An interesting piece is posted at the Hoover Institution website about how California's Republican party has drifted off the centrist track but the state's GOP voters haven't. Morris P. Fiorina and Samuel J. Abrams write:
[There's been] a change in the image of the California Republican Party and a change in the kind of candidate it nominates. A generation ago, it was a pragmatic, broad-based party that emphasized issues such as taxes and spending of concern to the broad middle of the electorate (and even to many on either side). It was a conservative party when conservative was defined largely in economic terms-low taxes, efficient public services, and limited government. Today, it is an ideological, narrowly based party that defines its conservatism by social and cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage that are of only secondary concern to most Californians. Moreover, most Californians take more liberal views on such issues than do California Republican activists.
The middle of the road in California runs through the economically conservative but socially tolerant quadrant of the ideological space.
There's much food for thought here, as the GOP faces a crossroads after Rev. Huckabee's win in Iowa's benighted caucuses.
More. Blogger Rick Sincere notes the passing of former Wisconsin governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus (1926-2008), a Republican who in 1982 signed the nation's first statewide gay anti-discrimination law, saying on that occasion:
"It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love."
Rick comments that:
[Gov. Dreyfus] represented a Republican Party that held strong to its libertarian roots: the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, not the Republican Party of Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney (unless you mean the pre-2008 election cycle Mitt Romney). Dreyfus maintained his position about government intrusiveness through the rest of his life: He actively opposed the 2006 anti-gay-marriage amendment that was put on the ballot in Wisconsin. His side, unfortunately, did not prevail.
Let's hope that in the year ahead, the GOP finds its way back to the future.
14 Comments for “Purple California”
posted by Alex on
It’s not for nothing that the current incarnation of the GOP has been identified as the first true religious party in the US.
posted by ETJB on
Personally, calling socially liberal and fiscally conservative voters ‘middle of the road’ is deceptive.
Yet, something that often happens in both major parties; the ‘activists’ are the ones who show up to the primaries, conventions, caucues, etc.
posted by Bobby on
Why do people insist on demanding that republicans care only about low taxes and small government? That’s like telling democrats not to care about the environment or gun control or any other the other issues they like.
I’m sick of people who seek “unity” in politics by forcing us to drop all the so-called “divisive” issues. This country was founded on divisive and controversial issues. The founding fathers were radicals in their day. Freedom of religion, the second amendment, the first amendment, all of that was considered pretty radical back then.
I’m sick of hearing about “middle of the road” and how some people are turned off by politics. If politics turn you off, fine, don’t vote, what do I care? Maybe the Obama charade appeals to some people, specially that idiotic line “we’re not blue states, we’re not red states, we’re the United States.”
What a joke. Ask Paris Hilton who thinks people in the middle america are outdated because they don’t have access to a Starbucks.
People need to wake up, we need extremists to keep the country from going to far one way or the other. That’s what happened in europe, conservatives lost their guts and now any european politician can advocate raising food taxes, forcing people to pay congestion taxes, making people pay taxes if they throw out too much garbage, punishing people for hate speech and all kinds of nonsense that faces very little challenge.
posted by Brian Miller on
The California Republican Party is so beholden to the religious right that its few openly gay state committeemembers (who also form the backbone of the state chapter of Log Cabin Republicans) didn’t even dare to muster any sort of lobby of a GOP governor on the gay marriage issue.
It’s sort of hilarious — when San Diego’s conservative GOP mayor came out in favor of marriage equality, it was Democrats, Libertarians and Greens who rushed to support and laud him. The LCR blog didn’t offer public congratulations until a week afterwards — when it was “safe.”
Several GOP politicians (and candidates) in California who I have spoken with tell me that they cannot count on LCR at all to support them if they take a controversial (within the GOP) stance on gay issues. Which once again underscores the dangers of closely tying LGBT issues to one of the two old parties.
posted by ETJB on
The “two old parties” are the only viable options in most elections.
Again, if we want more viable optitions, then we need to focus more on how elections operate in the nation.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
The California Republican Party is so beholden to the religious right that its few openly gay state committeemembers (who also form the backbone of the state chapter of Log Cabin Republicans) didn’t even dare to muster any sort of lobby of a GOP governor on the gay marriage issue.
If they were that beholden to the religious right, they wouldn’t have ANY gay committee members.
Furthermore, no Republican is going to lobby for an unconstitutional Democrat bill, especially one that they know is nothing more than a gimmick — as is shown by the fact that the “libertarians” and Democrats who demand it never raise such bills in an election year, plus the fact that these same Democrats and “libertarians” are adamantly against a repeal campaign for Proposition 22.
Several GOP politicians (and candidates) in California who I have spoken with
Really? Name names.
posted by Herb Spencer on
“The California Republican Party is so beholden to the religious right that its few openly gay state committeemembers (who also form the backbone of the state chapter of Log Cabin Republicans) didn’t even dare to muster any sort of lobby of a GOP governor on the gay marriage issue.”
WRONG! Prominent G&L GOPers, including LCR’s CA leadership at the time and openly gay San Diego DA Bonnie Dumanis, met with Arnold, his Legal Affairs Secretary and other top officials to lobby him to sign the 2006 gay marriage law. Representatives of Equality California were also present, which was an invitation better left unextended, since after making all nice in the Governor’s office, they immediately went out and trashed the Governor within a week, in typical “in-your-face” (read, the kind that loses support) fashion.
posted by Brian Miller on
Prominent G&L GOPers, including LCR’s CA leadership at the time and openly gay San Diego DA Bonnie Dumanis, met with Arnold, his Legal Affairs Secretary and other top officials to lobby him to sign the 2006 gay marriage law.
They had a 15 minute meeting with him and refused to criticize his strident “no” position.
In the 2007 gay marriage law, in which a transpartisan coalition of people from every California political party — as well as independents — rallied to lobby Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the once-again-passed-law, LCR was nowhere to be found.
The governor refused to meet with community leaders and the only prominent Republicans supporting the law were the San Diego mayor, as well as a couple of elected officials in the Bay Area. LCR was literally missing in action and refused to participate in any of the lobbying efforts or commit a single dime of their supposed political capital.
While I’m far from an apologist for Equality California’s antics vis-a-vis their position on gerrymandering to “punish” the governor for his anti-gay vote, Log Cabin was completely worthless in the most recent gay marriage battle, and did the absolute minimum in the 2006 battle. No leadership whatsoever was demonstrated, and their whining about other groups’ activities is unjustified in the extreme when you consider that this was their one chance to lead and they ran and hid.
Of course other groups will fill the vacuum caused by LCR’s lack of leadership.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Actually, the reason Mr. Miller is being so vitriolic towards LCR right now is to cover up the fact that he and his fellow Democrat Party minions apparently are chickening out on the “equality” they demand.
Despite the anti-gay Traditional Values Coalition telling its constituents in a December 20 e-mail that Leno planned to introduce another marriage bill in January, Shannan Velayas, Leno’s press secretary, told the B.A.R. December 26 that Leno has no plans to introduce another marriage bill at this time.
Amazing. Just like they did in 2006, the last time it was an election year in California.
That should demonstrate quite nicely that the “marriage” bill is nothing more than a gimmick by legislators.
posted by Brian Miller on
the reason Mr. Miller is being so vitriolic towards LCR right now is to cover up the fact that he and his fellow Democrat Party minions apparently are chickening out on the “equality” they demand.
You’re an idiot.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Governor Dreyfus was of another era, the era of “business Republicans”. He would not be welcome in today in Wisconsin’s Republican Party, which has become unrecognizable to those of us in Wisconsin who came up in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
posted by Ashpenaz on
I would like to find a candidate who is pro-life and pro-gay rights. While I am glad there has been work in the scientific community to demonstrate that homosexuality is an inborn condition, I am afraid that religious conservatives will use the discovery of a “gay gene” to identify and abort gay children. Something similar is happening to children who are discovered to have Down’s syndrome–the parents choose to abort the child rather than accept the responsibility. There was an episode of Law and Order on this topic this week. I think gays need to realize that the pro-life movement protects us from a generation of gay children being aborted by a homophobic society.
posted by kittynboi on
Its only a matter of time before the right wing wants to implant and track all gays with RFID chips.
posted by Brian Miller on
The right wing is in terminal decline. It will either reinvent itself or die out and be replaced by something else that calls itself “conservative” but is very different from today’s conservatism.
If the Huckabee surge represents the “new right wing,” then the right wing is going to be a bunch of religious big-government socialist control freaks who fight with their arch-rivals — secular big-government socialist control freaks who differ on what parts of our lives should be micromanaged by government.