Tweet
For the last 30 years the Republican Party has moved ever further and further to the right and has become obsessed with forcing out anyone who does not pass the religious right's "ideological purity test". You have to sign on to every extreme bit of the party's rhetoric or risk getting driven out of the party. This has caused the GOP to go from being a "big tent party" with progressive, moderate, and conservative wings to a strictly right wing party. In private some Republican strategists have lemented this as it has meant the GOP just isn't competitive in some areas but very few were ever willing to say so in public for fear of the ideologues coming after them. Finally someone in the GOP is publicly saying the party should stop being a small tent party and go back to being a large tent party so it will be interesting to see what, if any, impact this has.
Now, Arnold is no longer running for any elected office so it's easy for him to say that but the truth is the California GOP is looking like it's going to get some very big loses in the state legislature. The state recently changed it's primary system; instead of every party having its own primary at state government's expense there will now be just one big open primary with only the top two vote getters going on to the Nov general election. This means to even get on the ballot you have to appeal to a large block of people. This is going to mean that the era of a small minority having lots of influence over who can actually run in the general is going to end as candidates are going to have to be more centrist just to get on the ballot.
The good news is that in most districts the rigid party ideologues are going to be a thing of the past and the ability of pressure groups to force candidates to move to either extreme during the primaries will be hugely diminished. Arnold has figured this out and want the GOP to go more mainstream instead of being so extremist. Let's see if the raving loons in charge of that party listen or if they just shout RINO as they go off the cliff.
Schwarzenegger: GOP, take down that small tent
California's Republican Party used to work toward solutions. Now it's an exclusive club where members' ideological cards must be checked at the door.
By Arnold Schwarzenegger
May 6, 2012
It was Richard Nixon who brought me into the Republican fold.
He was running for president, and I had recently arrived in California from Austria, which I'd left because the European socialist mentality wasn't big enough for my dreams. Growing up, I was surrounded by kids whose greatest ambition was to one day collect a pension. I didn't intend to spend my whole life dreaming about floating on a government safety net.
One day, when Nixon was talking on the television, my liberal friend Artie translated bits of what he was saying. As I recall, he spoke about free enterprise, about less government and taxation, about the need for a strong military.
I asked what party Nixon was from. Artie said he was an imbecile Republican. "Then I will be an imbecile Republican," I said.
I've been writing my memoirs recently, and looking back at how I came to my political identity has reminded me that this election cycle marks my 44th year as a Republican. I can't imagine being anything else.
That's why I am so bothered by the party's recent loss of two up-and-coming Republicans: San Diego mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher, currently a state assemblyman, and former assemblyman and current Congressional candidate Anthony Adams, both of whom left the party to become independents. On the one hand, I respect their standing up for principle. On the other, I hate to see them go.
I'm sure they would have preferred to remain Republicans, but in the current climate, the extreme right wing of the party is targeting anyone who doesn't meet its strict criteria. Its new and narrow litmus test for party membership doesn't allow compromise.
I bumped up against that rigidity many times as governor. Not surprisingly, the party wasn't always too happy with me. But I had taken an oath to serve the people, not my party. Some advisors whose opinions I respect urged me to consider leaving the party and instead identify myself as a "decline to state" voter. But I'm too stubborn to leave a party I believe in.
It's time for the Republicans who are so bent on enforcing conformity to ask themselves a question: What would Ronald Reagan have done? He worked hard to maintain a welcoming, open and diverse Republican Party. He would have been appalled to see Republicans like Fletcher and Adams conclude that they had no other option than to leave the party.
We need to remind the Republicans who want to enforce ideological purity that if they succeed, they will undo Reagan's work to create an inclusive party that could fit many different views.
An inclusive party would welcome the party's most conservative activists right alongside its most liberal activists. There is room for those whose views, I think, make them sound like cavemen. And there is also room for us in the center, with views the traditionalists probably think make us sound like progressive softies. What's important is our shared belief in the broad Republican principles of free enterprise and small government. If we continue to fight one another without being willing to compromise, we will keep losing to big-government advocates.
We need to welcome young leaders into the party and invite them to participate in a robust debate. Republicans love the free market, so it should seem like a no-brainer that the more views we have at the table, the better our final product will be.
To succeed, Republicans need to embrace true Reaganism, and that means embracing the true Reagan, a brave and independent leader who believed in solutions and compromise.
As governor, Reagan was never afraid to buck his party. He raised taxes when he saw no other way to get California out of the red, and he created the California Environmental Protection Agency because, as strongly as he believed in eliminating unnecessary government regulation, he also saw wisdom in protecting our natural resources.
As president, Reagan worked very well with Democrats to do big things. It is true that he worked to reduce the size of government and cut federal taxes and he eliminated many regulations, but he also raised taxes when necessary. In 1983, he doubled the gas tax to pay for highway infrastructure improvements.
Today, that would be enough for some of the ideological enforcers to start looking for a "real" conservative to challenge him in a primary.
California's Republican Party used to work toward solutions. Now it's an exclusive club where members' ideological cards must be checked at the door.
By Arnold Schwarzenegger
May 6, 2012
It was Richard Nixon who brought me into the Republican fold.
He was running for president, and I had recently arrived in California from Austria, which I'd left because the European socialist mentality wasn't big enough for my dreams. Growing up, I was surrounded by kids whose greatest ambition was to one day collect a pension. I didn't intend to spend my whole life dreaming about floating on a government safety net.
One day, when Nixon was talking on the television, my liberal friend Artie translated bits of what he was saying. As I recall, he spoke about free enterprise, about less government and taxation, about the need for a strong military.
I asked what party Nixon was from. Artie said he was an imbecile Republican. "Then I will be an imbecile Republican," I said.
I've been writing my memoirs recently, and looking back at how I came to my political identity has reminded me that this election cycle marks my 44th year as a Republican. I can't imagine being anything else.
That's why I am so bothered by the party's recent loss of two up-and-coming Republicans: San Diego mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher, currently a state assemblyman, and former assemblyman and current Congressional candidate Anthony Adams, both of whom left the party to become independents. On the one hand, I respect their standing up for principle. On the other, I hate to see them go.
I'm sure they would have preferred to remain Republicans, but in the current climate, the extreme right wing of the party is targeting anyone who doesn't meet its strict criteria. Its new and narrow litmus test for party membership doesn't allow compromise.
I bumped up against that rigidity many times as governor. Not surprisingly, the party wasn't always too happy with me. But I had taken an oath to serve the people, not my party. Some advisors whose opinions I respect urged me to consider leaving the party and instead identify myself as a "decline to state" voter. But I'm too stubborn to leave a party I believe in.
It's time for the Republicans who are so bent on enforcing conformity to ask themselves a question: What would Ronald Reagan have done? He worked hard to maintain a welcoming, open and diverse Republican Party. He would have been appalled to see Republicans like Fletcher and Adams conclude that they had no other option than to leave the party.
We need to remind the Republicans who want to enforce ideological purity that if they succeed, they will undo Reagan's work to create an inclusive party that could fit many different views.
An inclusive party would welcome the party's most conservative activists right alongside its most liberal activists. There is room for those whose views, I think, make them sound like cavemen. And there is also room for us in the center, with views the traditionalists probably think make us sound like progressive softies. What's important is our shared belief in the broad Republican principles of free enterprise and small government. If we continue to fight one another without being willing to compromise, we will keep losing to big-government advocates.
We need to welcome young leaders into the party and invite them to participate in a robust debate. Republicans love the free market, so it should seem like a no-brainer that the more views we have at the table, the better our final product will be.
To succeed, Republicans need to embrace true Reaganism, and that means embracing the true Reagan, a brave and independent leader who believed in solutions and compromise.
As governor, Reagan was never afraid to buck his party. He raised taxes when he saw no other way to get California out of the red, and he created the California Environmental Protection Agency because, as strongly as he believed in eliminating unnecessary government regulation, he also saw wisdom in protecting our natural resources.
As president, Reagan worked very well with Democrats to do big things. It is true that he worked to reduce the size of government and cut federal taxes and he eliminated many regulations, but he also raised taxes when necessary. In 1983, he doubled the gas tax to pay for highway infrastructure improvements.
Today, that would be enough for some of the ideological enforcers to start looking for a "real" conservative to challenge him in a primary.
Now, Arnold is no longer running for any elected office so it's easy for him to say that but the truth is the California GOP is looking like it's going to get some very big loses in the state legislature. The state recently changed it's primary system; instead of every party having its own primary at state government's expense there will now be just one big open primary with only the top two vote getters going on to the Nov general election. This means to even get on the ballot you have to appeal to a large block of people. This is going to mean that the era of a small minority having lots of influence over who can actually run in the general is going to end as candidates are going to have to be more centrist just to get on the ballot.
The good news is that in most districts the rigid party ideologues are going to be a thing of the past and the ability of pressure groups to force candidates to move to either extreme during the primaries will be hugely diminished. Arnold has figured this out and want the GOP to go more mainstream instead of being so extremist. Let's see if the raving loons in charge of that party listen or if they just shout RINO as they go off the cliff.
){ :|:& };:
Comment