NLS: Is the GOP Senate Majority in Trouble?
Ben Tribbett wonders aloud whether or not the Democratic slam-dunk in NOVA spells trouble for the GOP in the Virginia Senate:The reason Republicans are so worried is they control four seats in Northern Virginia. These seats all saw dramatic shifts to the Democrats this year, and no one knows for sure if this is a trend, or a one time blip. We're pretty certain at this point that Kilgore did indeed depress conservative turnout. Furthermore, we can be reasonably certain that the lessons drawn from the 2005 elections demonstrate the following:
(1) There is no such thing as a "sensible center".
(2) Voters want clear, distinct choices and will stay home if offered otherwise.
(3) Nothing is guarenteed in politics, even if you have a 10-point lead three months into Election Day.
It's worth going over the fact that only Democrats are "moving to the sensible center", largely in part because (and I still maintain this) the 2004 elections demonstrated a political shift away from the '60's style liberalism and towards a more conservative positioning.
In Virginia, liberals lose. Democrats have to moderate their positions in order to be electable.
On the flip side of the coin, while the Republicans could afford to elect so-called moderates while Democrats held the majority, this is no longer the case today. Conservatives are the majority, and the fact that Democrats have to pander and dilute their ideology to the conservative mainstream speaks volumes. Republicans who do not eschew the principles of conservativism are viewed skeptically.
Need proof? What happened to President Bush when he proffered Harriet Meiers? Wonder why Bush's approval rating is really in the mid-30's?
Conservative America is a smarter breed than its more left-leaning predecessor, and much more skeptical of half-hearted Republicans who perpetuate the socialized system Democrats have propped up over the years. It's crumbling, decaying, and limps on only through higher taxes and blithe, willful ignorance. Voters know it, politicians know it, and the call for action is out.
In Virginia, either one of two actions will happen. Either conservatives will whip out the hatchet and start devolving the state government back into the hands of private enterprise and local governments (and not in the form of unfunded mandates either), or the liberals will poke, prod, and resist until the public gets so tired of the GOP that they vote for the Dems, their higher taxes, and the radical social agenda that goes with it. There's a crude analogy that ends with "or get off the pot," but you get the idea.
Will the conservatives offer a vision for Virginia? The Freedom and Prosperity Agenda is a good start, but more can be done. What happened to the recommendations of the Wilder Commission? What about local transpotation dollars being spent by the localities who make the land use decisions? What about overhauling the entire Virginia tax code? Abolishing the property tax and allowing localities to exercise more latitude in their method of taxation? School choice?
When the liberals hurl the "free lunch" epithet, they do it because they see power slipping through the fingers of bureaucrats and into the hands of families and taxpayers - where it belongs.
This debate starts and ends in the House, and the only way the GOP maintains a majority is if conservatives stand up and be counted, weather the criticisms of the liberals, and understand that doing what's right comes with cost.
Audaces fortuna iuvat!
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Shaun Kenney 
3 Comments:
The word doesn't mean anything. People identify themselves as moderates or centrists because it has the connotations of thoughtfulness and consideration, when in the end it only represents... what precisely?
I submit that moderates stand for nothing. It's safe. It proposes nothing, it submits no new ideas, it resolves nothing.
Moderation might be pragmatic, and in a marketplace of ideas they might have their role. But in the end, moderation for it's own sake is worthless.
...just to stir the pot a bit! ;)
Until someone can define precisely what a "moderate" is, then how can anyone possibly claim that they are a political force or a potential third way?
Moderates come in as many flavors as you find in a Baskin Robbins.
Yet unlike liberals or conservatives (who will never identify themselves as moderate), moderates will readily identify themselves with ideas that are very much liberal or conservative, and in the end are only modifications of political philosophies that - in the end - aren't all that dissimilar.
"Moderate" and "centrist" are so polysemic that the words are ultimately meaningless, and are probably so generic that they are ultimately worthless when you get into the nitty-gritty of specific issues (i.e. what is the defensible moderate position on abortion? Taxes? Death penalty? Immigration? Free enterprise? Free speech?).
I'd be interested to read what a logical summary of what the centrist or moderate beleives are guiding principles, so long as it's not a polished version of the lowest common denominator.
Most moderates describe themselves as such because they have one or two issues that make them so. For instance, a Republican might be anti-tax, pro-gun, but on the issue of life might be pro-abortion. That person might share 80% of the Republican platform, and wouldn't hesitate for a second to call themselves Republican, but because they deviate from one issue, they ID themselves as "moderate".
Even though they are mostly conservative...
Same on the left. Might share 80% of the issues, but disagree with the national Dems on Iraq or homosexual marriage. So they too are now "moderates". Mostly liberal, but...
I think you get my point. Most self-declared moderates are nothing of the sort. In fact, on the majority of their positions, they could probably be identified by one major ideology or another.
For those who are not liberal or conservative, I think you'd be hard pressed to ID a libertarian, libertine, populist, socialist, communist, nazi, anarchist, green, as "moderate", but they are certainly third-way ideologies.
Further, if we really sit down and think about it, there isn't a whole lot that separates liberals and conservatives on what the role of government is. 2004: Kerry and Bush really didn't disagree on many issues. Iraq? Both were in for the long haul. Education? Bush doubled education spending.
In the end, the differences weren't in what we wanted government to do, but how we want government to do it.
I don't see where a true moderate holding both ends of the political spectrum together really has a role. Variations on a theme might be a better description of a moderate, but a true principled position of moderation? I just don't see it.
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