GOP Pandering to the Far Right Will Only Hurt at Election Time

Republicans are making a big mistake in their right-wing pandering. A mistake that could enable Barack Obama get his feet back under him, get off the ropes, and start to frame the issues that may help him win re-election next fall.

He’s already starting to frame his campaign, and as the Republicans start to flounder as they bang on each other and try to show the Tea Party who has the most tea party “pick me” points, Democrats can start taking the opportunity to show they are the ones who care about the middle class, the environment, the elderly, women and the young.

By continuing to move to the right, Republicans are making themselves even easier to target as the party of “no.” And while some “no” is important, the current Republican stand on taxes, Social Security, Medicare, disaster financing, the environment, women’s health and a host of other issues is starting to turn off even many Republicans.

The problem for the Republicans now is that they apparently need to pander to the far right to nail the primaries. That pushes them too far to the right for the general population, most of whom sit in the moderate/conservative seating section. Obama probably won’t be able to rally the groups of new, young and enthusiastic voters that pushed him into office in the first place, so that, and the critically ill economy outweigh his recent foreign policy points (thanks Hillary) and we’ll see if that’s what sends him home after one term.

The simple truth is that while voters want to cut government spending, they also want the most fragile in our country to be protected and they want the unemployment rate down big time. On top of that, I’m guessing most Americans want their water safe to drink, their food safe to eat and their land to be protected from environmental risk like oil spills and chemical leaks..

Those issues are long-term ones, but important elements to the fabric of our country. Let me put it this way: Remember the disaster in the Gulf? Are you willing to risk another disaster like that by lifting environmental regulations? Me neither. In the long run (and that’s a run about which most politicians have no clue) the regulations (reasonable and sensible) are cheaper and certainly more logical than such having to deal with disasters themselves, given the overall costs, both financial and personal.

But government has embraced the short-sighted vision. They look at the cost of adding food inspectors instead of looking at the cost of food recalls, poisoned people and damaged businesses.

Is hydraulic fracturing (pumping fluid from into deep underground rock fracturing to push out natural gas and oil) safe? Personally, I don’t know, but there is growing evidence it is not. Ground water pollution (and companies aren’t disclosing their fluid formulas) is just one issue. I’d ban it until we had more science on the risks. Of course science is something some politicians rail against. That’s a shame.

Science doesn’t take place over night and by ignoring it now, often simply because our political ambitions differ from scientific findings, is stupid and short sighted. Let’s push the science through faster so we can move on some of these issues faster. Let’s not red-tape stuff to death.

Clean it up, increase efficiency, decrease bureaucracy and begin to make good policy that’s good for the country instead of minor clips and bits that may sound good today, but do nothing in the long run other than to show how limited Washington’s view really is.