“Don’t you think that with the reaction coming from the public right now that anyone considering the GOP run for the next election might lean more toward the conservative side?”
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Certainly.
Any thing but a bold and strong move to the right would be suicide for the GOP.
My point was, that I don’t have confidence that the leadership of the Republican Party is going to allow that to happen.
Yes I understood that. Well stated!
I guess all we have to hope for is getting different bodies in those seats come the 2010 elections.
Maybe?
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Certainly.
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I posted this on another thread yesterday (Jeb Bush on ditching Reagan), but I agree fully. The way forward for the GOP is not going "wet" - to quote Lady Thatcher.
One can argue that the poll numbers I quote are just blips on the curve and not a trend at all, but given the economic and political outlook in conjunction with the "strange" behaviour of the Libs (eg Perez Hilton, the frivolous ethics complaints against Gov Palin), which is already meeting a backlash I think this may be the first signs of a real conservative revival:
I just wrote this in an e-mail to a friend:
Not that our media and "expert" commentators will notice but the political climate in the US may be changing:
#1: According to Rasmussen's daily tracking poll on Obama's approval he was at +1 on Saturday. That's his lowest so far. Still those who "somewhat" approve are at 54% vs 45% for those who somewhat disapprove. But it is a large decline in approval rate since his heydays in late January.
#2: Another Rasmussen poll shows that for only the second time in 5 years the Republicans are polling better than the Democrats (41% vs 38%). The last time before this was in March.
#3 Despite an increase for the GOP in the generic congressional ballot, fewer voters consider themselves Republicans (32.6% vs 38.7% Dems).
#4 This is in keeping with the fact that 69% of GOP voters feel that their representatives in Congress have lost touch with their voters.
#5 It does not look like the voters want the GOP to move more towards the middle ground. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans say it is more important for the GOP to stand for what it believes in than for the party to work with President Obama.
All of the above figures come from various Rasmussen polls. But these figures tally well with some results from a recent Pew poll on gun control and abortion.
#6 In a Pew poll released 30 April, it was found that public attitudes on a pair of contentious national issues -- gun control and abortion -- have moved in a more conservative direction over the past year.
#7 For the first time in a Pew Research survey, nearly as many people believe it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns (45%) than to control gun ownership (49%). The figures for protection of the right to bear arms has never been so high, not even after 9/11, and the figure for gun control has never been below 54% before.
#8 The proportion saying that abortion should be legal in all or most cases has declined to 46% from 54% last August. Currently, 44% say abortion should be illegal in most (28%) or all cases (16%), up slightly since last August (41%). The Pew poll has only been this close on abortion once before (August 2001). Otherwise there has always been a larger proportion of the voters favouring abortion.
#9 Add to this the "tea parties" and fact that Arlen Specter had to change parties to stand any chance of saving his seat in the Senate I would say that there appears to be the beginning of a conservative backlash against the swing to the left in the elections of 2006 and 2008.
Hmm, I guess Jeb Bush does not agree with my analysis.