Osler's Razor

I don't think it's fair to say that "one party has achieved it's goals" and one hasn't. The country would be a very different place today if the Democrats had "achieved their goals."

Rather, the current state of the union is one of protracted and stable compromise. We live in a center-right democracy, and the policies of our federal government reflect that fact. Neither extreme has "won" or "lost"...Sure abortion is legal, but it's highly regulated. Yes, gay marriage is available in some states, but federal law still prohibits it, at leastde jure. Yes, government has grown, but only in areas were there has been wide consensus for growth, i.e. national defense. And you can just take spending cuts off the table. It seems like all of these jokers fully intend to spend us into the poorhouse regardless of the lip service, and regardless of the party.
 

Mark, I think you are essentially right. A more constructive comparison here might Progressivism vs. Conservatism. Progressives believe that the role of government is to make life better for the people, and they are super optimistic about what government can do. Conservatives like people--but are skeptical about the cost, the efficiency, and the ramifications of expanding the scope of government.

Where you have this right is that both parties have accepted the premise of Progressivism during the twentieth century--just to different degrees.
 

Waco Farmer--

You are right, and said it much better than I did. In addition, I think Jesse Davis would agree with that.

The question remains, though (and this is always my question about Republicans): If they are essentially progressives when they are in office, why don't Conservatives who vote for them demand more?
 

The only political faction that ever gets its way in the USA is money.
 

Americans want ice cream! Not spinach. Politicians running for office tell us that we need to eat our spinach, but that if we're good, eventually we will get ice cream.

Then they get elected and forget all about the spinach part.
 

IPLawGuy--

IPLG, I agree. BUT... three Republicans now, all of whom I greatly respect, have now come on here and said the same thing.

Doesn't that trouble you, that the party says one thing and unfailingly does another? At some point, shouldn't this create some kind of definitional crisis?
 

The Republican Party is a flawed political instrument. Having said that, it is the option (from the two viable options on the table) that is closest to my philosophy.

The Democrats scoff at conservative principles and impune the motivations of any person who holds conservative principles. One option completely eliminated.

Option Two: Republicans pay lip service to conservative principles, and partly as a result of the rhetoric, grow government and spend money on a smaller scale than Democrats.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.
 

Why don't conservatives demand more?

SIMPLEST EXPLANATION: there are not enough of us. We are a minority faction in a majority rule system. We do the best we can with what we have.
 

Farmer:

First, I take exception to this:

The Democrats scoff at conservative principles and impune the motivations of any person who holds conservative principles.

I'm a Democrat who neither scoffs at conservative principles (in fact, many of them are MY principles) nor impunes the motivations of conservatives. What I am calling into question is the efficacy of office-holding Republicans in bringing these conservative principles to bear. The near-complete disinterest in doing so makes me wonder if they are sincere in espousing these principles.

As for being a minority... hey, for six years under GWB, there was a Republican president and Republican majorities in the House and Senate. That's not a minority, and it was not that long ago.
 

It tells us that ultimately the people who have the money and the education make the rules. While many of them are somewhat or even very conservative fiscally, they are not so much on social issues. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally this is true.

Many of these folks figured out a long long time ago that it is more cost effective to have a "larger" government to address social problems, even when it is often done ineffectively or somewhat ineffectively, than it is to have no government provision whatsoever. Get rid of the government intervention and non-profits, let alone traditional corporations, will not pick up the slack. Thus, it is cheaper to pay on the front end of things.

Ultimately, the country is not, on the whole, ideologically conservative or liberal, but pragmatic. FDR understood this, Eisenhower understood it, as did Nixon and Reagan.
 

Mark, quite frankly, I have seen plenty of times when your fellow Democrats scoff at your conservative principles. I think most of them accept/forgive you in the end because you are much more of a progressive than you are a conservative--and they would rather have you in the tent than out. But the vast majority of the Democratic mainstreams scoffs and impugns (forgive my earlier misspelling). It is part of the fundamental and sincere disagreement between Progressives and Conservatives.

As for your "six years" comment, you misunderstood my whole thesis. I am not saying merely that conservatives are a minority faction within the whole body politic; rather, conservatives are a minority faction within the Republican Party.
 

Who is Bartman supposed to represent here?
 

Ah! Sorry, WF, I get it now (about being a minority within the party), and I understand that.

As for impugning... there is too much of that all around. I need to be careful about it when I talk about exactly this... I should be careful to ask the question of "what is going on?" rather than guessing at answers-- because the truth is that I really don't know why it is that this has happened.
 

Carrie--

Bartman is the confused fan of a political party who may not really understand how the game works.
 

Thanks, Mark.

Let me add this to be clear: the "impugning" is standard practice on both sides of the divide. For example, see the Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh master conspiracy theory that Progressivism is merely a device in which big government wrests control of the levers of power away the people, making voters utterly dependent and intellectually impotent. Barack Obama is intentionally driving the economy off a cliff to enact "fundamental transformation," which is code language for a Marxist state.

Of course, in truth, Progressivism is an honorable and rational philosophy practiced by people of good will who fully believe they are making a positive difference in the world. I just happen to believe that the Progressive Impulse can be positive in controlled amounts but lethal in large doses.

But both sides seem to need to believe that the opposition can only be motivated by sinister designs. Republicans are very hard on rhetorical Progressives. And Democrats are very hard on Conservatives.

So, my point, the Republiican Party is more of a safe harbor for conservatism--with all its inconveniences.
 

I think you have to separate the social issues (#3 on the list) from from the fiscal issues (#'s 1,2,4) in evaluating the effectiveness of the Republican Party.

On social issues, the SCOTUS is the real battle, and Republicans have been like the pre-2011 Dallas Mavericks...always finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The "Borking" failure being the most significant setback, followed by the Souter debacle.

The party failure regarding the fiscal issues is what spawned the tea parties. Boehner has been weak so far, but we'll see how this debt ceiling issue ends up.

I also think it's overly simplistic to say that both parties want a strong military. Democrats generally seem more enthusiastic about a strong UN military.

Other Kendall
 

My mother,Dorie,saw conspiracies everywhere and enjoyed their existence everywhere,as some kind of weird mystery that one ought only to address privately and in hushed tones. I suppose this Winesap does not fall far from the matriarchal tree. It occurs to me that the Democrats and the Republicans are really the SAME party (lets just call it "The Elephants Ass!"Party).They've only been play-acting that they despise one another and fussing and fighting to keep us fat,dumb and happy,so that they can run the country as they wish and keep the big boys in caviar and pate.Speaking of which,I wish I had a cracker,even as we speak. But,as usual,I digress. That being said,I agree with Anonymous at 1:37. And hey--what about this melodrama over the budget? They'll keep us on tenterhooks,but get it done at the last minute,because the catastrophe that will ensue would be horrific on their pocketbooks. If they settle it,they'll be re-elected as heroes, and the whole play will start anew.
 

George Wallace said that there was not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and Democrats. He was probably right--but sometimes that nine cents becomes pretty important.

But, in truth, we often forget how much we agree on. We often forget that compared to the vast spectrum of political thinking outside the mainstream of the American system--we are two almost indistinguishable shades of the same color.

Why do we fight like we are from different planets? Ours is an adversarial system of government, so we need Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, and/or Whigs and Democrats, and/or Dems and the GOP, and/or Progressives and Conservatives, or some other division to manufacture thesis and antithesis in hopes of getting to a synthesis that works.
 

I lean toward Anon 1:37 and Renee on this.

And if I have the energy I will return later to comment further.

And IPLawGuy - how about some spinach flavored ice cream?
 

Alright, lets start by discussing political reality. You identify Republican presidential administrations: Nixon, Reagan, George Bush, George W. Bush. This covers, if we include Ford, 28 years out of the last 43 years. So, it would seem that Republicans should have gotten a lot done during that time period given their general success in getting elected president.

But, lets look a little deeper. Nixon/Ford faced 8 years during which Democrats controlled both houses of congress. All 8 years Reagan was president the US Senate was controlled by Democrats. During all 4 years of Bush I he faced opposition in both houses of Congress. And Bush II only enjoyed one term in control of congress, facing 4 years of opposition from the Senate and 2 from the House.

Lets compare that to Democratic presidents since Kennedy. Kennedy: 3 years of Democratic control of the Congress. Johnson: 5 years with Democratic control of Congress. Carter: 4 years with Democratic control of Congress. Clinton: 2 years with control of both houses of Congress. Obama: 2 years with control of both houses of Congress.

The only Republican that ever had control of Congress was Bush II, and nobody ever thought Bush was really a conservative in the small government/lower spending sense. At least nobody that cared about such things. I would have loved to see what Reagan would've done with a Republican controlled Senate.

You point out several times that Clinton cut spending, or slowed the rate of growth, and implemented real conservative reforms, but it was born on the backs of the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.

So, maybe the real question is, why the focus on the Presidency when so much of the power from a legislative sense is in the hands of the Congress, which has literally only seen 10 years of Republican control in the last 47 years?

Or, maybe the question is, why don't we have universal health care, gay marriage rights, etc. given that Democrats have controlled the legislative branch for nearly 80% of the last 47 years? Is that really winning?
 

I like RRL's turnabout at the end of his post. Right. Why not ask this question that way?

One correction: Reagan had a Republican Senate for six out of eight years.
 

I like spinach and ice cream. Can't we have both? I'm also partial to beet greens,since my dad grew them on his irrigated farm in Southeastern Washington State,along with spuds.
 

Without trying to determine which party has best achieved its goals, I think it's accurate to say that the very best arrangement occurs when a Democrat occupies the White House, and the Republicans control Congress. (Admittedly, that is a subjective judgment on my part, indicating my biases on policy).

Nonetheless, when a Republican is in the White House and the Democrats control Congress, the proclivity of the Republican to exercise power couples with the Democrats preference for expansive government, and we have the excesses of the Bush years, and even the Reagan years, although the pundits on the "right" continue to exalt Reagan.

Clinton's "success" should not be separated from GHW Bush's policies, because Bush's tax "increase" set the stage for Clinton's "surplus". But GHW Bush was a unique (and perhaps great) President, because he was not obsessed with power, and was comfortable to yield it, both during and and the end of his administration (as contrasted with Clinton, who wouldn't leave town, you will recall).

So, give me gridlock, but give it to me with a Democrat in the White House and the Republicans in the Congress. It's not best, but unless the factionalism that rules DC is minimized, it beats the alternatives.