Little Wolf's World

Over the weekend Wife and I were having a political discussion with her sister and brother-in-law while at a dinner theater for a preformance of Grease.  It wasn't very long but it really was something telling about the problems that the Republicans are going to be having over the next several years.

 

Wife is a 'Reagan Republican,' Brother-in-law is a registered Independent with Democratic leanings, Sister I am not really sure about but is probably and independent, and I am a registered Democrat.

 

Wife has always been a stanch Republican for as long as I have know her and I don't believe that she has ever voted for a Democrat.  (The only possible exception is if she voted for Clinton for a second term, and I don't remember.)

 

Wife was annoyed with the Republican party with their passage of the Terri Shiavo bill last year.  But that was just the beginning of her disillusionment.  She doesn't like the direction that this administration is taking the country in terms of civil liberties.  She has complained several times to me that she doesn't understand why the President and the Republican controlled Congress seem to feel a constant need to take away our Constitutional freedoms. (Yes we do discuss things, and she has her own opinions dispite what that last statement may sound like to those who have been reading my opinions of the Unitary Executive.)  She has been getting more upset with the ballooning deficit and the situation in Iraq. (We were both in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Now we are both upset with how poorly the conflict is being executed.) Wife was upset with the Republican Congressional leadership and their complaints about the seizure of items from Representative Jefferson's offices on the Hill.  (Her comment was something about why is okay to take away our civil liberties but they can't have non-Capital Hill police seize things from a Congressional office with a court issued warrant to conduct the investigation at that location. (There was also something about warrant-less wire taps in the rant, but I am not sure where that was.)

 

Wife has said a number of times over the last 12 to 18 months "I want to know where my Republican Party has gone?"  and "Why do the right-wing extremists have to have control of the party, can't they just form their own party?"

 

Those last two statements are really the telling part.  The Republican Party, recently, has moved so far away from the center of their own party that they can no longer attract the interest of the truly moderate Republican.

 

The final statement that Wife made, this weekend as a matter of fact, and the one that prompted this post.  "If things don't change soon, I think I am going to change my party affiliation and become a Democrat."

 

Why are the Republican's going to have problems over the next few years.  They are becoming a narrowly focused party of the far right and they are lossing the middle ground that put them in power in the first place.  (Of course lots of corruption isn't going to help at all either.)