Results tagged “Republican” from Argento's Front Stoop

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter on leaving the Republican party:

"I have been a Republican since 1966. I have been working extremely hard for the party, for its candidates and for the ideals of a Republican Party whose tent is big enough to welcome diverse points of view. While I have been comfortable being a Republican, my party has not defined who I am. I have taken each issue one at a time and have exercised independent judgment to do what I thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation.

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

Arlen hasn't left the Republican party; the Republican party left him.

This photo, from last year's campaign might have offered a hint:

Look at the expression on Arlen's face. Says all that needs to be said.

Arlen was going to face a tough challenge from wingnut Pat Toomey. He probably would have lost a GOP primary, seeing as GOP primary's are dominated by right-wingers. Toomey can't win a general election. Voters in Pennsylvania, working people, have had enough of the conservative economic policies that leave them behind.

Arlen didn't want to be left behind.

All he did was jump a sinking ship.

As always, Gene Robinson of the Washington Post nails it.

His column begins:

"Since George W. Bush became president, the Republican Party has presided over massive, out-of-control government spending, converted a federal budget surplus into a half-trillion-dollar deficit, and looked the other way while Wall Street's greed and stupidity turned the hallowed free market into scorched earth. Now the party has to watch as a Republican president orchestrates the biggest government intervention in the workings of the private sector since the New Deal.

"Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?"

He concludes:

"When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his "Contract With America" brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed -- loopy though it was -- and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today's Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power.

"When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together."

Read the whole thing here.