The Republican Shrinkage Problem

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deleted15807

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With Specters defection it rather highlights the problem the Republican Party faces. For eight years the WSJ , Faux News, George Will, Mann Coulter and many others cheered while King George, Darth Cheney and Tom 'The Hammer' Delay ran the country over the cliff. It's only fitting that there number is now 21. Will they go the way of the Whig Party? Time for more Tea Parties I guess.
The new Washington Post/ABC news poll has all sorts of intriguing numbers in it but when you are looking for clues as to where the two parties stand politically there is only one number to remember: 21.

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These numbers come on the heels of Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, declaring the Republican party a "shrinking entity" last week -- citing the decline of GOP numbers in the west, northeast and mountain west as evidence.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/parsing-the-polls/21-percent.html
 

D_Fiona_Farvel

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Just time for more parties, as in political parties, period.
I see the issues the Republican's are having as an opportunity to create political and ideological variety in the U.S., even if just niche parties, and no reason to celebrate or grieve.

I also hope that alienated individuals with more radical social, economic, and ecological ideologies leave the democratic party and form some that earnestly recognize their position.
 

houtx48

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Ol zippy w bush destroyed a couple of countries and a political party, even if they were his own, in the span of 8 years. the odd part is he did'nt belong there in the first place.
 

B_VinylBoy

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Just time for more parties, as in political parties, period.
I see the issues the Republican's are having as an opportunity to create political and ideological variety in the U.S., even if just niche parties, and no reason to celebrate or grieve.

I also hope that alienated individuals with more radical social, economic, and ecological ideologies leave the democratic party and form some that earnestly recognize their position.

Sounds feasible, but there's just one or two thing that prevents this from happening (IMO) and is the reason why there hasn't been a viable new party since we started.

The first is obvious: money. Every politician knows that the big corporations, non-profits and other entities of public interest that give the big campaign dollars during the election are giving them to either the Democrats or the Republicans. To come out essentially as the "other party" means risking cutting off lots of these deals and that's something most politicians just won't do, because how do you win an election without campaign dollars? The other thing that gets to me is how there are some politicians that could really put something out for the public to view as a third option, but instead of focusing on that and building a base they'd rather just throw mud on Dems & Repubs. Those two parties do fine with the mud slinging on their own. If they truly want to set themselves above and past the corrupt two party system that they say is the problem, then they should not even feed into the badmouthing and the finger pointing that goes on and make their case to the American People that shows solutions to real problems, not character attacks.

And this would be the perfect time to do it, even if there isn't an official presidential face to go with it. With some of Obama's policies being heavily scrutinized, one could focus on the economy (still issue #1 with most people) and really come up with some good ideas. Just saying that he's "more of the same" and corrupt just doesn't work. Why? Repubs have been doing it since the primary and it's still not registering with the majority of people. Why should anyone who "isn't a Republican" pick up the same failed battle strategy?
 
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