Seen in the Providence Journal:
Lincoln D. Chafee, who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November’s election, said yesterday that he has left the party.[...]
Chafee’s departure is another step in the waning of the strain of moderate Republicanism that was once a winning political philosophy from Rhode Island and Connecticut to the Canadian border. For the first time since the Civil War, the six New England states combined now have only one Republican U.S. House member, Connecticut’s Christopher Shays.[...]
Yesterday, he criticized Republican leaders for abandoning fiscal conservatism, once a mainstay of Republican politics, by passing tax cuts without spending cuts to balance the resulting loss of revenue.
He said the “starve the beast” strategy that Republicans have used in an attempt to shrink government has undermined social programs that bolster a strong American middle class. He mentioned Pell grants, which help needy students attend college, and Head Start programs, which support the education of low-income children. Instead of supporting those “good social programs,” he said, the party’s approach was “squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.”
The sad thing is, there seems to be no viable political party that provides a home for folks who are fiscal conservatives and social moderates/liberals. Admittedly, Bill Clinton seemed to do a decent job of keeping the purse strings relatively taut when he was in office, but the D’s and the Libertarians have organizational or platform issues that make them difficult for many of us to swallow.
I’m not unhappy with seeing the GOP fracture a bit. However, unless a moderate organization forms (or reforms from the GOP), and/or unless the Dems suffer similar fracturing…well, I must admit that a Democratic monopoly on power seems just as disturbing to me as the recent GOP reign was.