GOP outflanked in NY and nation
The Republican Party’s brand new crisis in New York state is a metaphor for what’s happening to the GOP nationally.
In case you missed it, while Mitt Romney and Senate Republicans were getting spanked around the country, Democrats were also quietly making moves to take final, complete control of the state legislature in Albany.
Yes, the votes are still being counted, but make no mistake: New York Republicans thought they had this election in the bag and were convinced, especially after this year’s redistricting efforts, that their state Senate majority was safe.
What went wrong? It’s pretty simple, really. The Republican Party has been outflanked in the American political scene, not once but twice, and we’re seeing the impact here in the Empire state.
On the right, Conservatives and tea party activists are increasingly well organized and dogmatic.
Republicans who don’t toe the inflexible line carved out by purists will be punished, either with primary challenges or with third-party attacks during the general election.
We saw this drama play out through the spring in the GOP national primary, with Mitt Romney swatting desperately at ultra-conservatives who were unelectable, yet who held broad appeal with many voters inspired by tea party rhetoric.
Even after Romney moved to center himself for the final push to the White House, fringe Republicans kept popping up with loony arguments about “legitimate” rape and pregnancies caused by rape being “God’s will.”
Here in New York, meanwhile, conservative Republicans went hard at moderates in the state Senate, unseating Roy McDonald in Saratoga county in the primary.
Then Conservatives ran a third party challenger against Poughkeepsie moderate Stephen Saland in the 41st district Senate race.
Saland’s crime against conservative orthodoxy? The Republican supported same-sex marriage. Without that challenge, Saland would have won handily.
In an interview with Gannett, Conservative Party chairman Mike Long was unrepentant about attacking the GOP from its right flank.
“I want [Republicans] to keep control but I was not going to throw the principles of the party out the window for the purpose of keeping control,” Long said.
“That’s the lesson that legislators have to understand. They have to understand that when they vote—many times, not all the times—votes have consequences.”
Meanwhile, however, Republicans are also being challenged on their left flank.
The Democratic Party, which is less purist, less insistent on orthodoxy than the conservative movement, has been running more moderate candidates.
Many of them are pro-business centrists. They’re following Andrew Cuomo’s lead, taking a progressive line on social issues, while embracing regulatory and tax reform.
Terry Gipson, the man poised to steal away the traditionally Republican seat in the Hudson Valley, is a businessman and a moderate, who campaigned on jobs and the economy.
No longer are Democrats offering up candidates in upstate races who have no funding, and who campaign exclusively on liberal causes that give them little chance of winning.
With Democrats willing to move to the center, the electorate in New York state is also becoming more and more Democratic. That combination gives them a powerful edge in elections.
In an interview yesterday with NCPR, state Senator Betty Little said her Republican Party will have to change to compete in this new climate.
“I think [party leaders] have to look deep and look at where the country is going. And I think they need to be a little more centrist than what they have been in this election. They do need to be more inclusive,” she argued.
But in the months and years ahead, the path walked by the GOP will likely grow narrower and narrower. Welcome to the razor’s edge.
If Democrats continue to gobble up moderate positions — pro-business, pro-growth — while Conservatives continue demanding hard-line social stances — anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage — Republican lawmakers may find themselves toppling.
Indeed, we’ve already seen some talented, moderate Republicans leave the scene or change flags altogether. Dede Scozzafava now works for Democrat Andrew Cuomo. Teresa Sayward endorsed Democrat Bill Owens and Barack Obama.
Those are the kind of women who might have been the future face of the GOP.
Now, instead, they’ve moved on — weary of ferocious attacks from conservatives. The fear for Republicans is that more and more voters will do the same.
Tags: analysis, election12, politics
Okay, so I suggest there is some room for cooperation on reducing the number of abortions every year. Mervel makes some centrist comments indicating a willingness to make some practical efforts to reduce abortions and is promptly criticized from the right flank by JDM.
Illustrative.
Yeah it is also a matter of what can be done or not politically. We can rant all we want, abortion is here to stay, so at least we should look at what we can do. Lets just say we totally outlawed the practice tomorrow, what would happen? Well you would see a huge huge underground market develop, starting with the provision of these powerful abortion drugs, many abortions today do not happen in a clinic but happen through a pill. So you would have that happen and it would be more dangerous plus you would go back to the illegal back room operations no doubt about it. The issue with abortion is not the law, the issue is the demand for wanting an abortion in the first place. But that is harder to handle and can’t be handled politically. Abortion to me is a unique issue, to me it more resembles suicide as a social problem and issue. Suicide is actually illegal in many states, but the law is essentially irrelevant, the issue is combating depression and working with people to get to a point that suicide is not desired in the first place.
I agree that there are ways to reduce the number of abortions that both liberals and conservatives should be able to agree on. Abortion’s not going to become illegal without a change on the Supreme Court, and that’s not going to happen within the next four years. It’s the law of the land for now. But I don’t think anyone, even people who think it should be legal, likes abortion, or considers it the best solution in many circumstances. Personally, I think it should be legal for the first few months at least, because I don’t think a month-old fetus is a full-fledged human with the same rights as you and me. At the same time, though, I can think of very few circumstances where I would want to see someone I know get one.
I think promoting condom use and birth control is the best route to less abortions, since most are, obviously, of unplanned pregnancies. Steps to reduce poverty are probably second, since people who think they can’t afford to have a kid are more likely to get an abortion.
khl: “Mervel makes some centrist comments indicating a willingness to make some practical efforts to reduce abortions and is promptly criticized from the right flank by JDM.”
You read but either don’t understand, or process correctly. Mervel was commenting on how to make abortion painless while they are being aborted. How do you process that and come up with “reduce abortions”?
I was commenting on how to reduce the number of abortions from 114 per hour (or hermits 33 per hour) down by 14 per hour.
How do read that and process it and comment by saying “practical efforts to reduce abortions are critized by JDM”.
You only take in what you want to take in, apparently.
Okay, JDM. I’m happy to discuss ways to reduce abortions without making it illegal. I know there are lots of organizations, many of them religious, that offer adoption services. I applaud that sort of effort.
Will you concede that good Sex Ed and use of contraception is a valuable way to prevent unwanted pregnancy? Planned Parenthood provides those sorts of services and more. Are you willing to support the services Planned Parenthood provides that help to prevent pregnancies?
khl: Planned Parenthood sans abortion is ok with me.
Sex Ed and contraception are ok, too. I have my own views on them, but I certainly wouldn’t stand in front of somebody with differing views.
Abortion, I would.
Planned Parenthood is the only place that will provide abortions for women in vast swathes across the country. Your position is a non-starter in a discussion of how to reduce the number of abortions without making them illegal. That isn’t how compromise works.
I think one area we could agree on would be working to provide families with children a safety net that was real. I do think that some abortions are really done for economic reasons and simply being totally alone to raise a baby. So working toward providing that would be a start everyone could get behind at some level.
I have very little sympathy however for abortions that are because the child is not perfect in some way, to me that is a base moral issue that I don’t know what to do about.
The other area of course is increasing access to adoption services and really looking at making adoption much much more acceptable.