Steele's Speech to the RNC, 19 May
 

Some highlights here.

Important, and more than a little libertarian in its thinking too. Have to keep an eye out for the full text.

More of this in this op-ed.

He has said some pretty bombastic things as of late. At first I thought he might be able to bring the Republickins back to the middle, now I seriously doubt it.

http://cellar.org/2009/gallupgop.gif

Steele's got nothing. They are going to appeal to the base, religious conservatives.

Almost the only two demographics they've already appealed to.

Steele was hired to administer an "ideological purity test", because the higher-ups in the party can't seem to understand why they lost the elections.

If the GOP wants to have a chance in 2012, they need to dump Steele and put someone in the position that understands that you don't win by "purifying" the base.

Republicans need to start appealing tot he fiscally conservative but socially liberal crowd soon. I'm guessing that if they don't they will either die out or be forced to change in the next ten to twenty years.

I predict that a new party will have to be formed and organized. We really need to shake up this two party system that has screwed up our politics for years now.

I don't see any reason to believe that it will right now but if the republican party dies then it might be possible for the Democratic party to split in half over a future issue.


I agree that more political parties need to form and become influential but I don't think it will happen anytime soon, at least at a national level. Not only do politicians need to stay within the population's mainstream views, they also have to appeal to business as well and that is a large limiting factor. No business will support a far left or right candidate. Too many workers rights and not enough subsides would hurt many corporations very badly and they would never accept that.

All major change (labor, feminist, civil, gay rights) have all come from grassroot organizations. If anything big is going to happen in the future, it will have to be from there. Even if a new national political party does rise up, they will most likely be no different then what we have now. I don't really see the two party system as the problem, I see it as a result of the problem.

If the two party system is a result of the problems they need to find a new fix. This one is not working.

There are tremendous legal barriers to a third party. Most states have ballot access and other laws set up in place to keep the two-party system going.

I'm starting to think our current setup its not suppose to "work". Its difficult to discuss this topic without sounding like a complete nutjob but it seems that as long as politicians, no matter Republican or Democrat, hold certain views, they will be more or less tolerated. The two party system is very effective at focusing mainstream debates on particular issues such as abortion, gay rights, etc without going into other issues such as militarization, globalization, and heavy subsidizing, which both parties agree upon. It can be seen with Obama. While he is vastly different then Bush on a few issues, he still is holding military campaigns, he is still attempting to spread US influence, and he is still subsidizing corporations.

You can go even further and compare the differences between McCain and Obama. McCain's foreign policy was much more neoconservative and tried to spread US influence through military force (Iraq war) while Obama's foreign policy is much more neoliberal and tried to spread US influence through economic force (Iran, Cuba). Obama's foreign policy is much more efficient and that is one reason why I believe he got so much attention. It makes sense why Obama had 95% of positive television time, his policies were more accepted by businesses.

I would not be surprised if the two party system was "designed" or at least molded into serving the purpose of focusing debates on "non-important" issues while having both parties agree on other "priorities". This view can be seen as conspiracy theorist but if business does hold the most power and influence on this country, it would be more surprising that they didn't have a massive influence on how this country is run.

Note, when I say business I do not mean a group of old rich WASPs sitting in a dark room drinking scotch and smoking cigars figuring out how to run the world. I mean it in more open sense. On many issues, it is obvious that some policies will be better for the economy then others so knowledge doesn't have to be centralized for it to be universally agreed upon by "business".

Of course the two-party system is designed (or has evolved) to keep the public's attention focused on a handful of divisive issues, while the politicians, who have passed through the necessary, purposefully-designed, prerequisities to acquire their power are equally (regardless of political flavor) beholden to corporate interests.

Of course the public is ping-ponged back and forth between two (AND ONLY TWO, from now until the end of time, if the current system operates as designed) different-seeming parties, who actually agree on a core set of issues--the ones that nobody ever talks about, or think that they would sound like a "nutjob" for mentioning.

What part of this is not self evident?

I know of a very conservative Republican who after the 2000 election put up a picture of a crying baby bordered with "Seal of the Democratic Party".

I'd think about putting up something similar about the Republicans, but so far their message is too disjointed to even make fun of. Any elements that do have any cohesion are so mired in self-parody that there's nothing left to joke about.:headshake

best I could find
http://www.webdelsol.com/The_Potomac/issue2/crybaby.jpg

That's the one, except for the words.