100 days, The GOP and Arlen Specter

Finally, President Obama's first 100 days are over. We don't have to hear about it any more. Thank goodness!!!

Anyway, on to other news, as we all know Arlen Specter became a Democrat so he could win re-election in 2010. It is sad to see but I think it spells a bigger problem for the Republican party. Olympia Snow wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times that I thought is really good. The best part was her quote of Regan and call for a return to the traditional Republican Party. We cannot be so exclusive. We need to be more accepting of others or we will lose it all.

Olympia Snow said:
"There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we encountered an electoral backlash.

It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”

I couldn’t agree more. We can’t continue to fold our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden our appeal. That is the political road map we must follow to victory."

Anyway, here is the article if you want to read it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1&ref=opinion