“I think the country benefits when you have a liberal Democratic Party and a conservative Republican Party.” - Steve Lonegan, GOP strategist & former candidate for the US Senate (NJ)
It was a shock, discovering that Steve Lonegan isn't some wet-behind-the-ears thirty-something with no depth & breadth of experience with the USA political landscape. He's a mere four years younger than moi, surely old enough to know better.
Moderate voices no longer set the GOP's leftward boundary. That's now set by what we considered "far right" conservatives - people ideologically entrenched in their fiscal & social ideology. The resulting vacuum to the right was filled with first Tea Party enthusiasts, who pushed things far far right & currently the Trump wing, which has taken to party off the map, to uncharted waters.
What we need, as a country, is for both parties to be able to run a Hillary Clinton AND a Bernie Sanders. HRC is far more moderate Republican in her political warp & woof than most conservatives can fathom. Bernie's longtime political identifier has included "socialist." The party ran both, with moderate Martin O'Malley joining them for the briefest moment.
John Kaisch - who cut taxes, wants to cut Social Security, increase defense spending, went after collective bargaining rights & is an outspoken opponent of Planned Parenthood - is the GOP image of a liberal Republican.
Most of the GO presidential nominee wannabes hewed as far to the right as they could. Except Trump, who went wherever he wanted & took a hapless party with him.
Steve Lonegan is wrong wrong wrong. What will benefit the country is his party getting itself into better balance between moderate & conservative & whatever is out there in the beyond-the-beyond. THEN, it needs to go head to head with a moderate & liberal Democratic party. That is when the country will benefit.
Until then, God bless & save America!
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