Currently, the only Republican senators from New England are Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine. The only Republican senator from the Mid-Atlantic is Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. There aren’t any Republican senators from Virginia or West Virginia. And there are zero Republicans from New England in the House of Representatives. The Democrats are weak in the South, but they aren’t anywhere near as weak as the Republicans are in the central-to-northern Atlantic. Is it time for someone to launch a third party that will supplant the Republican Party in New England? I think it could be done. And it could include New York and California, too, due to the unconventional election laws in those two states.
In New England, the Republicans are so unlikely to win seats that there isn’t much risk of throwing an election to the Democrats by dividing the right. In New York, the electoral fusion law allows candidates to run on multiple slates. That means that it is possible to run simultaneously as a member of the Republican Party and as a member of a rival party. In California, the general election isn’t necessarily between the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee. Instead, California general elections are between the two top vote-getters in the primaries, even if they are from the same party, or a major and a minor party nominee.
Politicians who are ideologically similar to Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chafee, Jim Jeffords, Susan Collins, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, could in theory form their own party and run candidates mainly in New York, California, and New England. They might be able to build up a decent bloc in Congress before too long. While they might be more naturally inclined to caucus with the Democrats, like independent Angus King of Maine, they could caucus with the Republicans and force them to moderate their policies.
If I won the lottery, I might even try to make this happen. The modern southern-dominated GOP really should not even try to represent the values of Blue America. It’s a sham.
I see you are preoccupied with throwing the floundering elephants an anchor.
So you are going to peddle a separate Third Way Party?
This could certainly happen, but they would also need talent and leadership.
The last 30 years and especially 10 years has driven almost everyone capable convincing the voters he/she can lead competently (as in knowing how to run the government efficiently to deliver quality security and services) out of the GOP and government service at all.
The Republicans would likely have not done any better than Whigs without Lincoln’s leadership, courage, vision and political skill
I can’t help myself, so I’ll ask.
What do you envision as the platform or agenda of this new New England party aimed at supplanting the GOP as the Democrats’ effective, principal opposition?
How will they differ from the GOP?
How will they differ from the Dems?
Personally, I think the GOP could make an effective comeback if they dropped fiscal conservatism and went a little softer on social conservatism.
Drop the class war, in other words, and return to the Republicanism of Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Rockefeller.
Moderate their positions on gun control, immigration, and so on while remaining just noticeably to the right of the Democrats.
Drop the efforts to write hillbilly Christianity into the constitution and the law.
Their candidates can be kind to the silly beliefs of creationists but they absolutely must not personally accept creationism and they must be OK with some concessions to separationism like dropping “under God” from the pledge and keeping prayer and the Bible out of public schools and the Ten Commandments out of courthouses.
They should support civil unions, for example, while opposing gay marriage.
But the centerpiece and essential part of this reform, dropping the hard right effort to roll back every progressive achievement since the dawn of the 20th Century, is completely impossible for them.
The GOP cannot escape domination by the conservative movement because that’s where all their money comes from, and where most of their votes come from.
And the one thing all tribes of conservatives are about, first, last, and irrevocably, is the class war, the war against progressivism.
That won’t stop until their party shrivels more, over more decades, and loses a lot more elections.
That will create the political space, not quite large enough yet, for a return of Ripon Society Republicanism, though doubtless under a different name.
And that will in turn allow the Democrats – even push them – to move a bit to the left on social and social democratic issues.
Example.
When the new Ripon Republicans accept a national ban on assault rifles the Democrats can urge abolition of the 2nd Amendment in order to allow more aggressive policies in the cities against the prevalent form of gun murder, shootings with handguns.
When the Ripons renew Nixon’s suggestion of a national guaranteed income the Democrats can urge universal coverage with Medicare.
What a lovely pipe-dream, eh?
This is easy. What do Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, Jim Jeffords, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Rudy Giuliani have in common?
That’s your platform.
And, you know what? If you go talk to New York commuters in Connecticut and New Jersey and Long Island, they agree with that kind of moderate Republicanism with it’s pro-choice stance and its concern for the environment and public health. They’d much rather be a part of that party than the party of Jeff Sessions and Louie Gohmert and Rick Santorum.
How about, instead, a third party to the left of the Democrats, like they have in Vermont?
Then, the Snowes and Chafees can join the Democrats when it comes to state and local races, and the Democrats and Progressive Democrats can function as one party for national races.
In California, several candidates made it into the 50-50 general with no party preference (NPP), and in the 33rd District, a NPP candidate came damn close to defeating Rep. Henry Waxman. There were multiple Dem vs. Dem races and a couple of GOP vs. GOP races. I think there was only seat where third party candidates cost a major party a seat, and that was because many more left-leaning candidates ran in the primary than right-leaning candidates, leaving two Republicans as the top vote getters in a left-leaning seat.
New York offers the opportunity to run as a Democrat and as, say, a Working Families Party candidate. They just add up all your votes regardless of what spot on the ballot your vote came from. This makes it possible to win as third party candidate without splitting the left, but you are still the Democratic nominee.
New England doesn’t offer these opportunities. Two leftward candidates against one rightward candidate is just a huge risk, and the third party candidate almost never wins.
I don’t see the profit in messing with a situation where the left is winning every election.
But, for moderate Yankee Republicans, they really have no reason not to go for a new party since the GOP brand is in ruins in New England.
Here’s your House bunch, BooMan 🙂
Patrick Murphy (New Dem/R-FL)
Robert Pittenger (R-NC)
Andy Barr (R-KY)
Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI)
Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
Susan Brooks (R-IN)
Tony Cárdenas (D-CA)
Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
Rodney Davis (R-IL)
Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)
Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)
George Holding (R-NC)
David Joyce (R-OH)
Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ)
Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH)
Mark Meadows (R-NC)
Grace Meng (D-NY)
Luke Messer (R-IN)
Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
Trey Radel (R-FL)
Tom Rice (R-SC)
Keith Rothfus (R-PA)
Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)
Chris Stewart (R-UT)
Steve Stockman (R-TX)
Eric Swalwell (D-CA)
Jackie Walorski (R-IN)
Randy Weber (R-TX)
Brad Wenstrup (R-OH)
Roger Williams (R-TX)
Ted Yoho (R-FL)
I notice that Patrick Murphy yanked down the infamous letter from his web site.
Looking retrospectively over the past few decades rather than prospectively, Republicans in the northeast and far west have basically gone the way of the whigs. They’re disappearing.
I’d argue the reason that’s happened is that what used to be called moderate Republicans stopped acting/voting like moderates.
If the likes of Chaffee, Collins, Jeffords, Snowe, Specter, Voinovich, etc. had split with the dominant wing of their party and, for example, refused to filibuster anything but a handful of bills each session, they might have created a platform (and group of leaders) around which a new party or a revived moderate wing of the Republican party could could have coalesced.
Instead, they either stuck to the party line or abandoned the fight.