if NY still had a decent economy where job prospects were better you could do that. You do it now in one big layoff and you’ll cripple the economy even more. Some of the posters here have brought that to mind recently. So instead of massive layoffs we need to try and be smart about it and move in a sustainable fashion. There are no quick fixes to these problems. It’s a big can of worms and you risk blowing it and doing real harm by not taking a long term (20-30 year) plan on this stuff. Politicians of both parties can’t seem to look past the next election cycle.

  16. Bret4207 says:

    P- Yeah, 3 hours (4 actually) on radio. I keep forgetting most of you people on the left don’t realize radio exists. Hey! He’s even on FM! That’s got to creep you out.

    I’ve heard Glenn say lots of thing similar to what you quote. But- taken in context they most certainly are not a call to violence. That’s just utter bull. But, if all you get is soundbites it works out just like that lady from the USDA. The 5 second sound bite made it sound like she was proud of what she’d done and wasn’t admitting to something wrong and doing the mea culpa bit. Of course if you’d heard Glenns show on that subject you would have heard him say she was doing the right thing and the troubling part was the NAACP membership cheering her incorrect actions. But I doubt you ever heard about that, did you? Nope, Oldermann and Madow and even our own NCPR people aren’t interested in that.

    You know, talking about pitchforks and storming the castle, descriptive speech like that, that’s where the Tea Bag thing came from. One of the first drives from the Tea Party was sending tea bags to congressmen to show our objection to spending practices. It’s a simple thing most people would understand, making the connection between the Boston Tea Party and the tea bags. We’ve all seen the old movies with the peasants with pitchforks and torches storming castle Frankenstein. One of Glenns drives involved people sending pitchforks or pictures of pitchforks to CNN IIRC over something that was going on. I mean, that’s kind of clever isn’t it? Does it mean hey we’re going to overthrow the gov’t or something stupid like that? No, it means hey, pay attention to our concerns.

    That’s a pretty simple concept to me.

    Yeah, slowly grow gov’t smaller. You make radical cuts and you can cause the whole thing to collapse. I don’t care if they cut the SP by 25% or so. That’s fine by me (no wonder I don’t get invited to the Christmas parties any more!), but that particular agency grew quite a bit since 9/11 and during the 90’s when we were fat, dumb and rich. You can trim there for sure. But if you start firing lots of state, county, town, village or city employees you’ll end up with a lot of unemployed people with no job prospects. What do you do about that? Don’t we need to think beyond tomorrow? That’s where a lot of libertarians and I part ways. We made a big mess and it’s going to take time to clean it up.

  17. bob says:

    Bret, alot of the things you say I agree with. However, NYS ain’t gettin’ out of this by being smart about replacing tires(and the like) on patrol cars. Even over the course of 20-30 years that will not do it. Now as a real for instance how about in St. Lawrence county we get rid of the road patrol and only man the jail, just the same as our neighbor Franklin county. Also, downsize our troops and get out sooner rather than later of our wars(Sorry Israel if you want us you pay us) Have the troops do border patrol and avoid more $150000 jobs and do them with military people. What will the layed off people do? The US had openings for 65000 people in science technology engineering and mathematics and could not fill them(can you say H1 visa) Get an education and learn something that there is a market for.

  18. Bret4207 says:

    Bob, I chose not to offer an opinion on things like doing away with the Sheriffs road patrols. In many places I worked there was no road patrol or it was a daytime thing. But Troopers make more than Deputies, lots more than in some of the smaller counties. So which is more effective- Troopers, which spread the cost out across the state or Deputies that you have to pay for yourselves? On the flip side there’s not much chance your Deputies are going to be shipped off to Buffalo on 2 hours notice leaving a skeleton presence in the County. On the flip, flip side if something bad happens here 350 Troopers can be on scene in a 2-3 hours. There’s also some legal/protocol issues and some policy issues in play, things like the fact Troopers aren’t supposed to serve civil summons, but with no road patrol who’s left?

    Another big can of worms. I’m still too close to make an objective call.

    Hey, 65K jobs went unfilled? That says something about our basic problem (laziness) doesn’t it?

Leave a Reply