R.I.N.O. Hunting Season!!!

Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, George Pataki, the list goes on and on. They are some of the many moderate Republicans that I like. I respect them greatly. I don’t agree with them on all issues, but I know that not only are they people of integrity, but their hearts are in the right place and they have the better interests of this country in mind when they approach an issue.

It is sometimes said by pundits, including this blogger, that we should not hope for the demise of these moderate Republicans. That if the moderates are forced out of the GOP the Party will be left with right-wing ideologues and other whack jobs. In that vein of thinking, we are supposed to hope that Senator Chaffee gets re-elected next year. Well, I don’t!

I have been thinking about this over the last several weeks. Exactly why is it so important to try and stop the Republican Party from sliding to the right and wallowing in ideological demagoguery? I for one am tired of feeling bad for moderates with weak-spines. The Democratic Party was swept from power through the loss of a historical base, southern Democrats/Dixiecrats. From around 1960, when the Catholic John Kennedy was elected President, the Democratic Party philosophy shifted towards one of inclusion and integration. This did not sit well with a large number of Democrats, overwhelmingly from the south. Over the years these Dixiecrats defected to the Republican Party. You didn’t see a bunch of Republicans rushing to stabilize the Democratic Party and keep it from sliding to the left. No, they welcomed these defectors.

This exodus reached its zenith in 2004 when Dixiecrat extraordinaire Zell Miller endorsed President Bush for re-election over his own party’s candidate. He even went so far as to speak at their convention. Talk about adding insult to injury.

So, now there are vulnerable Republicans north of the Mason-Dixon Line, I say get your hunting rifles boys and girls (big joke, you know many Democrats with rifles?), because it is R.I.N.O. hunting season. For those not in the know; R.I.N.O. is a name given to moderate Republicans by the extreme right-wing of the GOP. It stands for Republican In Name Only. In fact this isn’t a bad name for them. We defeat these R.I.N.O.s in the states where we are strong, like Rhode Island, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Arizona, and soon a progressives and moderate coalition will have taken back the United States Congress from the right-wing “Zell”ots.

So, Senator Chaffee, if you are reading this and are wondering what you did to deserve this rallying call for your defeat I will say this; your only crime is serving as an enabler to people in “your party” that don’t represent your interests and do not have the interests of the people of Rhode Island at heart when they make policy decisions.

If you want to rectify the situation, defect from your party. Become an independent like Jim Jeffords of Vermont and ally yourself with the Democratic Caucus. Raise your kids and grandkids to think for themselves and not just join a party because it was Daddy’s party.

Until then, the message is clear: You’re going down!