Has Dick Morris suddenly become a non-person to Republicans?
I noticed his absence at the usual places which once carried his column, so I'm just wondering....
Then I happened to catch this. Morris recently advised the Republican Party to "terminate" the Christian right. What fascinated me the most was his contention that religious conservatives have what amounts to veto power:
Is this true? Does the conservative fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party have what amounts to veto power?
the Republican Party has paid the price for its coalition with the advocates of bedroom regulation. The Christian right has so alienated women that it has opened up a gender gap that often swells to more than 20 points, crippling Republican candidates.The upset victory of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California shows what the Republican Party could do if it broke with the pro-lifers and abandoned their intrusive efforts to regulate private behavior. Moving to the center on the social issues, demonstrating a libertarian commitment to privacy, the actor/governor held the gender gap to less than 10 points, winning 43 percent of the female vote. Schwarzenegger won the top job in the solid Democratic state of California by carrying the women’s vote, a feat that would have been impossible had he embraced the social agenda of his party.
....It is about time that the Republican Party realizes that the Christian right is doing to it exactly what the radical black Rainbow Coalition of Jesse Jackson did to the Democratic Party in the ’80s — making them unelectable. Their embrace is the kiss of death. It is not that the religious right is wrong. Right or wrong, it gets in the way of so much good that the Republican Party could achieve if it were not in the Christian right’s grasp.
Will the Republican Party escape from the embrace of the pro-lifers so that it can nominate candidates like Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice? Likely not. Those who see each election as an opportunity to hold candidates to litmus tests on key social issues are not likely to relinquish their hold or relax their vigilance.
The large-margin Schwarzenegger victory must have come as a serious shock to the Republican leadership — whose party, it should be remembered, barely won the last presidential election, and whose majority in Congress is razor-thin. That Schwarzenegger did so well with women despite the "groping" charges must especially irk moral conservatives, because it was one of the few times they joined the chorus of "feminazis" and agreed upon something, yet the alliance failed.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
Actually, the religious right probably isn't nearly so troublesome to the Republicans as black groups are to the Democrats. The religious right generally are not necessarily more moderate than the black groups, but considerably more pragmatic.
Black interest groups, having gotten pretty much every possible reasonable concession, have gone to demanding reparations, and other such utter nonsense.
Religious conservatives on the other hand are content to get half a loaf. They will be well satisfied with the widely popular partial birth abortion ban, and not push at this point for an overall legislative or constitutional ban on all abortions, for example.
2 - Dan
It's always seemed to me that Democrats are hell bent on having the biggest tent, and less concerned with stuff like principle, integrity, or Constitutional adherance. Naturally they would have more uneasy alliances than the Repubs.
I do love those log cabiners. (in a strictly generalized way of course) They seem principled just for resisting the shameless divisive pandering of the left. Same goes for conservative minorities.
In my fantasy Country, the Republicans win the pandering battle, the Democratic Party dries up. All the ultra-lefties move to France. Then a rainbow coalition of Constitutionally enlightened constituents challenges the Republicans for the allegiance of all the folks who have had to hold their nose while they voted Republican.
Now that would be progressive! Or in a sense, regressive.
3 - Hal Pawluk
I and many other Californians did not see the recall issues as choices of gay or Gray or Jesus.
The major issues were the fiscal crisis and the pay-for-play state Democrats. Gray was recallable so he was recalled. In the next election, we'll work on the equally-culpable Democratic legislature (which will be tougher because of the 2001 redistricting pact between the Dems and the Reps).
Arnold was the second-best outcome for us, but a step in the direction of the fiscal conservatism McClintock represented, with no ties to special interests (yet).
Although Arnie's decision to investigate himself on the groping charges is making me start to wonder:
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, did I grope anyone at all?" :-)