{"id":569,"date":"2009-05-14T11:49:42","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T09:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=569"},"modified":"2015-04-21T18:54:32","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T16:54:32","slug":"the-incredible-shrinking-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/the-incredible-shrinking-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"The incredible shrinking Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed through important elements of his ambitious program of reforms<\/a> in his first three and a half months in office, the first 100 days of a president’s term<\/span> have been a benchmark<\/span> for his overall success. By many accounts<\/span>, President Obama has done at least as much to reverse the course set by the previous<\/span> administration<\/span>, and he reached the 100-day mark with a 66 percent approval rating.<\/p>\n

The opposition could not be more alarmed. Media-hungry Republicans from John McCain to Dick Cheney have been appearing on political talk shows with regularity, warning of a sellout<\/span> of America’s principles. But more than being alarmed, the Republicans are in a serious state of disarray<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Many Congressional Republicans realized there was political capital in opposing this year’s large government spending measures, but happily accepted the money when it went to their own states. Party leaders sensibly<\/span> presented an alternative to Obama’s budget instead of simply complaining about it; but it was the same old Republican story of more tax cuts, mainly for the wealthy.<\/p>\n

Ideologically, the Republicans are in the wilderness<\/a> \u2014 as the Democrats were when an equally charismatic president, Ronald Reagan, took office<\/span> in 1981. Back then, the Democrats needed ten years or so to stop defining themselves in terms of<\/span> the other party and to determine what their principles actually were.<\/p>\n

Like the Democrats in the ’80s, the Republicans currently lack a strong leader with a vision for the future. Congressional leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor have mostly been reacting to things the Democrats have done. This had led to critics calling the Republicans “the Party of No”: they seem to be against everything \u2014 even against government itself at times \u2014 and for nothing.<\/p>\n

In late April, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who has held important positions on several committees for decades, changed his party affiliation<\/span> from Republican to Democrat<\/a>. Senators are elected every six years, and the 79-year-old doesn\u2019t feel he can win again next year as a Republican.<\/p>\n

Specter’s move gives a big prize to the Democrats, as with him they could have 60 seats in the 100-seat Senate, making it impossible for the Republicans to block legislation<\/span> through procedural technicalities<\/span>. (The Minnesota Senate race is still being decided by the courts, but it is likely that Democrat Al Franken will be given the seat.) So far, Specter has continued to vote with the Republicans, but this will no doubt change as soon as he needs help raising money.<\/p>\n

Not long after Specter’s announcement, another prominent Republican \u2014 this one not elected to public office \u2014 said he, too, was leaving the party. This was Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber<\/span>” \u2014 an Ohio everyman who stepped in front of the cameras last fall as Barack Obama visited his neighborhood<\/span>, and who then became a symbol of the McCain-Palin campaign.<\/p>\n

Wurzelbacher has extended his 15 minutes of fame<\/a> to at least 20 by writing a book<\/a>, doing some blogging<\/a> and appearing on talk shows. In February, he was a celebrated<\/span> speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the big event for conservatives. In mid-April, he was the star of an anti-tax “tea party”<\/a>. But the Republicans, he said, were not staying on message<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party may be nearing collapse, and perhaps a new party will be formed from its remains<\/span> \u2014 the Republicans actually started out this way in the 1850s. But it’s too early for the Democrats to gloat<\/span>. Had the Democrats not regained power in Congress in 2006 nor had such a charismatic candidate in 2008, they would be in the same position. In politics, a lasting victory is elusive<\/span>, as the Founding Fathers<\/span> probably wanted it to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed through important elements of his ambitious program of reforms in his first three and a half months in office, the first 100 days of a president’s term have been a benchmark for his overall success. By many accounts, President Obama has done at least as much to reverse the course set by … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27,206,137,29,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1444,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/1444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}