Tennessee’s state Elections Commissioner, Mark Goins, has decided to list Republican nominees first on general election ballots, starting next month in a special election. See this story. In the recent past, Democratic nominees have been listed first.
It is somewhat likely that state law, giving discretion to the Elections Commissioner, is unconstitutional. The 7th circuit long ago ruled that it is unconstitutional to let county elections officials enjoy discretion as to which parties to list first on the ballot, and U.S. District Courts in Oklahoma and New Mexico made similar rulings.
The Republicans are desperate. They may already know that the GOP is going to be a minor-sized party by 2012.
Phil Sawyer must really “hate” Republicans as I have read this statement of his predictions for the GOP several times.
I am not a Republican – I am an Alabama Independent – as my sign-in name implies. However, my friend, the Republican party will be around long after you and I have both gone to our rewards. The GOP – just like the Democrats – is (unfortunately) an entrenched political machine that has fallen on bad times, electorally speaking, but it will bounce back.
Study your history. The Republicans took a licking in 1912 when their presidential candidate placed “3rd” behind the Progressive party nominee. But by 1920, they were back in power. In 1932, their refusal via their leader – Hoover – to address the Depression resulted in getting their “plow cleaned” at the polls. It would be 1952 before they returned to the White House again. And if you compare the results of 2008 with the results of 1964, they didn’t get beat that bad. They just picked the wrong nominee (McCain)and the momentum for Obama was too great to stop.
So you may well have to eat those words of prediction even as early as 2012 and most likely by 2016.
After the eight years that the Bush-Cheney Administration was in power, any person who still belongs to the Republican Party should be ashamed of himself or herself. Hate is not quite the perfect word here, though. Abominate works much better for me. Loath is good too – except for the fact that I continue to tolerate those with different opinions. After all, I began my political life as a registered Republican. My prediction is based upon logic, intuition, and fervent prayer.
In December of 1967, in the State of California, I signed up with the GOP. Back then, one had to be 21 years of age to vote in the Golden State and I would be that magic age before the primary election of June, 1968. I voted for Ronald Reagan for president in the Republican Party Primary (he was the only person on the ballot, as the state’s “favorite son.”) I had started off hoping that William W. Scranton would run again in the Republican race (as he did in 1964) but he chose not to do so. As I became aware that Eugene J. McCarthy was the candidate who knew best what was really going on in Vietnam (where I was located in June of 1968), he became my favorite candidate and has always remained so in every election that he was involved with since that time. History will have much more good to say about the late, great, Gene McCarthy than what has already been written up to this time.
Things do not always remain the same. Indeed, the way that life works is that all living things (including human institutions) either adapt and change or “die on the vine.” By 2012, actually, there will be so many dramtic changes (according to many ancient predictions, etc.) that the demise of the GOP will be just one of many dramatic offerings in store for us.
To make it fair, how ’bout we drop the party labels?
oLN3cv I want to say – thank you for this!