The Associated Press
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., won't be asking for voters' support in November.
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Posted 42 weeks 1 day ago
Will the last House Republican please turn out the lights?
A steady stream of House Republicans are opting to "spend more time with family" rather than face the prospect of remaining in the minority for another two, four or who-knows-how-many years. Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia is the latest to announce his retirement.
Does the exodus of Republican lawmakers strengthen the desire for political change that presidential candidates talk about so much? Was the Republican majority a fluke? Are Democrats just better at winning elections?
Thoughts
Re: Eating their young
Submitted on February 2nd, 2008 by JoelI think that's an excellent point. A political movement starts to go into decline when it starts demanding ideological purity. Why is that a problem? Well, in politics, you generally need to mobilize a lot of people to get stuff done -- and if you're excluding people on the basis of one or two deviations from orthodoxy, well, after long you don't have the support of a lot of people to get stuff done.
The opposite danger, of course, is that you end up with a political movement that doesn't really believe in anything but power for its own sake, and does whatever is needed to attract the amount of people needed to gain power.
It's a tension that's hard to resolve. And I think the back-and-forth along this spectrum is probably part of the life cycle of any political movement, Republicans and Democrats included.
Will the last republican turn out the lights
Submitted on February 1st, 2008 by spelvin2002The far right just don't seem to have anyone to love now. The Coulters and the Limbaughs are eating their young, much like the Dems have done for so many years past. Is anything the Republican party promote now worth a vote, especially in view of the plunder, felony, mis/malfeasance, and outright villainy of the Iraq war?