STOP EATING YOUR OWN
This is becoming pathetic. Memo to Republicans: STOP EATING YOUR OWN.
Mike Huckabee’s on the blog of his “HuckPac“:
Comments attributed to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele are very troubling and despite his clarification today the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support in the trenches of grassroots politics. Since 1980, our party has been steadfast and principled in believing in the dignity and worth of every human life. We have supported a Constitutional amendment to protect life and the party
has taken the position that no one individual has the supreme right to own another person in totality including the right to take that life. For Chairman Steele to even infer that taking a life is totally left up to the individual is not only a reversal of Republican policy and principle, but it’s a violation of the most basic of human rights–the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. His statement today helps, but doesn’t explain why he would ever say what he did in the first place.
Ken Blackwell, who lost the race for RNC Chair to Steele:
“Chairman Steele, as the leader of America’s Pro-Life conservative party, needs to re-read the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the 2008 GOP Platform. He then needs to get to work — or get out of the way.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, used it instantly:
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell predicted on Thursday that Michael Steele’s “days are numbered” as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
“He’s in trouble because I just think that those who control the Republican Party don’t want a big tent,” Rendell told reporters during a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
This is truly utterly insane. Huckabee, Blackwell and all the others who have gone after Steele for saying he’s pro-choice but only on a state level (meaning the federal government has no business legalizing abortion because the constitution doesn’t give it jurisdiction about it) are making a tragic, tragic mistake. As I explained to Dutch readers of Dutch conservative blog Dagelijkse Standaard, Steele’s remark were constitutionally correct and most likely welcome to the far majority of the American people who hold far more moderate and nuanced views with regards to abortion than either liberal or social conservative fundamentalists.
When people debate abortion, emotions get in the way of rational, reasonable discourse. Steele broke with that recently, and he could’ve truly changed the tone of the debate if he would only have stuck to his guns. He shouldn’t have apologized for his views, which are, by the way, shared by a great many conservatives, both now and in the past (you can be pro-choice on a state level but against it on a federal level; this would still overturn Roe v. Wade).
More importantly right now is that Social Conservatives like Blackwell and Huckabee, who talk about nothing but social issues, should’ve accepted Steele’s opinion.
That is, if they want the Republican Party to grow.
Both sides that dominate the abortion-debate right now are extremes. The average American isn’t an extremist at all, however. Having a GOP chairman saying he’s pro-choice on a state level but believes that it’s not a ‘federal issue’ would change the debate a bit and it would make his party appeal to many more people than it does now.
Yet, the extremists within the party, Huckabee foremost, attack him as if he’s their archenemy, a man who will destroy their party. As said, however, the sad reality is that not Steele but the Huckster and Blackwell are the ones truly blowing up the Republican Party.
They are becoming a major problem. They declare war on anyone who dares disagree with them on social issues, which will, if continued, either lead to their expulsion from the party or the destruction of it… or both. Sad, and unnecessary.
Now that MIchael has the chair he needs to understand (just as Dean learned) we don’t need to know you opinion. We just need you to run the party and work behind the scenes
“This is becoming pathetic. Memo to Republicans: STOP EATING YOUR OWN.”
Memo to Steele: STOP SAYING THINGS AGAINST THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Steele started this. Thank you to Huckabee and Blackwell for standing up for the vast majority of the GOP that is pro-life.
Pro-life means you think the unborn should be given a right to life. Steele voiced opposition to that and he needs to either change his positing, change he job, or shut up.
C: I should’ve mentioned that in this post, as I did when writing for the Dutch site, but I agree, Steele shouldn’t have said it considering his role in the party. But when he did, he could’ve and should’ve used it to his and his party’s advantage, and the extremists should not have reacted.
I probably shouldn’t say this either, but I’ve been concerned about the Steele pick from the start. At this point, I think he has to be supported but I hope behind the scenes that he’s getting some training on how to focus on the organizational aspects and keep a disciplined, focused message when he’s in the public eye.
I have nothing against him- he’s likable, photogenic, etc- but honestly I don’t think he was up to the job, and I just hope his learning curve goes up sharply.
I agree with that and trhat kind of criticism is OK but “should reread the bible, etc.” that’s just insane.
LOL, quite right. But even the more appropriate criticisms should be made behind closed doors- the GOP is understandably struggling to reorganize right now, and any internal disputes shouldn’t be aired publicly if at all possible. The Democrats, the media, and the left side of the blogosphere will pounce on any opportunity to exploit fault lines.
Of course, and they’re right. Republicans would do the same if it were the other way around, lets face it; that’s politics.
Yes, you fight things out behind closed doors, not in public. They seemingly have to learn that lesson.
Remember the 11th ‘commandment’?
This whole thing is quite astonishing to me, from the left side of politics. Even when I was amongst very solidly liberal people, two things of Republicans received pretty universal admiration. One was that they were very organized and disciplined and the other was that they were tough, not backing down to brow-beating easily. By contrast the phrase “I don’t belong to any organized party, I’m a Democrat” seemed to be the most common refrain on the left, and watching Democratic politicians was often cringe inducing in how whimpish they would seem, backing down under the slightest hint of pressure.
It would appear that currently the GOP has adopted both of the Democrats worse vices, and if they don’t solve the problem soon, they’ll find out just as the Democrats did what those vices lead to (hint: away from Washington).
The disorder and lack of discipline in the GOP is stunning to see. It seems that an outright war is going on between those who think that a bigger tent is needed and those who think that the tent isn’t ideologically pure enough. On the other side of things, Steele should be more aptly renamed Rubbere, considering his lack of spine. He called out Limbaugh and then groveled to him the next day. He said he supported some rights for Gay couples and then swore that civil unions were anathema, and now this. Seriously, make a decision.
I suppose a reordering of the party is natural given the drubbing in the last election. I think that Steele is probably wrong for the Republicans. Not because his views are too conservative or liberal (I don’t even know what his true convictions are) but because he just seems to be a terrible leader. He’s barely even staffed the RNC yet. His job is essentially an administrative one, and he seems to not be administering much.
I agree Claudia.
I agree completely with what you said Claudia. It’s a mess and I knew that the GOP wouldn’t turn around quickly however it seems it will take longer than even 2012 to turn things around.
One point I would make is that I kind of agree with both groups. I would love for the party to become a bigger tent on two of the three legs, that being the Bombs and Jesus wings of the party. I really feel that the GOP needs to moderate their social views and become more realist/pragmatic in the foreign policy. However I agree with the purists that the Money wing has failed miserably at being fiscally conservative and that it should be more pure.
In my view if all three legs were moderated than you might as well be a Democrat. But staying true to more fiscally sound conservatism and opening up more viewpoints on the social and foreign policy aisles would increase GOP ID and still make a stark contrast to the Democrats.
I second what Bubbaquimbly says. The extreme prevalence of the social conservatism is why I could never even consider joining the party at this point. The Democrats are no better with their acceptance of climate change extremism and spend happy ways; thus why I don’t throw in my lot with them, either.
I know some will probably tell me it’s not all that bad, but when fellow Republicans feel the need to give in to Limbaugh, Huckabee, and Blackwell for their dissenting views, it probably is.
I understand that Steele is the leader of the party, but when it’s in a situation where the party needs a facelift, advocating some new positions or strategies is not uncalled for. Though, he might do well to at least pass it by the party first.
I echo Claudia’s comment. I note that the GOP has literally lost a valuable 6 months which could provide the Democrats with an extra edge in fund-raising, organization etc. for 2010.
For Bubba I think the GOP intransigence on tax hikes or taxes in general is now a major negative, especially after what happened in California. They should pay less attention to ideologues like Grover Norquist, stop demonizing big government because sometimes we REALLY need big government to work instead of going totally plotz as it did during Katrina. Not too many people are going to trust someone who says government is the problem, and then say by the way I want to be your government. Eisenhower and Roosevelt did it right as did other Republican leaders of their stripe. Where are those guys?!?
Michael, we just got out of 8 years of spend happy ways where the national debt doubled to 9 trillion dollars, now we have a government that is forced to spend because the private sector isn’t, can’t and won’t spend until it emerges from its self-inflicted paralysis.
For all the 5 billion dollars that Wall Street lobbied and contributed over the past ten years to both Republicans and Democrats to get more and more deregulation you would thing that they would have gotten a better return on their investment than an utterly collapsed economy. So next time someone says that private enterprise can do it better, think about everything from the Savings and Loan debacle to this moment. Enjoy.
What I am more talking about is fiscal responsibility. The only thing fiscally conservative about Bush was the tax cuts, he had no fiscal responsibility. And the tax cuts didn’t make sense since we were in a war. Glad you sight Eisenhower, he believed that you can’t cut taxes unless the budget is balanced. If the budget is balanced than you can cut taxes for small businesses instead of just people that make over 250k. And your right Grover is an ideologue but Obama’s spending is now getting criticism from people like Bayh and Feingold. I also am not talking about saying gov’t is always bad. Your right that doesn’t work and isn’t true (also private industry isn’t always bad either). But there is a difference between small gov’t and limited gov’t. I think it should be limited not small.
Like others here, I find it concerning that the GOP is in such disarray although it’s not surprising. All parties, even ones that are normally disciplined, are made up of factions that often disagree with each other. In good times, the factions all agree to disagree on some things because each group knows that it needs the other (Reagan’s three legged stool.) But when the party falls out of power (and falls pretty precipitously as the GOP just went from complete control of DC to now being completely in the minority), each faction wants to point fingers at the other.
What I find aggravating about the blame being put on social conseratives, is that they’ve the ones who’ve been most ‘used’ all along. There really was little that was done for them by the GOP, other than to use their concerns as wedge issues to get votes.
Meanwhile, the hawkish wing ‘got’ the GWOT including a very mismanaged war in Iraq, which was one of the main reasons that the party lost power.
And meanwhile, the fiscal conservatives used overly simplistic formulas of relying on all tax cuts, all the time, claiming wrongly that all tax cuts actually raise revenue and ignoring the fact that they couldn’t keep spending as much as they wanted.
So really, it was the other two factions that screwed up, and yet now they want to evict the socially conservative wing of the party. The only thing that faction has done wrong is to insist on purity and engaged in rhetoric that turns off moderates- they really haven’t had the power that the other two wings have had on actual governance, and so they haven’t had the screwups that the other two factions have caused.
So really, when you look at it that way, each part of the trio has something they should focus on internally within their own group and make corrections, rather than trying to scapegoat the others.
In the end though I’m not quite as concerned as others are, because the Democrats are overreaching so much, engaging in unethical activities in some cases, and they have their own internal battles as well (Reid vs. Pelosi, Pelosi vs. Blue Dogs, etc.) I *think* that the American people will be ready to toss them out soon too, at least I hope so. And really, most power shifts happen because the party in power screws up, not because the other party really got it’s act together.
That said though, there’s definitely an opportunity for someone to come in as Gingrich did in ‘94, and unfortunately I think that opportunity might be squandered. Making the ‘10 election a national one instead of a series of local ones would be key to shifting power sooner rather than later, and I do feel like it’s unlikely that the GOP will be able to get on message quickly enough for that, but we’ll see. I guess it depends on whether or not people start to realize that liking Obama personally doesn’t mean they like his policies, and there’s considerable ineptitude in his executive skills which is leading to too much power in the hands of Democratic partisan ideologues in Congress.
(Haha- Captcha words: Administration lasting)
Christine;
Wow, I’d never thought of it that way, great points.
Claudia;
“The disorder and lack of discipline in the GOP is stunning to see. It seems that an outright war is going on between those who think that a bigger tent is needed and those who think that the tent isn’t ideologically pure enough. On the other side of things, Steele should be more aptly renamed Rubbere, considering his lack of spine…Seriously, make a decision.”
I agree and I’d add that one of the problems with talk radio, the Fox nighttime shows and the right-wing blogosphere is that they “demand” a public response, a public argument. Growing up I remember the Republican party as being “boring” It needs to get some of that character back (Although I’d use the terms “steady”, “solid”, “reliable”, “competent”…) And as far as “make a decision”, Mr. Steele in these interviews wasn’t supposed to “make a decision”. He is NOT “the party”
And finally its good to know that so many “non-republicans” and democrats have the best interests of the Republican party at heart.
True, and in that sense his individual positions are less relevant. The positions themselves are not the problem so much as that he doesn’t stick to them. If he’s going to be in a position of leadership he needs to show he can stand his ground. If it appears he will roll over at the merest hint of rebellion he will never be trusted as a leader.
Heh. OK I will admit to a certain enjoyment at the spectacle. It’s comforting to know that Republicans are also capable of being total wrecks as a party, something that I thought was the sole realm of Democrats. However my better angels do tell me that it’s a bad idea to not have an organized and competent opposition party. I’m really hoping that the “bigger tent” Republicans win this fight, but obviously that’s up to them to decide.
I hold the revolutionary opinion that party discipline is the enemy of successful societies. Were the Democrats to copy Republicans and become marching in lockstep political soldiers, we would be a nation in perpetual warfare between two extremes, with the majority of the public permanently disenfranchized. A situation like that can lead only to political and social collapse. The pendelum would just deep swinging from side to side, with no chance for forward momentum.
My sympathy is with the pro-choce Republicans who caught a whiff of fresh air in Steele’s remarks.
In the voting booth, one has to shoose between the parties, but stifling dissent in the pre-vote formation of party platforms is anathema to democracy.
BTW, conservatives love to complain about being used and not receiving enough respect. I’ll start taking that seriously when I see conservatives showing respect to those who are not their ideological clones. Respect is a two-way street
You’re right that respect is a two way street, meitene. So where’s the respect for prolifers in the Democratic party these days?
The tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible. Not only did they not generate the nearly 200,000 jobs per month as promised but we ended up with a depleted treasury as well. Furthermore, no taxes were raised to help fund the war, contravening the previous 200+ years of American history.
The Tax cuts were and have been the GOP equivalent of Santa Claus.