If you remember my superboring lecture way back in the day, I compared the left-right spectrum of politics to ice cream stands along a beach.
Looking at the senate, let's start from the left. First off, there's a lot of Democrats. Secondly, there's quite a spectrum of them. There's your Schumers and Kennedys, sure, but there are also Landrieus and Byrds. So let's imagine that the Democrats start at the far left (say point 0) and extend halfway over (point 50).
The Republicans? Well, there's not very many, as you know, and you may also know that the Republican senators who lost were pretty moderate. The ones left are much more often the DeMints and the Chamblisses of the world. So if you start at the far right (point 100) and extend left, you'd probably only go, say, 30 points over (to point 70).
This leaves a 20-pt gap (again, everything is obviously quite arbitrary) from points 50-70 that is up for grabs. I'm not sure if I've presented this in a manner that makes any sense, but if so, you'll see that the Republicans have the option of moving to the right (and into obscurity) or taking up some of that middle, at least for now. If they don't move at least in the short run, there's gonna be a long night in store for them in November 2010.
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Well said.
ReplyDeleteIn modern politics, if ever there was a time for a third party to become relevant, that time is now. The Republican brand is terrible and suffering an identity crisis (social or fiscal?).
ReplyDeleteOf course, the in equilibrium we would converge back to two major parties, but it's not impossible that one of those parties would not be Republicans.
I agree! I'm really (foolishly) hoping that a fiscally conservative (with a little room for oversight), socially liberal (relatively, as compared to most conservatives) new party will emerge from all this and leave crazies like Palin and Cheney and their ilk buried in the past.
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