Well what do you know. I read the other day on Lisa V’s blog that Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty has switched parties from the Republicans to the Democrats.
Drip Drip Drip. The Republican coalition that took the Republican Party to power is slowly disolving into a puddle of red goo. Moderates are leaving the GOP either by becoming Democrats—if they are politicians trying to remain viable for office, or becoming decline to state voters—because they are turned off by the wack-a-doodle antics of the conservative bad hair club.
You can be sure the usual suspects will say Haggerty was really a liberal, not a real Republican, blah, blah. Yes, but without a broad coalition in Blue California the Republican Party is a back water in decline.
Another facinating fact is that many in the so called Tea Party movement are turned off by elected Republicans in general. I am encouraged by the fact that they are finally rejecting the elected Republican idiots that sold them down the river. I see where CRP Vice Chair Tom Del Bacccaro is speaking to a Tea Party in Los Angeles this weekend. If the Tea Party folks in LA are smart they will run him off of the stage.
So what is happening… maybe a new party is forming here. How about calling it the APP. The Angry Peoples’s Party.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I love you to Walter! I am glad I made you laugh. that was the intent! YOU are right Haggerty banned his own BBQ’s!
As for Decline to state. If you are looking for solutions…… Well forget it.
Haven’t you figured out that nothing in politics is ever solved. It is just one continuious fight!
As for being serious… Serious people have serious problems!
In the long run, I often thought that a more moderate and flexible Republican Party would lead to a more effective Democratic Party and a better political system over all. However, the very concept of moderation appears to be beyond definition there, as for example all the outcrys herein have been for a less moderate, more conservative, more dogmatic Republican party, with more discipline to a national ideological path than to local representation. Or so it would seem to someone like myself who is way outside the GOP.
As for constructive party building- who would this be directed at? What is the mechanism within the Republican Party for such changes to be brought to bear? Apparently judging from the petitions and legal references reported on here, the place to start with in dealing with the Republican hierarchy/organization is to start in the courts.
One place to start might be to talk to those who have left the party rather than going on the attack of ‘good riddens/they are no good etc.’
Then again, keep on the way you are going, makes defeating the GOP easier.
Renegade, your rants about GOP are becoming tiresome, What are your solutions? I still don’t understand what you consider a viable Republican or why.
Meg Whitman?
And presenting your argument as an “Us” v “Them” proposition sounds just like the faction you claim to rail against.
As a DTS I need to hear about solutions not on and on and on and on and on about how Republicans are dying, Republicans need to be moderate, Republicans have bad hair, Republicans eat their young, Wilson’s a loser, on and on and on and on and on without
ONE WORD
of positive constructive party building or policy analysis.
Your one-hit wonder of a topic betrays your lack of seriousness and thought on these matters, it’s a wonder BGR continues to let you post the same old thing over and over and over and over and over
BORING
Renegade, While writing my post, I was thinking to myself that I must be “one of the usual suspects” that you mention in your article. That was funny to me!
In 1996, I was getting ready to graduate from High School (out of diapers for some time) and couldn’t have told you who Scott Haggerty was, regardless of if you we’re asking about the RINO or the reinvented Democrat.
That’s great that Haggerty had a BBQ way back when, but who really cares? Was it open to the public and free of charge? I doubt it, therefore don’t make it sound like it was for the people, or planned to help broden the coalition.
RINOs such as Haggerty are a problem in the GOP, and one of the reasons the Party is in such bad shape. Haggerty and his fellow RINOs have campaigned as conservatives advocating accountability, low taxes and fiscal responsibility but when given the chance to govern failed to make good on their promises. Now Haggerty the Democrat can champion higher taxes, and lots of spending with less acountability and get away with it in his new Party. In fact, I’m sure the global warming crowd will love him for voting to ban wood burning fire places in Alameda County. But just don’t tell them about the Haggerty “coal burning” BBQ’s from the past.
Walter one of the usual suspects?
Scott Haggerty first got on the Alamed County Board of Supervisors in 1996. While you were either in grade school or diapers. For many years he had a lot of support for the conservative wing of the local Republican parties in Alameda and Contra Costa. I can remember many a BBQ he hosted at the at the Alameda County Fair grounds that was attended by many in the local conservative intellegencia. (Lyne Leach, Guy Houston, Bill Baker) etc. But it is too easy just to call him a RINO and walk away. In order for Republicans to make any kind of a comeback they need to reassemble a broad coalition. For now that coalition is getting awfully thin.
Haggerty was a Republican In Name Only! He didn’t get my vote when he was a Republican, and he surely won’t as a Democrat. His move to the Democratic Party is fitting though considering his positions are more in line with the left… remember the wood burning fire place ban?