Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
When you look at Christy's record on many issues he certainly looks like a conservative. That's he's not as rabid a partisan as the tea party would like doesn't diminish his own beliefs.
I understand that you don't have time to go into depth in your posts due to constraints of job, family, and life in general. And I respect that, in spite of those restraints, you are so willing to jump into the fray so often, and usually are the only one coming from the left who has a halfway rational approach. But the fact that you so often have to hit and run frequently results in quick, broad stroke stereotypical labels. And worse than just being pejorative snipes, they often completely miss the mark. "Rabid a partisan as the tea party" describes that group with the label of partisan, when it is the political "party" which is least interested in partisanship. It is not, at this point, an actual political party. It chooses to domicile in the Republican Party because of the two major parties it is the one which even remotely pretends to aspire to constitutional government. The Constitution is not a partisan document. It can be abused and distorted in partisan ways, and that tea "party" wishes to correct the distortion and eliminate the abuse. And I don't believe their other main goal, correcting the undisciplined, uncontrollable spending (which ties in with constitutionalism) is partisan either.
And one diminishes his own beliefs by compromising them. Going along to get along as a belief system cannot be compromised or diminished since its core principle, if it can be called a principle, IS compromise. I am not sure what Christie's core principle is. He says various things. He does, as you say, appear to be "conservative." Maybe he is (whatever it means to him in terms of what he wants to conserve). It would be a pleasant surprise if he got elected President and became as hard core "conservative" as Obama is "liberal."
The Democrat Party, no matter how much I disagree with their agenda, has to be admired for its unwillingness to compromise. And it never gives up, even if it loses, it keeps coming back with an even ramped up effort with even more "rabid partisan" rhetoric. Would that the Repubs would fight that way for the oath of office they swore to.
I think the GOP would benefit much from a Republican-light nominee. A hard change in course to the right from what's been established by both parties over the past decades would be seen are more progressive than what we have today.
-spence
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What do you mean by "benefit"? Just winning? "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" I know, it's the Bible, one of those stupid little guide books that Nebe frowns upon. But it has a lot of good lines, and that one says a lot to me. I don't know what the soul of the Republican Party is now. That of the Democrat Party is obvious. I realize that you believe both parties should be mostly similar. Not even certain in how you would like the Republican Party to be different. Does "Republican light" mean more or less like the Democrats, but just not let them go too far into the socialist stratosphere? At least not right away--just slow down a bit?
And I don't know what you mean by "what's been established by both parties over the past decades". You call it more "progressive than what we have today." So is that it? Democrats progressive--Republicans progressive light? Well from the way the Repubs keep giving, after sputtering complaints, in to Dem demands, I think that is what we have today. I don't know how that has changed over the past decades, its even got more "progressive." I would think you should be happy with the way it is.