The Republican Party offers Zero leadership for America today except from the Extreme Right [View all]

[Tom Rinaldo]

That point was driven home for me again watching Marco Rubio give the official Republican response to the Presidents State of the Union address. Outside the ranks of the virulent Right, Republican leaders don't strongly believe in anything anymore, just in protecting their own jobs and the interests of wealthy special interests. No doubt there are a few exceptions out there but when you really have to hunt to find one you know that proves the rule.

I am beginning to think that’s one reason why so many so called establishment or "mainstream" Republicans keep losing primaries to candidates attacking them from the right. Sure many Republican primary voters prefer far right positions but that has been true in the Republican Party for 50 years or more. What has changed most is the personal character and deeply held convictions displayed by elected Centrist to Center Right Republicans - it has been sorely and obviously lacking in recent years. They all are mostly content to just mouth conservative mantra - all rattled off by rote with the thoughtfulness and incisiveness of yesterdays talking points. Where vision is lacking a Party perishes

I'm not saying that all of the far right Tea Party types that Republican voters have been favoring of late have the courage of their own convictions, or that they even have deeply held convictions in many cases. Some just pander to the mob to get elected, saying whatever will stoke the fury of fervent true believers to harness their support to advance their own careers. Hell, Rubio chose that path himself to defeat Charlie Crist in a Republican primary for the Senate Seat he ultimately won. But some of them actually believe in their extremist views, and the rest at least know how to act the role with sufficient passion to be plausibly convincing to voters hungry for actual leadership.

President Obama offered a vision for America in his State of the Union address, the Republican Party offered opposition to that vision and little if anything else. There are indeed firebrands in the Republican Party willing to take America in a direction diametrically opposed to the vision that the President laid out, but the majority of Americans have absolutely no interest in going where that fringe wants to lead us. And so the Republican Party is forced to fudge it, since almost no leading figures within it are willing to directly refute the positions the extremist right advocates for. Platitudes rarely inspire, and this nation seldom chooses to follow those with a strong propensity for fudging.

It was another bad night for the Republican Party.