The Times, The Inquirer and Pa. Politics

April 25, 2009 at 9:13 pm

I’ve never been the kind of Republican to complain about biased newspaper coverage—it sounds like feeling sorry for yourself, and besides, they aren’t going to change. But The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times have really outdone themselves this year. Last Sunday’s Week in Review section (The Times) ran an

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Sorry, wrong number

April 23, 2009 at 8:46 pm

Full Story

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Tea for Two . . . or 2010

April 23, 2009 at 7:00 am

I drink espresso, which was as good an excuse as any to miss the Tea Parties held in Philadelphia and countless other locations last week. (Herbal tea doesn’t count.) But perhaps some mixed feelings kept me away, also.

The Tea Parties, in case you were under a rock last week, were promoted as a way to protest President Obama’s spending and tax policies which—on the tax side, anyway—reminded people of the levies that provoked a…

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State GOP help for Congressional races a welcome idea

April 22, 2009 at 8:00 am

I was interested in the news that the state Republican Party is going to have a

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Specter, Toomey, and the Danger of Facile Predictions

April 21, 2009 at 11:58 am

As everyone knows by now, former Congressman Pat Toomey has challenged incumbent Senator Arlen Specter in the Republican primary, and leads in pretty much every poll. Specter is a street fighter as well as an unmatched fundraiser, and the race will probably tighten up in the next few months. But barring a major shift, it is unlikely he’ll win.

In the coming days you’ll hear a lot from state and national analysts about how Republicans…

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What future does the PA GOP have?

April 20, 2009 at 9:35 am

These are difficult times to be a Republican, especially in Pennsylvania. Democrats hold the Govenorship, one of two Senate seats, and most legislative power, together with a large registration advantage. Within the GOP, much of the energy seems taken up in internecine warfare rather than fighting the common enemy.

The problem has two principal causes, the first ideological and the second structural in nature. Ideologically speaking, the national Republican Party has become too conservative for many Pennsylvania voters, especially in the Philadelphia area. As a candidate, I felt that many (and especially women) voters tuned out at the first mention of the word “Republican.”

The second problem is structural. Suburban Republican parties were constructed to win off-year, low-turnout elections for county and township positions. They tend to emphasize low taxes and good services but have relatively little ideological ballast. When I go to Republican events I hear a lot about unity and almost nothing about ideas.

The combination of these trends has left Republicans in a precarious position. What then is to be done?

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Where’s my party?

April 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Well, time moves quickly. Last Spring I was trying desperately to get attention from the local political blogs. Now I’m writing for one.

Some of you may remember me from that race. I had the crazy idea that someone might actually pay attention to a moderate Republican running in the fourth most Democratic district in the country. They didn’t, and I dropped out in the summer. The incumbent, Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-2), didn’t bother campaigning against my replacement.

All of that seems like a long time ago. Now I’m writing a blog whose main question is simple: Is there intelligent life in the Republican Party, and among moderates-to-conservatives generally, in Pennsylvania? Is our state destined to become bluer and bluer, or will it remain the purple state—not quite one way, not quite the other—that it has usually been? Or, to put it in slightly different terms . . . will the GOP’s seemingly all-out effort to make itself irrelevant finally succeed?

As my title suggests, I’m something of a moderate. At Rutgers University, teaching tax and comparative law as I do makes me a wild-eyed conservative. In the national Republican Party, that makes me something of a liberal weirdo. In Cheltenham, Montgomery County, where I live with my wife and two children . . . well, it isn’t entirely clear that the MontCo Republicans have much of an ideology, and as we’ll see, that’s part of the problem.

I’ll be writing about the 2010 races, but also about the political and cultural background in which they transpire. What do the demographic trends in Pennsylvania—its becoming more New Jersey and less Ohio, as The Inquirer put it—mean for our future politics? Can the city of Philadelphia have a serious Republican Party, and can it escape the pay-to-play culture that it always takes about overcoming but never quite does? Will the suburbs continue their red-to-purple tradition, or will the line between the parties move to, say, somewhere between York and Harrisburg?

Over the next 18 months, we’ll find out. Maybe.

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