For quite some time I have been saying this essentialy. Although I will not go so far as many others do, it has become apparent that the Republicans are political animals, and little more.
| Demopublicans vs. Republicrats by Gary Benoit November 13, 2006 |
Email this article Printer friendly page |
Despite the notion that an ideological chasm separates the national Republican and Democratic parties, the record shows that there is little difference between the two. When pundits and politicians give us their expert opinion about the battle between Republicans and Democrats in the November 7 congressional elections, they generally describe the opposing forces as occupying opposite sides of a giant political divide. The Republicans, they say, occupy the conservative high ground — or low ground, depending on the perspective of the commentator — while the Democrats occupy the liberal low ground — or high ground. Of course, since the mainstream media are liberal, the Democrats are usually portrayed as occupying the higher ground. The Republican Party has been associated with conservatism and the Democratic Party with liberalism since at least the days of FDR. Over the years, the institutional power exercised by these major political titans has ebbed and flowed. During the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats controlled not only the White House but both houses of Congress. At other times the government was divided, with neither party controlling all three bodies. But in recent years, the Republicans have controlled all three.
Until now. As we write, about two weeks before the elections, public opinion surveys indicate that the American people have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the Republicans — so much so that the Republicans could lose their majority control of the House and perhaps even the Senate.
The discontent with Republicans has been fueled by the growing unpopularity of the Iraq War and by the association of Republicans with President Bush, whose public approval ratings have been plummeting. The disclosure of Congressman Mark Foley’s sexually explicit instant messages to underage male congressional pages has also harmed Republicans’ election prospects. All of these factors have combined to create a perfect storm for beleaguered Republicans.
Discontent with the war has become so severe that even some Republican congressmen have tempered their support for President Bush. “GOP’s Solidarity on War Is Cracking,” proclaimed a Los Angeles Times headline on October 20. The Times article noted that “on the campaign trail, ‘stay the course’ is a nonstarter, even among Bush’s staunchest allies,” and that “GOP candidates are breaking with the White House over how long troops should remain in Iraq.” Many voters are angry, and their mindset is to vote the bums out of office. “People are not voting for the Democrats on this issue,” Pew Research Center director Andy Kohut said. “They’re voting against the Republicans.”
This issue of The New American will be mailed to subscribers just one week before the elections, so when you read these words you may know if the gathering storm clouds threatening Republicans will sweep enough of them out of office to put Democrats in charge of the House for the first time since the “Republican Revolution” of 1994. The Senate too may fall to the Democrats, though that’s less likely. It is the prospect of a new “Democratic Revolution” that has caused pundits and politicians alike to assign great weight to this year’s congressional elections. After all, they say, a “Democratic Revolution” would radically alter Congress.
Or would it? Despite the often-repeated notion that a huge ideological chasm separates the Republican and Democratic parties, the record shows that there is little difference in substance between the two. Consequently, there is little reason to expect that a “Democratic Revolution” would lead to a radical ideological shift. This would be true even if a Democrat-controlled Congress were not to operate in a divided government, which obviously it would since George W. Bush would still be president.
The Record in Brief
Even Americans who are not immersed in politics generally understand that conservatism is the philosophy of limited government and low taxes, while liberalism is the philosophy of a larger, more activist government. Bush revisited these contrasting philosophies when he observed at an October 19 campaign stop in Pennsylvania: “Republicans have a clear philosophy: We believe that the people who know best how to spend your money are the people that earn that money, and that is you. The Democrats believe that they can spend your money better than you can.” Rhetoric aside, the Republicans have proven themselves to be very capable of spending other people’s money, which is not to say they should have spent the money in the first place or that they spent it well.
If the Republican-controlled Congress were truly pursuing a policy of fiscal conservatism, it should have at least slowed down the increase in federal spending compared to the increase in spending during the Clinton era, if not cut spending in the absolute sense. Instead, federal spending has actually increased at a faster rate with George W. Bush in the White House than it did when Bill Clinton was president.
Full story here
http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4294.shtml
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 