GOP lite or real Dems

Published July 25, 2014

by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, July 24, 2014.

It’s an argument I’ve heard for 40 years: “Southern Democrats, meet your future: No more Republican lite.”

 

That’s the headline on a recent article by Bob Moser, Senior Editor at the National Journal. He wrote, “Candidates like (Kay) Hagan are stuck between the past, when Southern Democrats’ recipe for victory involved courting white moderates and conservatives, and a future in which they’ll be able to successfully campaign as full-throated, national-style Democrats.”

 

Call me a curmudgeon. But put me down as skeptical. As much as my heart wants to believe it, my head and my gut tell me that is no better advice today than it was 10, 20 or 40 years ago.

 

It gains credence because Obama carried North Carolina in 2008 and narrowly lost it in 2012. But his candidacy was an outlier, fueled by the history-making opportunity to elect and reelect an African-American President. Also, Obama, as candidate and President, hasn’t always been a “full-throated” liberal.

 

North Carolina remains a moderate and, yes, even conservative state. No, Democrats will not get many, if any, votes from conservative whites. But they need votes with people who have some moderate and even conservative parts in their political makeup.

 

North Carolina’s electorate today is nearly equally divided between natives and newcomers. Natives, no matter how liberal on some issues, still can be conservative on issues like spending and the role of government and sometimes on social issues.  They’re for Good Government, but not necessarily always Big Government. Newcomers are generally liberal on social issues and human issues like education and health care. But they too bring a healthy skepticism about government and all big institutions.

 

Most telling: If people really loved “full-throated, national-style Democrats,” wouldn’t they register that way? They don’t. They register as Independents, even voters who registered just so they could vote for Obama.

 

Maybe you wish it wasn’t true. But wishing doesn’t make it true.

http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com

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July 25, 2014 at 9:38 am
Norm Kelly says:

Always the perspective of a lib; and too many media-types believe this is the norm in our state and nation. If you proclaim leftist thoughts, agenda items, plans, schemes, then you are considered normal. Talking about American ideals, Constitutional standards gets libs jumping out of tall buildings, screaming racist, calling someone a fascist. Another example 'Democrats will not get many, if any, votes from conservative whites'. But the flip side can also be stated with certainty, while not being politically correct, or sending the right message to the lib base. Republicans will not get many, if any, votes from liberal blacks. The challenge with this statement, as opposed to the way the lib writes it, is that it's considered racist to point out that blacks vote for demons en masse. And it's obvious by the way demon pols treat black voters that they expect, count on, blacks to continue to vote for demons without question and without thinking before casting a vote. If the average black actually looked at the way demon pols speak of the inability of blacks they wouldn't be supporting demons any more. If demons stopped promising to take care of blacks, paying blacks to vote for them, then blacks would start looking at the facts and voting against demon pols, even if they didn't go for the Republican candidate. The one thing demon pols count on is people NOT looking at the facts, simply sucking down the lib talking points. Kinda like lib editorial writers who make statements about how centrist and moderate lib/demon pols are when the facts show nothing close to this. K is NOT a centrist. Document for us, any lib out there, some of K's 'conservative', 'centrist', 'moderate' votes. Please include when she lied to us about socialized medicine. Please include when she asked for the name to be changed from ACA to 'Single Payer Insurance', being more honest in what the goal of obamacancer really is. Please include all the times she voted to reduce taxes, regulations, deficit spending, the national debt. Please include all the times she voted on or introduced legislation to force the occupier to actually follow the law, not take so many outrageous 'executive actions'. Please reference her stand on getting to the bottom of the IRS scandal where political opponents of the demon party were specifically targeted and then the IRS went about covering it up to protect ... who exactly if not the demon party? Where did/does K stand on the racism demonstrated by Holder? What has she done to get Holder to do his job? See, with all these, K has proven she is more interested in the future of the Socialist Party than she is in either the state or the nation.