Yankee Republicans on last legs

[WMS]

One party rule=Terrific!!!

Works for me.

That is possibly one of the scariest views I've seen expressed on here.  Seriously.

I have to completely agree. One party rule does no one good especially the type of one party rule that is apparent in Massachusetts. Jesus Christ I think the legislature of Kazakhstan has a larger opposition element than Massachusetts.

Scoonie you seriously have to consider that that type of blind partisanship is bad. When will you learn that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? No matter what the party they will always be corrupted by power and use their power in order to serve themselves. You get on the Republicans constantly for this but your childish inability to see the faults apparent within your own party is troubling to say the least.

Seconded!

I live in a state that has been dominated by one party for decades and it is not the better for it. The levels of corruption and patronage in the NM Dems are worthy of the Mexican PRI, as is the level of arrogance. No state should have a dominant-party system if it wants good governance.

[WMS]

Frankly, this might be the best moment in decades for the emergence of a regional party that would take the second major party role. While in the rest of the country the Dem/Rep system is under no threat, here things are different.   Either the local Republican party simply severes the ties to the national organization to become locally viable, or another  party might emerge as the local second force, probably, to the left of the Dems, w/Dems being pushed a bit to the right. There are simply not enough Repubilcans in many places to make the "third party" candidates and voters fear that they might unwittingly elect a Republican.

If something like this happens, US politics would become more "Canadian": essentially local two-party systems, but a national multy-party configuration.

That would be rather interesting. I wonder if that would happen in other places? The Bloc Southern?

[WMS]

Between the GOP and the bloc south's competition/splitting the social conservative vote the net effect would be to send into congress a large number of liberals(a united liberal vote) from the south.

Or the Bloc Southern pulls off total domination like in today's Quebec. Add to that the NDP Greenies in the NE from ag's post...yeah, we could pull off our variant of Canadian party politics.

[WMS]

Not quite. I see the bloc south splitting the dixie social conservative vote between economic left/right and the social moderates/liberals going to the dems. Also I don't see a new left party emerging. A party that's left on social issues but not jacobin/radical(advocating civil unions instead of gay marriage, taking a compromise position on abortion etc) and center-right on economcis owuld be more likely.

While a division of the dixie social conservative vote along economic lines is very possible, I don't think the Dems would benefit, especially if it is the Southern Dems who turn into the Bloc Southern. They'd hold a few inner-city bits (although even there it would vary) but the bulk of the competition would be between the GOP in the suburbs and the Bloc Southern in the countryside and working-class urban areas. That would be an interesting map, actually...

The New Left Party would be in New England, and it's already been mentioned in another thread as well (Forum Community?). It would compete from the left against New England Dems.

Now, the party you're talking about sounds more like a moderate libertarian party, and they'd be in the West Coast (and parts of the Mountain West).

[WMS]

Actually I was thinkling the moderate libertarian party would get the areas you refer to along with northeast/urban areas that sent in yankee/gypsy moth/rockefeller republicans to either house before the realignments of 1968-1974, 1980 and 1992.

Bah, I thought of that a minute after I posted. I think the assumption is that with the Green/NDP/New Left/etc. party popping up on the left the Dems would shift to more of what you have in mind as a moderate libertarian party.

[WMS]

My projection has the dems moving more to the left. Basically they fully become the party of racial minority interest, postmodern lifestyle interests, nonchristians and genral leftist elemetns.

Ah, under that assumption things go the way you think.

So are we basically saying that regional-based communitarian and libertarian parties emerge to - on a regional if not national level - compete with a leftist Democratic party and a rightist Republican party?

[WMS]

Block South would be able to appeal to populist southerners so I doubt their position on cultural issues would cost them.

True. Well I'm not debating you that they'd be socially conservative. They don't even have to be an independence party, though that would be really cool and would spice things up. They could be a regional protest party akin to the Reform Party up in Canada. But still it would be really interesting to have a pro-independence southern party.

I agree with Colin.