[thechat] 'Merican politics

[Bob Davis]

On Thursday, May 24, 2001, at 10:00 AM, Ron White wrote:

> What do you all think about the Senator from Vermont resigning from the
> Republican party?
>

Ugh...Vermont has Sanders (who looks ok when he's on national TV but 
looks like an insane old man who will take your baseball from you if it 
lands in his yard when he's talking to the local press) and Jeffords.
Two independents.
Sanders is pretty much just a Socialist, but flies the independent flag.

> BURLINGTON, Vt., May 24 — Ending two days of speculation, Sen. Jim 
> Jeffords
> of Vermont announced Thursday he was leaving the GOP and becoming an
> independent — thus handing Senate power to the Democrats and reshaping 
> the
> nation's political landscape. "Given the changing the nature of the 
> national
> party, it has become a struggle for the party's leaders to deal with me 
> and
> for me to deal with them," he said.

The party is changing - I'm not sure I like it much either, and I'm a 
Republican. Now, the decision to leave is, I think, a mistake. He can't 
change the party from outside.  If he thinks the party is making 
mistakes, he would serve them  (and those who elected him as a Rep.) 
better if he stayed inside and worked to make the changes.

Bailing is just a weak move. I think one of the Senators from NH did the 
same thing a couple years ago - and came back.  Is Ben Whitehorse 
Campbell (a Native American congressman - I think the only one, 
actually) still in the Republican party?

Much of what the republican party seems to stand for now in the social 
sphere is totally in opposition to what I believe.  However, they do 
represent a lot of my feelings wrt government poking around and getting 
too involved in our lives.

There's a mentality up here in New England that is more of "Hey, you 
guys down there, leave us alone - we know what we're doing". You see it 
especially in the small communities in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 
We take care of our own here, and don't need any meddling politicians 
from inside the beltway to tell us how we're going to do things.  Things 
that work in Chicago aren't going to work in a small, rural, alpine 
community that is covered in snow 6 months of the year.

I can understand how Jeffords might be feeling that the connection he 
has to any party is failing in the face of the changing political 
climate in the US.  On the other hand, I think he's making a mistake by 
not taking the bull by the horns.  Hell, he was put in DC by Vermonters 
to make sure that they the politicians there pay attention to what 
Vermont wants. Being an outsider isn't going to help that.

bob

--
bob davis
bobd at members.evolt.org