What's going on with the GOP?

[BurtWorm]

Some are saying the GOP is cracking up, and they offer as evidence the "failure" of Frist to hold the team together over the filibuster controversy.

The Washington Post, on the hand, ran a piece by Dan Balz yesterday that suggested the Party is actually consolidating power in fewer and fewer hands, and that Republicans in Congress vote with the administration, on average, 9 out of 10 times.

Another possibility is that the crack-up in not just between the back benchers and the bosses, but among the bosses in particular--in other words, that the Southern strategy has come back to haunt the original corporate Republicans who launched it by making for uncontrollably strong theocrats, who are in the process of transforming the party to meet their own needs.

So what's really happening with the GOP?

[Gothmog]

1. Moderate senators are defying party

The moderates in the Senate got tired of the GOP line and showed some independence. This is a welcome sign for me.

The vote on stem cells in the house was also a good signed that the party is losing control.

The GOP can not keep appeasing its Christian right wing supports without offending other elements of their base.

[FreedomAngel82]

2. I agree

I'm confused myself so I'm just going to wait and see.

[rkc3]

4. I think we're beginning to see the differences between the theocrats and

the true conservatives in the party show up in their votes.

A few more items like Schiavo, the nukular option, and Justus Sunday and we'll see the cracks widen between the two wings of the republican party.

The conservatives are pissed that the Fristians are taking over their party and destroying the things they stood for - reduced role of government, smaller government, states rights, etc. The next year should be fun to watch as true conservatives start to sound more like Democrats and are skewered by guys like Dobson and his ilk.

[BurtWorm]

3. For those of you who think they're transforming into a theocratic party:

Do you think they have enough numbers to succeed with or without the old-style Republicans--the libertarians, the isolationists, the big business toadies? Or are they heading toward electoral trouble? Can the Democrats exploit the wedge they're driving between themselves?

[Goldmund]

5. Here's what I think

The corporatocrats on top of the Rebublican Party are not religious zealots. They couldn't give two shits about abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, Terri Schiavo, or any other "cultural" issue. Since they couldn't win elections solely based on their "real world" record, they have staked their political chips on support of authority-loving theocrats, the 25% or so of Americans who are religious fundamentalists. The neocons' political success has been dependent upon their image of brave Christian warriors fighting an unlikely fight against liberal heathens; and hence the slow move of the country toward a theocracy. The don't genuinely want a theocracy (or have much against it), but to MOVE toward it is what has spelled political success for them.

Well, it may just be that they have gotten to that point when if they stop the movement, the Christian Taliban will feel betrayed (on FR I saw a post yesterday where a guy was pledging to vote for Hillary in 2008 -- no shit). If they keep moving, they will seriously start chipping at the support of the dimbulb, but relatively sane Bush voters. Republican senators whose consituencies are mostly made out of that demographic are the ones who are slamming the breaks on the theocracy movement, and those from the more religious areas (Frist) are pushing further. It seems like a lose-lose situation for the GOP, and like they've painted themselves into a corner.

[BurtWorm]

6. I also heard an SC voter saying he would never vote for Graham again.

Of course that might mean he would vote for a more rabid version of Graham. It might also be pure bullshit. It's difficult to trust a word these people say.