{"id":2468,"date":"2010-08-10T08:05:08","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T12:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2010-09-01T13:47:07","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T17:47:07","slug":"for-republicans-how-right-is-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/08\/10\/for-republicans-how-right-is-right\/","title":{"rendered":"For Republicans, how Right is Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First a concession and a warning:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

We have some fascinating races underway, and (so far at least) the most interesting are within the GOP.<\/p>\n

What’s more, this is clearly the big dynamic question in American politics right now:\u00a0 Exactly how conservative should the Republican Party be in order to win votes and retake a majority?<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

The latest front where this question is being debated is immigration.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

That’s the provision that states that anyone born in the US is an American.<\/p>\n

A lot of Republicans think changing the 14th amendment is a terrible idea<\/a> on moral grounds.\u00a0 And the proposal is certain to push the growing Hispanic voting block further away from the GOP.<\/p>\n

But this is just one front where the “how right is right” debate is underway.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The main difference between them is abortion.\u00a0 Doheny opposes abortion in most cases, except in the first trimester of pregnancy for adult women.<\/p>\n

Is that too liberal?\u00a0 Is Hoffman’s total ban too conservative?<\/p>\n

Again, the question is:\u00a0 where is the sweet spot?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this is the central challenge in 2010 for the GOP.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This quandary is sure continue for Republicans going forward — in 2012 and beyond — as the “race to the right” continues.<\/p>\n

The Bush Administration was already a smidge to the right of the Newt Gingrich coalition on many issues.\u00a0 Gingrich himself was well to the right of Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

Given these issues, it’s fair to ask what tomorrow’s conservatives will campaign on.<\/p>\n

How much farther to the right will they go?\u00a0 And if they continue in that direction, will they take the country’s voters with them?<\/p>\n

Your comments welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First a concession and a warning:\u00a0 Yes, I’ve been writing a lot about the Republican […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468\/revisions\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}