Most of you know that in recent JFC action, the committee voted to approve both domestic partnership benefits for state employees, and to offer resident tuition to certain undocumented residents of Wisconsin.
When it comes to the financial future of Wisconsin, neither is a big issue. Resident tuition is revenue-neutral (in part because the UW System can make it so), and unless one wishes government to view the world through a religiously-tinged prism, denying benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees is as arbitrary and random as denying benefits to partners of people who have blue eyes, or are left-handed. There simply is no logical reason to do it.
These issues are one day stories. They are of major importance to narrow groups of state residents, and most everyone else just shrugs their shoulders. They'll also be a major test of whether the new minority GOP has learned the lessons that put it in the minority.
Here's the GOP dilemma with these issues. They are the kind of things that work a small number of conservatives into a batshit-crazy, foamy-mouth furor. They are the same sort of political crack that voter fraud and gay marriage and liberal judges are made of, the same kind of political crack the GOP of this decade has become addicted to.
Instead of focusing on issues and solutions that can sustain a long-term majority, the GOP of recent years has been more concerned about finding one more explosive wedge issue to get through one more election cycle. In 2002, we were told that Democrats weren't patriotic. In 2004 and 2006, we were told that gay marriage would ruin America. In 2006 and 2008, we listened to the base squawk about immigration. Soon, we'll get to watch Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of other old, crotchety white guys take wild swings at the woman who will almost certainly be our first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Each cycle, the GOP looks frantically for one more hit, one more bogeyman to use.
There's nothing to be gained in the long-term by staking the party's political future to opposing issues like this. One can already see the fine job this approach (and its messenger-in-chief) have done in turning an entire generation of voters into Democrats. Early political identity tends to be persistent. That old canard about voters getting more conservative as they age? Not so much.
The question for 2010 is what the GOP will be for? Can it reclaim the mantle of ideas-driven politics that it rode to success in the 90's, or will it continue clinging to its negative, fear-driven approach of this decade? Will it focus on battles it can win, or will it simply pick fights for the sake of fighting? The next few months will be telling.
When it comes to the financial future of Wisconsin, neither is a big issue. Resident tuition is revenue-neutral (in part because the UW System can make it so), and unless one wishes government to view the world through a religiously-tinged prism, denying benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees is as arbitrary and random as denying benefits to partners of people who have blue eyes, or are left-handed. There simply is no logical reason to do it.
These issues are one day stories. They are of major importance to narrow groups of state residents, and most everyone else just shrugs their shoulders. They'll also be a major test of whether the new minority GOP has learned the lessons that put it in the minority.
Here's the GOP dilemma with these issues. They are the kind of things that work a small number of conservatives into a batshit-crazy, foamy-mouth furor. They are the same sort of political crack that voter fraud and gay marriage and liberal judges are made of, the same kind of political crack the GOP of this decade has become addicted to.
Instead of focusing on issues and solutions that can sustain a long-term majority, the GOP of recent years has been more concerned about finding one more explosive wedge issue to get through one more election cycle. In 2002, we were told that Democrats weren't patriotic. In 2004 and 2006, we were told that gay marriage would ruin America. In 2006 and 2008, we listened to the base squawk about immigration. Soon, we'll get to watch Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of other old, crotchety white guys take wild swings at the woman who will almost certainly be our first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Each cycle, the GOP looks frantically for one more hit, one more bogeyman to use.
There's nothing to be gained in the long-term by staking the party's political future to opposing issues like this. One can already see the fine job this approach (and its messenger-in-chief) have done in turning an entire generation of voters into Democrats. Early political identity tends to be persistent. That old canard about voters getting more conservative as they age? Not so much.
The question for 2010 is what the GOP will be for? Can it reclaim the mantle of ideas-driven politics that it rode to success in the 90's, or will it continue clinging to its negative, fear-driven approach of this decade? Will it focus on battles it can win, or will it simply pick fights for the sake of fighting? The next few months will be telling.
1 comment:
I guess, since every age bracket shows more Democrats than Republicans, all is lost.
I'd be curious to see this poll overlayed with one that is 20-25 years old, in order to see how regimented the age distinctions really are. One data set does not a trend make.
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