June 29, 2006

Looking For Signs of the Break-Up

Posted by Adam Graham in : Idaho Conservative, The

Alan at Idablue is giddy over a London Guardian-Observer story hyping a nationwide crack-up of the GOP as moderates split from the party due to anger at Evangelicals, while John Dickerson writes Evangelicals are abandonning the GOP because of the stunts played by moderates and the party establishment.

Trusting a London Newspaper for political analysis is silly, as they’re all biased one way or another. More to the point, you can always find party switches at larger or smaller levels going on in State government. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything nationally or even really on the State level. In 1998, the 1996 Republican nominee for Governor in Washington joined the Constitution Party, along with some other county officials. How many statewide races did the Constitution Party break double digits? None.

You need a trend, and 3 prominent people switching sides does not equal a trend. I remember in the first 3 years of Clinton, you had more than 300 elected Democrats switch office. When you get into triple digits, talk to me. Otherwise, we’re just dealing with hype.

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2 Comments

  1. Comment by slfisher [Member]

    It’s certainly happening on a local level. There were numerous cases in the Legislature this year where I saw moderate Republicans siding with Democrats against extremist fringe Republicans.

    This is also something we talked about in my coursework for my master’s degree — that anytime one party gets that strong, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, such that the other party no longer is a significant competitor, that the larger party tends to fractionate. It’s as though there has to be an opponent, and if the other party isn’t enough of an opponent, then an opponent is created.

  2. Comment by Adam Graham [Member]

    If that were the case, DC Democrats would have broken apart years ago, as would have Utah Republicans. As to the legislature, intra-party squabbles doesn’t a party break-up make.

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