In America, one of the interesting aspects of politics is how divorced from ideology it so often is.
Throughout most of the country, political affiliation, like religion is inherited. It often takes on the aspects of team sports, sort of athletics for non-athletes - the Red team versus the Blue team.
On Staten Island, where I grew up, politics is largely ethnic. The two major groups are Irish and Italian – the Irish are largely Democrats and the Italians mostly Republicans.
With an Italian mother and an Irish father, the ethnic team sports aspects of Staten Island politics has always been a little dicey for me.
Moreover, for any number of reasons, ideology has always been more vital to me than politics.
At an early age I was inculcated with an almost Catechismal adherence to individual liberty, private property rights and the ONLY economic system those things are most respected in – the market-based economy.
That has been the basis for my voting my entire life. I tend to oppose both fiscal and social Liberals and support Conservatives on most issues.
When polled most Americans tend to support most of the same positions that I do, four of five Americans want a smaller, less intrusive government and lower taxes, almost 2/3s (64%) support the NSA surveillance program, I’m even with the majority of Americans on the abortion issue – I’m WITH the 65% who support first trimester abortion and I’m also with the 65% of Americans who oppose late term abortion.
In a sense, I’m the quintessential “Center-Right American.”
It is that kind of electorate that had the Gingrich Congress assume control of Congress in January of 1995, with a very clear mandate from the American people. That mandate was outlined in Gingrich’s Contract With America.
That Congress shut down the federal government back in 1995 to force Bill Clinton to accept massive federal budget cuts and a Cap Gains rate cut...those things are what brought about some of the lowest Misery Indexes in history AND those significant budget surpluses of the late 1990s. The DeLay and Hastert Congresses abandoned Gingrich's principles and sullied the GOP in the process. They became just another set of pigs at the trough. As a result the neutered, pro-government GOP ceded Congress to the Democrats in the elections of 2006 , allowing the nation to lurch back onto a Keynesian course.
Since 2007 the economy has only gotten worse, which opened the door in 2008 for a Democratic take-back of the White House..
Throughout most of the country, political affiliation, like religion is inherited. It often takes on the aspects of team sports, sort of athletics for non-athletes - the Red team versus the Blue team.
On Staten Island, where I grew up, politics is largely ethnic. The two major groups are Irish and Italian – the Irish are largely Democrats and the Italians mostly Republicans.
With an Italian mother and an Irish father, the ethnic team sports aspects of Staten Island politics has always been a little dicey for me.
Moreover, for any number of reasons, ideology has always been more vital to me than politics.
At an early age I was inculcated with an almost Catechismal adherence to individual liberty, private property rights and the ONLY economic system those things are most respected in – the market-based economy.
That has been the basis for my voting my entire life. I tend to oppose both fiscal and social Liberals and support Conservatives on most issues.
When polled most Americans tend to support most of the same positions that I do, four of five Americans want a smaller, less intrusive government and lower taxes, almost 2/3s (64%) support the NSA surveillance program, I’m even with the majority of Americans on the abortion issue – I’m WITH the 65% who support first trimester abortion and I’m also with the 65% of Americans who oppose late term abortion.
In a sense, I’m the quintessential “Center-Right American.”
It is that kind of electorate that had the Gingrich Congress assume control of Congress in January of 1995, with a very clear mandate from the American people. That mandate was outlined in Gingrich’s Contract With America.
That Congress shut down the federal government back in 1995 to force Bill Clinton to accept massive federal budget cuts and a Cap Gains rate cut...those things are what brought about some of the lowest Misery Indexes in history AND those significant budget surpluses of the late 1990s. The DeLay and Hastert Congresses abandoned Gingrich's principles and sullied the GOP in the process. They became just another set of pigs at the trough. As a result the neutered, pro-government GOP ceded Congress to the Democrats in the elections of 2006 , allowing the nation to lurch back onto a Keynesian course.
Since 2007 the economy has only gotten worse, which opened the door in 2008 for a Democratic take-back of the White House..
Interestingly enough, Barack Obama won election on November 4th, 2008 by running in favor of gun rights (the script of one famous Obama commercial went, “Barack Obama supports gun rights, our right to defend ourselves, the Second Amendment," the narrator says. "That's the truth."), tax cuts, the NSA surveillance program, pay-go to restore balanced budgets and a military surge in Afghanistan...on many issues, he was able to not only run to the Right of McCain, he made a better case for those things than McCain did.
In fact, Joe "the plumber" Wurzelbach made McCain's economic arguments better than McCain did...and THAT is the sorry state of affairs facing the Moderate (northeaster) wing of the Republican Party. They have the money, but few ideas and they resent the Conservative (Gingrich) wing that Party and have consistently and all too often, successfully been able to silence that wing.
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How the relatively blank slate Obama will govern is anyone's guess, but his pick of a former Israeli Army member and Conservative Democrat, Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff is interesting, to say the least. I'm willing to hope that President-elect Barack Obama will govern as he ran, as a Center-Right candidate and I'll let both our national security and the Misery Index tell the tale on that score.
