Monday, November 5, 2007

THANKS Eliot!







Few would doubt that New York’s Republican Party is a mess. It’s a tumultuous mix of moderate (socially Liberal) blue-haired old ladies who adore the likes of Ron Lauder and hard scrabble, white ethnic Conservatives from the “outer boroughs, Upstate and Long Island.
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They were trounced in the recent Governor’s race and Joe Bruno’s days as State Senate majority leader seemed dwindling.
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Well, not any more!
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As Fred Dicker writes in today’s NY Post, “SOMBER Democrats are privately conceding that Governor Spitzer's controversial plan to give drivers' licenses to illegal aliens has done the impossible by reviving New York's long-moribund Republican Party.
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"He's the best thing for Republicans since Mario Cuomo," one of the state's most influential Democrats angrily told The Post.
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"Spitzer has revived the Republican Party in a way nobody, and I mean nobody, could have predicted," the well-known Democrat continued.”
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In New York, that’s nothing short of amazing, because like nowhere else, the Republican Party here is a disaster.
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As Dicker notes, “Democrats and Republicans agree that Spitzer's plan has:
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* Seriously damaged Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, as shown in last week's Democratic presidential debate.
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* Endangered the now-slim Democratic control of the Nassau County Legislature which, GOP strategists insist, has a good chance of returning to Republican hands after tomorrow.
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* Helped guarantee blowout GOP wins in the hotly fought contests for Erie County (Buffalo) and Onondaga County (Syracuse) executive.
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* Given the entire New York GOP, and especially the Senate's Republican majority, a solid issue on which to seek re-election next year, at a time when the party was mired in the high-tax, big-spending and low-job-growth legacy of former Gov. George Pataki.
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* Virtually ended Spitzer's chance to be taken seriously one day as a presidential candidate.
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But it’s not all good news for New York’s GOP, how sad is that, that you have to rely on a Democratic disaster to “look good by comparison?”
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Hardly anything you’d want to hang your hat on.


6 comments:

Seane-Anna said...

This is like an interception in a football game. I just hope the NYGOP doesn't drop the ball.

WomanHonorThyself said...

hi there..youre so right..it does look pretty grim doesnt it?

JMK said...

I don't hold out much hope for the NY GOP and that's because it is a Party led and controlled by its monied "Country Club wing," which is almost as Liberal as the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

In short, they have a long history of dropped balls.

JMK said...

It always seems to look pretty grim for Conservatives in NY, WHT.

The northeast is pretty Liberal overall and in places like NY, the GOP is almost as Liberal as their Democratic counterparts.

Mick Brady said...

"He's the best thing for Republicans since Mario Cuomo"

Thanks, JMK. As a former New Yorker, I am now a little less depressed when I think of my home state.

As for your description of the Republican Party back there, it could apply word-for-word to the GOP in California as well.

Difficult to watch, even more difficult for people like me to become a part of. It is in dire need of new blood, though.

JMK said...

Mick, the GOP is a fatally flawed institutution, at least in my view.

They are, at heart, a Blue Blood Country Club set that has benefitted greatly from the Democrats embrace of both social and fiscal socialism.

If the Democrats hadn't embraced higher taxes and more government, more social programs, the view of predators as "victims of society," and group politics, they'd have never lost their base - working white ethnics.

They've lost that group and as a result, they've lost the South and much of the West as well.

If only the Democrats would jettison the extreme Left-wing of that Party (the Moore-Gore-Soros-MoveOn wing) and move back to the Center with their "New (Blue Dog) Democrats, they'd have a real shot at swamping the GOP.

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