I voted today, in Virginia, entirely for Republicans. Not because I thought that they are outstandingly better choices than the Democrats, I voted Republican to send a message to the Obama administration and the Democrats in the Congress.
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I’m not sure what the message is. I fear that the result of voting for right wing Republicans will be that Obama and the Democrats in Congress should forget about compromise and do as they please.
Where are the centrist candidates these days???
Obama and the Democrats have already forgotten about compromise.
Remember when he told critics to shut up and get out of the way?
I think there are a couple of point to realize here. One, criticisms from Bush officials, notably Cheney, is what prompted this. Any any situation, it’s a pretty tough standard of decorum to say that the second guy cannot respond to the criticisms of the first guy.
Secondly, and more importantly, this little verbal skirmish was not between the Administration and any current officials. If anything, Obama’s rhetoric about current Congressional Republicans has been remarkably restrained. That’s where the potential for compromise lies, not with retired ex-officials.
Having said all that, I do agree with your basic original premise that Republicans are not much better than Democrats these days. In my opinion, if we keep seeing our choice as between just Democrats and Republicans, we’ll keep getting more of the same incompetence out of Washington. The Republicans f’ed it up for six years; now the Democrats are in power and getting it wrong. We need to reject the culture of partisanship. As a people we need to stop being gullible to this manipulation — Republicans manipulating conservatives, Democrats manipulating liberals. Inside the corridors of Congress, none of them is anyone’s friend.
The problem is that each party thinks they know what’s best and if one party gets too much control, they’ll start abusing their power. We need more conservatives in Congress if only to stop the progressives from screwing things up. That’s not to say that an all conservative Congress would be ideal, I only mean that without the recognition that Americans are not all on board with the progressive agenda, the Democrats in Congress have been trying to push, what I see as, harmful legislation.
Exactly. Pretty sad when gridlock is our best bet, isn’t it?