I found this interesting. It's West Virginia, so I doubt seriously that it'll turn into a national trend, but it could be interesting for other conservative but traditionally Democrat areas: the Dakotas, New Mexico, South Texas, among others. I've seen polls that show some 1/3 of self-identified Democrats supporting the Tea Parties. I would guess that a large number of those are in places like this. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/return-of-really-conservative-democrat.html Historically, this is normal. Although the issues have changed, for most of our political history since the Civil War, the Democrats have been the big-tent party, and Republicans have been the ideological party. The "big tent" Republican party has been a development of the past 30 years or so.
One of the tragic (from my perspective) things to come out of the insane, off-the-calender redistricting that took place in Texas was to jerrymander the several seats held by conservative House Democrats in Texas, who were reelected time and time again in GOP dominated districts because (gasp!) the folks in those districts thought they were doing a good job. The result? Replacing conservatives with many years of very valuable seniority with freshman Republicans without any. That, and the representation the people wanted was tossed into the garbage can. Conservative Democrats, as you correctly point out, are not an historic anamoly. They ran things in Texas for decades and we managed to survive the experience. Conservative Democrats tend to be a bit more progressive (I prefer that term here because no sane person would call these people liberals) socially, but just as conservative on the financial/business side as any Republican. Heck, sometimes more conservative. Just look at the insane policies of the last administration for an example of fiscal "conservativism" from Repblicans. Conservative fiscal policies? I have to laugh. The guy you mentioned seems like a wacked out exception, though. Sounds like he should be running in a third party. If nothing else, it would save the public from being exposed to his idiocy.
That's not true, Zell Miller was to the right of multiple Republican senators (and you could argue that Lincoln Chafee was to the left of multiple democrats) and those guys both left in 2004.
My State Rep, Alan Ritter, is one of those guys. This past session he wasn't as good, but traditionally he has ran to the right of about 1/3 of the Texas Republican Representatives. The only issue he seems to be ideologically liberal on is union empowerment.
It's based on some statistical analysis, and I don't know how much I agree with it. Even today, I think you could argue that Heath Shuler is to the right of someone like Joseph Cao.
I remember that too! Also, whatever happened to Liberal Republicans...the Nelson Rockefeller types? Same thing that happened to Conservative Democrats. Each party is being ruled by it's fringe. There is nothing for those in the middle.
Unfortunately, most of the liberal Republicans either: 1. Left the party on their own (ex, Arlen Specter) 2. Retired (ex, Lincoln Chafee) 3. Are being booted out of the party (ex, Charlie Crist) Liberal Republicans can no longer survive GOP primaries.
