Rich has an question of the day on it
Jake has a particularly thoughtful piece from the other day as well.
I don’t believe in permanent majorities, but I do believe that disconnects between state and national parties can lead to state parties being left out in the wilderness for a long time. In Illinois there is an essential problem that Republicans have to deal with in that the media voter in Illinois is more liberal than the median voter nationwide, but even more importantly, more liberal than states where the GOP is strong. That means the Illinois GOP has to find a way to move to the center and yet maintain some sort of tie to the larger party. That’s not easy though we do see it happening the opposite way in states like Montana for Demcrats.
You have to have a base that’s willing to take more centrist positions for that state than the national party does and while I like and respect Jake, there’s a bigger problem in dealing with movement conservatives in Illinois–they aren’t willing to compromise.
And I see it fairly frequently where people I’m acquaintances with or friends with who are quite conservative on a number of positions, but are willing to compromise are called RINOs or some other term to label them an apostate. This certainly happens in Democratic circles too, but the impact is far different. I wasn’t run out of the party for supporting the Iraq War–they just let me come to my senses on my own.
That said, the movement conservatives aren’t interested in that sort of give and take and frankly, the Illinois public isn’t interested in the general movement conservative ideas. I’d love to see what Jake is proposing happen simply because it would create accountability, but I just don’t see it happening soon.