It’s nice to have friends from across the political and social spectrums because discussions and debates bear fruit and we mutually grow. Some people have a hard time putting their minds around the idea that what you knew as “this” has changed to “that” and what you thought about your group has changed also.
In politics, some Republican officials and operatives don’t seem to realize that their divisive techniques of the past has turned off the sensible center and changes are needed are they will become an anachronism. If your numbers are falling at an alarming rate, don’t stand around waiting for the masses to come back around or for the other guys to fail. In the South, we prefer conservative and moderate politics to liberal politics but the extreme elements on the right are abrasive and unjustifiably arrogant. Pelsoi, Reid and congressional Democrats have similar traits on the left but not to the offensive level.
In the middle of all the drama, we have President Obama and his wide-eyed collection or hodgepodge of supporters who simply wanted public officials to confer and arrive at logical conclusions to move the nation forward. There are Republicans who swear that all Democrats are ultra liberals yet the Georgia congressional Republicans work with their Democrat colleagues. If the Democrats of Georgia allowed the Blue Dogs to consider and support President Bush’s policies then the Republicans of Georgia should do the same with Obama initiatives.
From childhood playgrounds to the halls of Congress, southerners have a long history of being friends with people who are different when it is convenient then getting amnesia when it is convenient. The D.C. axiom goes “we have no permanent friends or permanent enemies; just permanent interests.”
The interests of my community are better served if we diverse our political portfolio while certain stock is low. Mark my word: that stock won’t stay low. To my Republican friends, I will caution you one last time to make a comfortable place for moderate thought inside your party as the Democrats did with the Blue Dogs or you will have a party of extremists who the public in general find off-putting.
Project Logic Ga 
Beyond occasionally flowery rhetoric and the odd meet-and-greet, what have you seen from Mr. Obama to show that he is serious about “reaching across the aisle”? His stimulus package and new budget represents a massive expansion of the federal government and a liberals’ wish list dating back to LBJ. The only federal department he deems worthy of any sizable cuts appears to be Defense. His Treasury Dept. appears to be using TARP to shake down major financial institutions and force them to agree or rubberstamp other aspects of his industrial policy ala union takeover of Chrysler and GM. Exactly which of these policies are Republicans suppose to embrace? This does not even take into account the “fair-minded debate” we are supposed to be having about reducing abortions at the same time he is pushing policies to federally subsidize the practice both here and abroad, remove any restrictions on the procedure (conscience laws, parental consent laws, partial birth abortion prohibitions), etc., thereby, increasing the overall number.
It seems to me that he is breaking his neck to reach out to the conservatives and the Republicans. The Dem Team put him in office so the early stuff had to cater to them on some level but the White House is privately salivating about moving the center soon and bringing in more moderates to the Blue Tent or Umbrella.
The guys over at SWGApolitics pointed out a great Chuck Todd of MSNBC article about what is wrong with the GOP and what they should do to fix it.
http://swgapolitics.com/index/2009/05/18/an-excellent-analysis/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30745624/
Breaking his neck? Name one policy concession that deviates from the standard Democratic/liberal playbook (excluding national security, which he received support from conservatives when he moderated his position). As for him salivating to move to the center, I’ll just have to take your word for it.
As to Blue Dogs, I view them the same way I view some liberal republicans. If fiscal discipline is your mantra (a noble cause and one I support), how on earth could support this stimulus package or budget? For a group that championed PAYGO, where are the spending offsets? How are we supposed to pay for this?
As to the state of the GOP, a lot of political figures be it Colin Powell, David Frum, or Ross Douthat, argue that the Republicans should be embracing greater government involvement in our economy and expanded government programs (a sort of Red Toryism a la Cameron). I think this is the wrong approach. Republicans need to return to their basic principles and uphold them. Bush’s compassionate conservatism (with its attempts to buy certain constituencies thru programs e.g. NCLB or Medicare expansion) only served to piss on their brand for fiscal responsibility.
papadoc19: you are making good points so we will see the true direction of the White House, Blue Dogs and GOP.
I think it’s time to throw the baby out with the wash.Bush and his Republicans were/are about as bad as the Democrats; they both have lost sight of what makes/made this country great: a love of honor and integrity, a love of doing what is best for the country, not what is best for the party.Beck perhaps said it best when he delcared that he’d rather have Obama than McCain because with Obama you know what you are fighting: communistic socialism; with McCain, communistic socialism would have slipped in the back door.
If you think the idea is ridiculous, read DR ZHIVAGO, read who took over the Soviet Union; read what the Communists tried to do to shake up the lethargy of the workers in the late 70’s and 80’s ; then look at the New Deities of the Obama Sphere: the labor unions whose original dreams were not bad; but carried to the extreme they have become as bad as that of the aftermath of the Russian Rev. of l917. He who has not read history is damned to repeat it.
Unfortunately, we are at a time when to save our country we must become as passionate as the liberals who only constitute about 21% of the country. The reason that is unfortunate is revealed by looking at the coutries in which two forces begin to clash( Cromwellian Rev.,French Rev,Russian Rev., the Spanish Civil War). we can see where we are headed; it’s only a matter of time until the Conservative Forces will become as passionate about rebuilding our country as the Liberals are in destroying it to build a utopia which does not and cannot exist.
As Milton said in PARADISE LOST, we must awake, arise or be forever fallen! We must do away with l964,the novel, we must not institute BRAVE NEW WORLD.
Read! Read! Think! Think! Forsake emotionalism and see how everything is related; nothing exists in isolation; where there is an effect; there has been a cause