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| Springtime for New England Republicans? |
| 2009-03-27 |
| There was a time when New England sent lots of Republicans to Washington. These were fiscally conservative but socially liberal "Rockefeller Republicans," also found in the Northwest, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. As the party turned socially conservative and fiscally reckless, many Yankees departed. The trend culminated in the George W. Bush administration, which seemed to stand for everything New Englanders didn't. The 2008 election felled the region's last surviving GOP House member, Connecticut's Christopher Shays. The six states now send only three Republicans to the U.S. Senate. They are New Hampshire's Judd Gregg, who will not run again in 2010, and the two Mainers, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, whom party hotheads dismiss as irritating curiosities. But green Republican shoots are emerging from the spring muck. The most conspicuous one involves the falling fortunes of embattled Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, up for re-election next year. A new poll has the once seemingly invincible Democrat tied with former Congressman Rep. Rob Simmons, a Republican from eastern Connecticut. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "These were fiscally conservative but socially liberal" IOW, leftists who don't like high taxes. See Andrew Sullivan. Look, I find some of the more extreme social conservatives intensely annoying, but without some of the social stuff, it isn't real conservatism, folks. (Just as I find those like Huckabee who are driven purely by bible thumping but are fully open to big-government collectivsm to be missing the point.) Small government and social restraint/social norming feed off of each other in a positive way. Small government societies tend to be ones where social conservatism holds sway, because it is necessary in that environment. And social conservatism (within reason) favors a small government approach. Both are necessary for strong small "l" libertarianisn and small "c" conservatism to flourish. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2009-03-27 06:29 |