@realjohnboy,
realjohnboy wrote:
I would agree with you, CI, about Rush and Cheney et al so vocally espousing the conservative Repub view. The leadership of the party wants to move, I think, more towards the center. It is going to be tough.
In the Dem party, there are folks (like me) over on the liberal left who are not too happy, but who can appreciate that capturing the middle ground while the Repubs are in a bit of a pickle is a good idea.
Personally I don't think the GOP has much recognized leadership right now. Yes you have some popular conservative talk show hosts who don't guide 'conservative thought' but are mostly speaking what their audiences are already thinking. They are NOT seens as the GOP leaders by most of their audiences, however.
Liberal Republicans such as Olympia Snow are low profile and rarely much in the public eye. Ditto for the extreme libertarian Republicans such as Ron Paul. The true modern conservatives are barely known. So those clips of Republicans on the evening news or those solicited to be talking heads on the cable news programs will too often be religious far right wingers or the neocons such as Newt Gingrich.
That distorts considerably what the rank and file 'conservative' American mostly thinks, believes, and wants from government. Obama is far left of much of his consituency, and those 'talking GOP heads' are also missing the mark with much of theirs.
I don't know if there is sufficient time before the next election for what I believe to be the disconnected majority to organize and make a difference. I remain hopeful, however. I think the average person who tilts left and the average person who tilts right in the USA probably share more convictions than they differ. All we need is to raise up a leader with the vision and integrity of conviction to tap into that large American majority and lead us back to common sense rather than what either the GOP or the Democrats have offered us lately.
