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“A fundamental change is gripping the Republican grass roots as they animate the GOP surge to a major victory in the 2010 elections. No longer do evangelical or social issues dominate the Republican ground troops. Now economic and fiscal issues prevail. The Tea Party has made the Republican Party safe for libertarians. There is still a litmus test for admission to the Republican Party. But no longer is it dominated by abortion, guns and gays. Now, keeping the economy free of government regulation, reducing taxation and curbing spending are the chemicals that turn the paper pink. It is one of the fundamental planks in the Tea Party platform that the movement does not concern itself with social issues. At the Tea Parties, evangelical pro-lifers rub shoulders happily with gay libertarians. They are united by their anger at Obama’s economic policies, fear of his deficits and horror at his looming tax increases. Obama’s agenda has effectively removed the blocks that stopped tens of millions of social moderates from joining the GOP.” [emphasis added]
— Dick Morris, 10/19/10 (thehill.com)
This melding of traditional GOP ideology with the Tea Party's focus on conservative economic and fiscal concerns is a great step toward a rational realignment of our national two-party political system. For too long have the distinctions between Democrats and Republicans relied on what I believe to be the less-important of the two major political issue-classes — social issues rather than fiscal issues.
It is, of course, an oversimplification, but I believe reasonable people can frequently disagree on social issues (abortion, guns, gays, and the like). But reasonable people should be in general agreement on the advantages of a fiscally responsible federal government. I am well aware that even the community of eminent economists frequently disagrees on the best way to conduct economic policy, especially at the federal level. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist or a Supreme Court Justice to know gross fiscally-irresponsible policy when it's being foisted on the general public.
With such a realignment we have the new and improved Republican Party championing, as before, fiscally conservative policy, while welcoming a diversity of opinion on social policy. While the Democrats are left to stew in their repudiated no-account fiscal-wantonness and their frequently absurd social-engineering initiatives.
We can have new names for the parties, too, to facilitate the affiliation choices for some of our perpetually perplexed voters. The Republican Party could be called the "Party for Grownups", and the Democrats could be the "Leftover Party".
Post 1,455 The Grownups and the Leftovers
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