Further Right?
Posted by Harry Haller |
For me, the key figure in a Gallup poll released yesterday isn’t the favorable rating of 34 percent for the Republican Party, nor the unfavorable rating of 61 percent. A single crisis can send those numbers careening in a flash. What concerns me is this: “Most Republicans — 59 percent — want the party to become more conservative, according to the poll.” It makes me wonder whether the respondents were thinking about social conservatism or economic conservatism. It pains me to imagine a GOP with Sarah Palin at its head, because it’s one thing to have a movement led by rational individuals with whom I might disagree yet still reason, entirely another to oppose a one commanded by a deliberately ignorant leadership. (Frankly, it’s terrifying to imagine one of Palin’s whipped-up crowds leaning further right.)
The Republicans are determined to make me a nonpartisan observer in American politics.
What I need from the Republicans is to stick to their small-government, pro-capitalism roots. I need them to move away from the intolerant Christian right and towards, well, the kind of tolerance that Jesus taught.
I need them to be a little less hawkish (okay, a lot less hawkish) when it comes to shooting and bombing people in other countries.
I need them to modify their positions on abortion and “traditional” marriage — I’m not saying that they need to turn 180-degrees away from their current platform; but maybe 30-degrees?
I could go on but I’m going to stop before someone says I should join the Democratic Party.
Hmm. I still think you might want to investigate the positions of a few conservative Democrats.