How Will The GOP Change Its Image-- More Extreme, Less Corrupt? Or Not?

A profoundly conservative and corrupt institution

The GOP is getting a lot of conflicting advise. The lunatic fringe of the congressional party-- like Mike Pence-- has declared that the key to rebuilding the shattered remains of the GOP is for it to become the anti-gay party and focus all the hatred and bigotry the Republicans thrive on in that direction. Perhaps they could start with a ritual excoriation of just re-elected GOP closet queens Mitch McConnell (R-KY), David Dreier (R-CA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), and Adrian Smith (R-NE). Meanwhile David Brady, deputy director of the conservative Hoover Institution has said that the GOP must abandon its "stringently right wing" positions on gay marriage, abortion and immigration or it could be banished to the political wilderness by the American people for decades. He says they've moved too far to the right while those elected officials who have been left behind in the reddest of red districts in the increasingly irrelevant South, say the way forward is more extremism. Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA), who we met earlier, is typical of this group. Republican thinkers, on the other hand, realize the GOP has ceded the center while chasing the extreme right base and that that goes absolutely nowhere-- except in Texas, rural Georgia and places with lots of ignorant Mormons.

"In order for the Republicans to win again they have to drop the anti-gay, anti-immigrant, strict pro-life, no-abortion social positions they have taken," said Brady. "They have to drop those things and move to the centre where the American voters are. Look at gay marriage-- support for gay marriage in America is going up; it's not going down. It's a similar situation if you're pro-life. The majority in America has been pro-choice for a while, and it's not moving anywhere... America used to be roughly divided along the lines of a third Republican, a third independent, and a third Democrat. Now it's 35 per cent Democrat, 28 per cent Republican and the rest independent.

"Let's go and talk about health-care reform. Let's go and … fund programs if they're necessary programs and not get stuck just on the fiscal responsibility... Sarah Palin is not a candidate who can win in a general election. At this point the frontrunners would be [Mitt] Romney, Palin, [Mike] Huckabee. But I think what might have to happen is a governor coming up out of the ranks in the same way that George [Bush] did in 2000."

Another prerequisite the GOP must fill before being taken seriously by mainstream-- if not Mormon-- voters is ridding itself of the endemic corruption that the congressional party has thrived on, especially under the auspices of Tom Delay, Denny Hastert, Rick Santorum, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, elected officials who serve the dual role of legislator and lobbyist. Next week, the notoriously corrupt Senate Republicans are going to take a stab at trying to clean house-- at least of their most high profile criminal-- convicted felon Ted Stevens. Whether Alaska's corrupt voting counting apparatus decides he won or lost his re-election bid, most-- though not all-- Senate Republicans want to toss the embarrassing old crook out of their caucus and out of the world's most exclusive club. Many Most of them are as crooked as Stevens and they don't appreciate the spotlight being focussed on their shadowy institution.

The Senate's most right-wing member, rabid neo-fascist Jim DeMint (R-SC) is demanding a vote on kicking Stevens out of the caucus, scheduled for November 18.

“The GOP leadership should be the first to act on this by expelling Stevens from the Republican conference and not assigning him any committee seats,” said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton. “We should clean our own house.”

It was not immediately clear whether DeMint’s effort would garner support from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.-- who has called on Stevens to resign-- or other GOP leaders.

DeMint’s effort will fizzle unless he lines up another senator to second his ejection motion.

If the effort succeeds, Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, would be stripped of his seats on the Appropriations and Commerce committees, both of which he once led.

...If the Republican conference chooses to boot Stevens, it would be acting in advance of any disciplinary action from the Senate Ethics Committee, which has been silent on the matter since July 29, the day Stevens was indicted.

Prior to the election, several Republicans, many of them in competitive races, called for Stevens to step down.

It will be interesting to watch the ones who have been re-elected, like Susan Collins and McConnell, each of whom has taken immense sums of tainted money (bribes) from Stevens, change their tunes now that they don't have to worry about being booted out of office for another 6 years.