Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe GOP’s Pitiful Reformers - by Michael Tomasky
by Michael Tomasky May 28, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
A group of pundits is supposedly trying to inject some new thinking on the right. Michael Tomasky could not be less impressedwith their ideas or with their chances of success.
Over the weekend, Bob Dole delivered the opinion that he couldnt make it in todays Republican Party. And not just him: Reagan couldnt have made it. Certainly Nixon couldnt have made it, cuz he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it. His words put me in mind, as a disturbing number of things do these days, of the so-called conservative reformers, the half-dozen or so male pundit-intellectuals on the right who have, through some clever prestidigitation that I have yet to comprehend, come to be known as reformers. They are very smart fellows, and they can be interesting to read. But they are reforming the Republican Party in about the sense that Whitney Houstons hairdresser was helping her by giving her a great coif. Houstons problem in life wasnt her hair, and whats wrong with todays GOPwhat Dole was talking aboutisnt going to be fixed by figuring out exactly what kind of base-broadening the tax code needs.
The men often named in this group include David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Ramesh Ponnuru, Yuval Levin, Reihan Salam, Avik Roy, and a few others. Josh Barro is sometimes included, as are David Frum and Bruce Bartlett. But these are errors: Frum and Bartlett have been so outspokencourageously so, I notein their contempt for todays GOP that they have sort of taken themselves off the roster. Barro, a young Bloomberg View columnist, is (it seems to me) more than halfway down the Frum-Bartlett path.
There has been lots of interesting writing on my side of the fence about these men lately. Ryan Cooper wrote a big Washington Monthly piece with short bios of all of them and a rating system assessing their zeal for reform and access to power. Jon Chait profiled Barro in The Atlantic. Policy analyst Mike Konczal assessed whether their policy proposals really constitute something new that isnt being said by elected officials within the party. Paul Krugman has weighed in as well.
The general verdict among these writers is that there isnt much there there. Konczal takes them seriously as policy analysts but concludes that much of what they say is actually a defense and potential extension of already-existing policies against people further to the right and is ultimately more gestural than substantive. If you read through Coopers rating system, you will be struck by the consistency with which those he deems most committed to reform are the ones with the lowest juice quotient, while the one with the lowest reform ratingLevin, who just won some big quarter-million-dollar right-wing prize of some kind (wish we had those!)has a perfect-10 insider score.
full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/28/the-gop-s-pitiful-reformers.html
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
1 replies, 857 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (3)
ReplyReply to this post
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The GOP’s Pitiful Reformers - by Michael Tomasky (Original Post)
DonViejo
May 2013
OP
Cosmocat
(14,559 posts)1. More breathless analysis of the GRAND OLD PARTY
All these articles and consideration and speculation about the dynamics of the republican party.
Missed that about the democratic party.