The Tax cuts were and have been the GOP equivalent of Santa Claus.

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

And as far as “make a decision”, Mr. Steele in these interviews wasn’t supposed to “make a decision”. He is NOT “the party”

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.

And finally its good to know that so many “non-republicans” and democrats have the best interests of the Republican party at heart.

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.

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.

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)

Marcus :
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?!?

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.

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.

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.

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.