Dogpile on the MAINstream Moderate Coalition!

OK, I'm not quite sure why I'm considered the guy who's always writing on this stuff. I see it, and I comment about it. It fascinates me, because it's really stirring the pot up as of late in my party, the GOP. I can't remember a single issue that' s energized the party like this in years.

You have the MAINstream Coalition Members who are gushing over it. And there are others who, if they had a Spear and Magic Helmet*, might prefer to be calling down an electrical storm to smite the others.

And then there are others who don't care one way or the other.

Add Bob Ellis of the Dakota Voice newspaper, website and blog to the second group. He uses his website (And I suspect this will be a newspaper editorial as well) to give them heck in an editorial he entitles "The Belief Buffet":

Yet I can at least respect true, unabashed dyed-in-the-wool liberals for one thing. I may vehemently disagree with them, and will oppose them at every opportunity, but I respect the fact that they take a stand for what they believe and aren't trying to fool the people into believing they're reasonable.

But it's people like the so-called Republicans forming the so-called South Dakota Mainstream Coalition that I have no respect for. I have no use for them because they are not only working against the core values of their own party, but are trying to deceive people as they do so.

And...

Yet with so-called moderates, you get a mish-mash, often-schizophrenic set of beliefs that do not harmonize with one another and often work against one another. It seems like they get their philosophy from the "Belief Buffet," where they just pick-and-choose the outlooks that appeal to their appetites at a given moment, without regard for whether they go well together or make any sense. "Consistency Optional," seems to be the sign above the stack of plates at the moderate food-line of ideas.

I can accept the fact that many everyday citizens dine regularly at the Belief Buffet. However, since these "Mainstream Coalition" Republican "moderates" are educated and experienced people, without the excuse of ignorance, I can only conclude that the dichotomy is deliberate. As much as I want to believe the best of people, I'm left with the conclusion that they are really more liberal than "moderate," and since they realize that most people are waking up to the fact that liberalism is a dead-end street, they need to deceive people into believing they really aren't as liberal as one might otherwise think.

I'd encourage you to go visit Bob's website and read the editorial in it's entirety.

What's really interesting in this, is that I think we're seeing the largest source of the criticism coming from out west. I'm not noticing a lot of anger and discussion over the whole thing coming from the east.

On top of all of that, you have several of the members coming from the west themselves. Stan Adelstein, J.P. Duniphan, and Mac McCracken all call that their home territory.

When a conservative coalition was announced last year, it was as if there was almost a yawn. Now there is talk of a moderate coalition, and people are circling the wagons. I'm would not be surprised to see people calling for candidates to sign a loyalty oath to the party platform in the near future.

I think people identify with a political party for their own reasons; family tradition, values, a friend or relative running for office, etc. As I've said before, you have that 20-25% core, and then people will vote with the party in varying degrees of loyalty based on issues, who is running, and how good of a race they've ran.

Hopefully all this will blow over soon before it starts blowing people away from the party. Because we still need some of those people to vote for us on election day.

(*Elmer Fudd from "What's Opera Doc" - the ultimate Bugs Bunny cartoon)