I'd feel a lot more sympathy for Wilkerson if he'd understand that in a two-party system, the only way to change the course of a party is to remove it from power. As long as the Republicans are in power, and can hang onto power through the traditional tactics (gerrymandering, turning out the religious-right base, etc.), they will not change, because they don't need to.

If Wilkerson wants the Republican party he knew, then he should have damned well worked for John Kerry to be elected, or he should damned well now be working to get the Republicans out of power. "Reagan Democrats" voted for Reagan because they didn't like what their party had become. To say, as Wilkerson seems to, that he doesn't like the current Rep party but doesn't want to vote Democratic is a cop-out.

I agree with MA
Wilkerson and his ilk admit that they have put party loyalty above the welfare of the country.
The only way to put a check on Bush is to vote Democrat in every race in November. If Wilkerson will not publicly support this position, then I have no more time for him.

Failure in Iraq will be the most effective way to defeat Neo-Conservatism. And isn't "failure" less frightening than "success"? If Cheney et al succeeded in Iraq, this horrible strategy of murdering states would be repeated over and over into the future. And if anyone needed definitive evidence of Bush's "leadership" style, he provided it at his last press conference: It will be the next president will have to fix the deficit and leave Iraq. Faith-based thinking in action?

"The political health of the country depends on the restoration of healty competition between the parties."

I could not disagree more with you Steve. The political health of this country depends on the restoration of an alternative to the two party system. The two party system perpetuates apathy; it in effect forces people away from getting involved in the political process which allows the continuance of the owning of the parties by corporations and special interests. It has come down to picking the lesser of two evils and that is not what this country should be about. We desperately need, at the very least, a 3rd party that is not beholden to corporations, foreign lobbyists and radical special interests.

So, when are you going to grace NYC with your presence again?

I see no prospect of Wilkerson getting his party back, if by that he means Rockefeller Republicanism. The GOP is too successful as a crusading Christian party for that to happen any time soon.

But what about the Democrats? I agree that they need a civil war, but when will it begin? At present, most seem to hope to back into victory in 2006. Hillary does in 2008.

Only Al Gore and Russell Feingold are offering a radical critique of the current administration, and that's not enough for the kind of cleansing and galvanizing that the Democrats need.

I am afraid that the Democrats will remain as a weak, "me-too" opposition, and conservatives remain in power, until we undergo a domestic economic crisis of some kind.

Maybe it will happen late in John McCain's presidency, 5 or 6 years from now.

Mythbuster,

your post compelled me to dig up a favorite Bob Dylan quote.

"She knows there's no success like failure And that failure's no success at all"

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

There are no moderate Republicans, only scared ones,i.e., the ones who have to face the electorate in '06 and '08.

The terms "moderate" and "conservative" no longer define the two groups within the GOP. The dividing line for those groups has become those on the one side who think the whole checks and balances thing of a three - branch, two - party political/governing system is so last century, and on the other side those who still like the concept but not enough to stand up for it.

Twenty five years ago, the Christian Right began to take over the Republican Party at the grassroots level -- county chairmanships, etc. That takeover has continued during this period, resulting in the capture of the national party apparatus.

The result? The "moderate" wing of the GOP has become the Christie Todd Whitman wing -- she who was just kept in a federal lawsuit against the EPA for its lying to NYC about the toxins released after 9/11. The standard which had to be met for keeping her in the case? That her conduct "shocks the conscience".

Krugman called it in '99 and '00: These people aren't conservative; they're right wing radicals.

Was pretty impressed with what Wilkerson had to say --- and how he said it -- when I finally caught video of one of his speeches.

Passion for the Constitution is not a bad thing -- in or out of the job.

"Republicans need to restore their pragmatic, moderate center."

Not to mention their pragmatic, moderate right.

And their pragmatic, moderate left.

Just sayin.

Would be really, really, neat if all three of those categories could also restore their conservative sensibilities and values. Much appreciated!

Quit whining Wilkerson, you are part of the problem.

It`s people like Wilkerson staying silent that allowed this mess to happen

About time to grow up & accept responsibility !

"Everyday reality now is a complete fiction, manufactured by the media landscape and we operate inside it." - JG Ballard

McCain, were he to miraculously win the GOP nomination, and then the White House (not as much of a slam dunk as people think) would not effect any change. He's as interested in power and egocentric glory as anyone, and his fealty to the President and this absurd war is proof.

There is no near-term hope for the Republican party; maybe after a decade or so of being the 'out' party will that change. But then they'll need to peel off moderate D's, because they will have lost the religious far right for good. The numbers don't work.

In her recent NYT op-ed on Iran, Jessica Tuchman Mathews has the guts to confront the segment of my party that needs to get the heave-ho:

Given the American record with Iraq and Iran, others will be skeptical that Washington has made a clear choice for nonproliferation and away from regime change. The message will have to be steady and unequivocal. If President Bush and Secretary Rice continue to say one thing and Vice President Dick Cheney and our ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, say another, the effort will quickly fail.

Members of Congress have a direct responsibility as well. Only they ? especially the Democrats ? can make such a policy change possible. They will have to forgo the indulgence of slamming the administration from the right and currying favor with pro-Israel voters by vying to see who can be the most anti-Iranian.

She's talkin' to you, Sens. Clinton, Biden, Bayh...

Not to get too political science-y, ManagedChaos, but if you want a multiple parties, you've got to change the system itself to one of proportional representation or something other than our current "single-member district, first past the post wins" set-up because that will always create an (at most!) two-party system. It's called "Duverger's Law." So I don't disagree with you, but it's important to know what is necessary to make this come about.

All this talk about returning to a "moderate" Republican party is a load of crap. There is no such thing. Taken in full measure, the entire history of the modern Republican party has been about one thing and one thing only: concentrating all wealth and power in the hands of a few. Period. Anything else, whether it's phony religiosity, wedge issues, diatribes against governmnet or attacks on mythical liberal media, was always a cover in pursuit of this one agenda. George W. Bush is the ULTIMATE Republican, a true son of the legacy of greed, union busting, unfair and rapacious deregulation, government hating agenda initiated by Reagen.

Two years ago, I thought that the best acceptance speech Kerry--or any other Democratic candidate--could give would have been one that was addressed not to the audience in the hall, but the party outside of it.

An appeal to people just like Wilkerson that would remind them that "the ideals of Lincoln, who fought to assure civil rights for every American...of Theodore Roosevelt...who passionately cared about the environment...of Wendell Wilkie, who put the good of the nation above his own interests...and of Dwight Eisenhower, who warned us about the kind of abuse of power that we see now...these ideals are not dead. They're what we as Democrats have always believed. And if you still share these beliefs, we welcome your support. This year, voting Democratic doesn't make you a good Democrat...it makes you a better Republican."

Moderate, Eisenhower-style Republicans may be outnumbered in today's GOP, but there are still enough of them out there to tip the balance of power our way.

There's no guarantee they'll respond to an appeal like this, but we've got nothing to lose by making it.

Let's not bicker and argue over who's party is it anyway. Both democrats and republicans don't seem to realize that this political landscape is no longer a fight over ideas on the future of the republic yet a mortal fight among religious extremists and people who hold the separation of church and state dear. We live in times in which religious extremism has become a wholesale product vented by people who, before G.W. Bush took office, were seen as a niche in politics. Interesting from a polling perspective as Karl Rove understood, very dangerous from a policy perspective. G.W. Bush has bankrupted the very soul of the United States which to me still reflects 'We the people ...' compared to the amazingly hollow sounding words "I call upon a higher father."

This is as close you can get to Robert Musil's 'Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften'.

And I told my mum, I called her and I said: "Mum, you know what? I want my party back. I don't want to become a Democrat. I want my party back."

Whoa! Wilkerson said he didn't want to become a Democrat. He never said he wouldn't vote for a Democrat. I wouldn't assume he's as ignorant as some of you have assumed. I think Zak's invitation is exactly the type of entreaty Wilkerson would consider and for all we know his strategy to get his party back might very well be the one M. A. described.

As a die-hard Democrat, i want Mr. Wilkerson's Republicans back, too. I have this vivid memory of an ongoing debate, where my side asked for more money for education and his side said we had to pay down the national debt and my side asked if we could do better things for the poor and his side said we had we needed to build a stronger military. And the debate went back and forth and back and forth, like a seesaw, and I'm pretty sure the resulting balance was better than what any one of us would have chosen alone. Then, one day, the Republican party got off their side of the seesaw. Now I have to be a fiscal conservative, an education zealot, a military hawk, and a bleeding heart all at the same time. Bring back the moderate GOP to do that half of the good work!

"I agree with MA
Wilkerson and his ilk admit that they have put party loyalty above the welfare of the country.
The only way to put a check on Bush is to vote Democrat in every race in November. If Wilkerson will not publicly support this position, then I have no more time for him."

Posted by Marky

Oh come on. Wilkerson is simply saying that the batch of assholes currently soiling the carpets in the White House are "republicans" in name only. I dare say I am comfortable saying the same about these simpering cowards that call themselves "democrats" as well. The worst nightmare these people in Washington suffer is the possibility that one day the American people will become fed up with this bullshit, and they will arise as AMERICANS, sans the divisive onus of "party loyalty". "Party" has become a tool of division, used by Washington to negate the possibility of the American people arriving at a common concensus.

Follow the money, these bastards all serve the same masters anyway.

I wonder what Wilkerson would reply to Teddy Roosevelt who claimed people like Wilkerson stole his party? Wilkerson is just a part of an evolution of king George in the 1700's to this George.