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Liberal or Moderate Republicans
Speaker
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Proposition: if you are a liberal, it is more important to support a moderate Republican than a Democrat. Often the election of a moderate Republican signals a district within which a Democrat would be competitive - a tempting takeover opportunity.
However, in our system the capture of one party by the conservative movement and the segregation of liberalism within the other has created total dysfunction. This exposes liberal programs to risk based on a series of trivialities. If voters are angry with Democrats because of a foreign policy decision, or high gas prices, or another tangential issue and they lose office, suddenly unrelated domestic programs which otherwise command broad public support are in jeopardy because of the unified, hostile ideology of the GOP.
Additionally, without a larger liberal or moderate contingent within the Republican Party, it becomes impossible to easily oppose illiberal policy enacted by Democratic office holders. We are forced to support Obama, in effect unconditionally, because there is no partisan contingent within the Republican Party willing to formulate any critique of Obama other than that he is not violating civil liberties enough. Institutionally, without a moderate wing the Republican Party has no incentive to pursue anything other than an extreme agenda in order to maintain party unity.
The most important election that occurs at the state and local level for a liberal is therefore the Republican primary. Attacking conservatism there should be the main concern of liberalism. The low turnout and popular interest in primaries makes them the most open to grassroots action. General elections are a secondary concern. If conservative candidates can be knocked out before they make it onto the general election ballot - that is the real victory.
However, in our system the capture of one party by the conservative movement and the segregation of liberalism within the other has created total dysfunction. This exposes liberal programs to risk based on a series of trivialities. If voters are angry with Democrats because of a foreign policy decision, or high gas prices, or another tangential issue and they lose office, suddenly unrelated domestic programs which otherwise command broad public support are in jeopardy because of the unified, hostile ideology of the GOP.
Additionally, without a larger liberal or moderate contingent within the Republican Party, it becomes impossible to easily oppose illiberal policy enacted by Democratic office holders. We are forced to support Obama, in effect unconditionally, because there is no partisan contingent within the Republican Party willing to formulate any critique of Obama other than that he is not violating civil liberties enough. Institutionally, without a moderate wing the Republican Party has no incentive to pursue anything other than an extreme agenda in order to maintain party unity.
The most important election that occurs at the state and local level for a liberal is therefore the Republican primary. Attacking conservatism there should be the main concern of liberalism. The low turnout and popular interest in primaries makes them the most open to grassroots action. General elections are a secondary concern. If conservative candidates can be knocked out before they make it onto the general election ballot - that is the real victory.
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I'm talking about something new.
Or maybe something old. There was a time when congressional Republicans voted for civil rights bills and environmental legislation in higher percentages than Democrats.
Because the conservative movement controls the Republican Party. My argument is that this hasn't always been the case, nor is it inevitable that it will continue forever.
That time was when the Dixiecrats were Democrats.
Well yes that's the problem isn't it.
Right now, voting for a republican for any office whatsoever - no matter how moderate they appear to be - is a terrible idea. Even the most "moderate" republicans vote along with their party consistantly on evil, evil shit. And with good reason. The party coffers and it's super PACs are what keep those moderates in office and maintain voting disclipline.
I just can't see how voting for someone you know is going to do terrible things in office (EG: any republican) in the hopes of gradually shifting the party back to what it may have been in the past is a net positive.
The short and medium term damage of voting for any republican just outweights the long term possibility of shifting the party by voting for "moderates".
Only if you restrict your view to partisan id rather than congressional district or regional issues. Rockefeller Republicans are now Democrats, but they were New Englanders throughout this transition. Similarly Dixiecrats swung the Solid South to the GOP, but it was always still the South.
I mean, I certainly agree with your prescription since politics is always local, but how you got there is making me scratch my head. You know this stuff, Speaker.
Yes, but until enough moderate Republicans are elected you'd basically be ceding power to the extreme far-right. In the really long-term, this might be a sound strategy. But the short-term will be Hell on Earth.
The better strategy may be to register as Republican in order to effect the primary, and then vote Dem in the general.
For real. Yet the Democrats also had a liberal northern wing. Today's Republicans wouldn't be on such a destructive journey if they likewise had a counterweight.
With a dramatic movement, 'long term' in this case is one election cycle.
Indeed, but this is mostly because the GOP has more or less given up on the idea of a 50 state strategy. Even Democratic faithful aren't always sold on it despite some of the impressive gains that directly followed from it, no matter how temporary they were. If you almost fully abandon a region outside of the highest profile races (chiefly statewide office) there's not a whole lot that can be done about it until people in positions of power change their mind and start trying to get Bostonians in their column.
You can't honestly suggest that a single election cycle of liberals pushing the GOP primary process towards the middle would effect any real change in the direction of the party.
The realignment was slightly more complicated than a simple regional transfer. New Englanders are not simply New Englanders, expressing a timeless political identity. Neither are southerners.
Well, they'd have to vote for a bunch of moderates in the general, and have those moderates win. But yes, I am. You cannot disagree with this and simultaneously argue that the Tea Party has influenced the GOP!
This is essentially what I'm proposing.
Inevitably, the Democrat will not always win the general election. All kinds of accidents can impact whether a particular Democrat wins or loses. Focusing on electing the most leftward Republican in the primary has all the reasonableness of buying an insurance policy. And if you are kind of a messed up political junkie like me, it has a sort of behind the lines guerrilla warfare romance.
The hazard is, as pointed out, that more moderate Republicans would be better able to defeat Democrats.
Interestingly, this is not an analysis that almost any conservatives accept.
All the energy and hatred of RINOs expended by the conservative movement - it's almost as though they see some kind of danger there. Like without their institutional capture of the Republican Party they'd be in trouble.
It's natural that the electorate will not always agree with the particular course taken by the Democratic Party. But what if the conservative movement didn't have a monopoly on the opposition?
The difference is that the Tea Party only accelerated the GOP's already existing course. Completely changing direction isn't something that happens quickly.
There also wouldn't be any underlying catalysts for this change in direction that's analogous to a black man sitting in the Oval Office.
I do generally think that the Tea Party's effect on the Republican party as a whole is overstated. They primaried a few people and got a few elections, but the party was already moving right on foreign policy thanks to the Neo-cons. The famed evangelical base has been pushing the social agenda rightward for a long time and the GOP has been about cutting taxes and spending since before Reagan.
I just don't see what the Tea Party specifically accomplished. Unless Tea Party congresspeople vote significantly out of line with other republicans and I'm unaware of that... which I admit may be the case. I don't know.
I do agree that making the Republican party more moderate is desirable, for all of the reasons you list. I also agree that we can help do that by voting in their primaries. I think it might be best to vote for the least moderate and hope that he will be crushed in the general election, sending the message that extreme right-wing conservatism isn't what the country wants. Of course, that means we would also run the risk of him actually winning the general election.
Right - watch what happens when Romney gets the nomination and loses the general. The narrative isn't going to be that he wasn't moderate enough, it's going to be that he wasn't conservative enough,
That's certainly true and I am painting with an intentionally broad brush in order to make my remarks brief, but the precursors to progressive values and voting record tend to correlate rather strongly across time and space. There are also issues related to government structures that play a role. The New England Town approach in the NorthEast versus the Strong County approach that predominates in the South undoubtedly influences people's views towards government and so forth. I'm just saying that you can't ignore the realignment itself in your approach to trying to shift values leftward. Our political parties used to make no coherent sense thanks to a variety of historical factors. Now they mostly do. Trying to broaden the spectrum present in them is certainly beneficial, particularly given how much framing and fortune play a role in signaling something as 'right' or 'left', but it exists in a context of somewhat more overlapping factions than fragmented ones.
The conservative movement will always advocate its interest and jealously attempt to guard its institutional control of the Republican Party.
As a liberal it means nothing to me. I assume their unwavering opposition.
The Tea Party didn't get that power by itself. It was heavily influenced by Dick Armey and the Republican establishment IIRC, not a grass roots campaign. Without that boost the Tea Party would have remained much weaker. The crazier members just took control after the hard work had been done.
It's an unusual strategy. Not sure whether it'd work but I applaud the creativity. It would certainly be a good balance against the conservative Democrats were it to succeed.
When did that change?
This.
What does it matter if a Republican presents himself as a moderate when they all vote along with their party 99.9-100% of the time?
It's typically 85-90% of the time. There are occurrences when a moderate Republican put good measures over the top. Typically issues that don't get a lot of press, otherwise they would have been pressured not to. Of course this completely ignores the fact that the most important vote a Congress Critter makes is their first one for Speaker.
Still, if you're in a heavily Republican district you should work to make both candidates on the November ballot the most Progressive that you can get elected.
I guess that depends on whether you accept that candidates automatically reasonably approximate the full base of their party, plus party aligned independents or whether you see the ideology of candidates as emerging from an undemocratic organizational process.
Given the less than 10% turnout for most primaries and the correspondingly magnified role of ideological interest groups, I submit that there might be an under served market for moderates. Moreover, without that ballast there seems to be not a constant conservative line but rather a constant rightward drift in the Republican Party. And of course, this is the Republican Party which our own Democratic moderates are forced to compromise with, creating a constant rightward drift in our politics generally.
I think the basic idea is that if we could shift enough of the party back to sanity, eventually the moderates can take control of the party. So even if they're still a voting monolith, the stuff they'll be voting for will be more rational. It probably won't be stuff that liberals would be in favor of. But it also wouldn't be so fucking insane that it's hard to even imagine anyone actually agreeing with it.
It's still better to control the legislative calendar than to not, and only one of those candidates would help put the Democratic caucus in the driver's seat.
So we agree that party loyalty is a major factor in voting.
There is some question in my mind, though, about the impact of marginal moderates on the formulation of party policy to begin with.
Because I notice that it isn't just every year that Republicans or Democrats present the exact same bills and issues. Moderates may play a role in diverting that near unanimity away from a persistent drive to destroy every social program.
PS
Note to Self: Running a GIS search for "hey oh" results in a surprising amount of pornographic images. It's probably best to never do that at work again.
I think that the mean voter theorem holds stronger than this. We can't easily oppose illiberal policy not because liberals vote for democrats, but because conservative democrats don't vote for liberal policy. And they don't do that because if they did, they would lose their elections. And they would lose their elections because liberals don't vote for democrats.
If you want to challenge from the left, you first have to have enough votes to do so.
Perhaps, I guess I just see the undemocratic nature of primaries and the process of selecting candidates to run as being more influenced by political professionals/party insiders rather than by interest groups. Particularly at the lower levels where hardly anybody really pays that much attention. Meaning that the people who influence primaries on average are those who take a somewhat broader view towards the constituency necessary to get and retain office. Preferably with as little effort as possible.
I could certainly be wrong since I don't pay that much attention to the beginning mechanics of legislative proposals or white papers (I may not have much of a life, but it does exist and is growing) but I've always perceived the various self-proclaimed moderates and centrists as people who glom on to things after the fact (typically demanding a reduction in ___ for no reason other than if you like something it must be too much) rather than grinding things out from the start. Aside from various hobby horses that every member of Congress has and cares about deeply enough to get into the weeds on.
If you want to move the Rs left, they have to lose elections, and they have to know they lost them for being too far right. And even so, the cognitive dissonance is so strong, that we're going to continue to see the ultra-conservative wing double-down repeatedly after every defeat. Romney loses the general? Wasn't conservative enough. Santorum? Wasn't conservative enough. Zombie Reagan? C'mon guys, who do we have that's MORE CONSERVATIVE?!
Eventually, after enough loses that can only be attributed to fringe ideology, said fringe will no longer be catered toward, and you'll see a slight leftward drift.
Of course, we've also got the opposite problem that Sheep pointed out; the Democrats at this point are largely Liberal Republicans. We need to get active in the primaries for both parties and build support for left-leaning agendas across the board, while ensuring Democratic victories in the generals. In this way, we can slowly begin to shift the nation's discourse to the liberal and progressive.
But I'm talking about challenging from the left in a primary, where turnout is minuscule.
The idea that the organizational process from which candidates emerge is actually democratic is laughable. If it were so, the conservative movement itself never would have been able to control the megaphones of an institutional party and thus influence the terms of the debate. Not even a majority of the Republican base supports elements of their agenda - yet they maintain a lock on the levers of power.
But, again, that is largely Speaker's point. I disagree with his methodology for getting there, but that is it.
My congressional district has been Republican since 1903. That really doesn't say as much as you'd think given everything that has happened over the past century, but even in the modern world and with its district lines largely being unchanged since I was born it has always been fairly comfortably Republican. I'd like to see stronger challenges from the Democrats to try and win it with a relatively moderate blue dog (particularly when the incumbent retires in a few more terms) but until then the best thing for me to do is to try and make damn sure she doesn't behave as crazily as the rest of the GOP.