More Republican US Senators should join Specter ... by gimleteye

I've been puzzling for a very long time what the Republican Party stands for. Fiscal responsibility? Chuck that. Limited government? Chuck that, too. A big tent? Pl-ease. The Republican Party is just plumb out of ideas. The best the Florida legislature has been able to come up with, in its unshakeable majority, is Jesus license plates. The rest of it? A disaster of bowing to special interests like Lennar and Republican bigwigs who own the farmland called Parkland outside Miami-Dade's Urban Development Boundary, who would literally kill off growth management throughout the state just to get their cash out of a ruined speculative investment.

This stuff doesn't play well with the public. Not at all. Plus, Florida's demographics have moved from the Republicans and they know it. So instead of rising to the occasion to provide what voters want, Republican "big thinkers" in Florida are rushing to shut down voters, free elections and fair districts.

Here's a point of view my Republican friends may not have considered.

If more Republicans in the US Senate joined Specter and defected to the Democrats, two things would happen. First, the Democrats would be on the hook to do much better by the American people at a time when soaring budget deficits and a devastated economy is slamming -- and will be slamming, even more-- our standard of living. Second, a filibuster-less minority would force Republicans to come up with a new game plan; rather than genuflecting at "just say no" to President Obama.

The Karl Rove/Rush Limbaugh axis of the Republican Party is full of toxic gas. Americans increasingly believe the Republican embrace of extremist, radical values is a bad trip.

I'm a fiscal conservative, a social liberal, and I'm ready to embrace whatever politics get us on a new economic footing that is more than slogans like "the ownership society". The Republicans in their hardened bunkers use cynicism to insulate themselves against the truth of the damage they have done. They have no one to blame but themselves. Rant and rave with tea parties and against the president (what nonsense for Fox News to deny the president access to its audiences), but unless Republicans decide what new path to offer American voters, their party will continue to loose the confidence of American voters.

So I would like to see more US Senators who are Republican join Senator Specter and put pressure on both sides of the equation. Memo to Republican Senators: just say yes.