Paradigm Shift
Oct 30th, 2006 at 8:49 am by Susie
Very interesting piece in the Times about why liberal Republicans in the Seattle suburbs are furious with their party:
“I am a Republican and have traditionally voted that way,†Tony Schuler, an operations services manager at Microsoft with a Harvard M.B.A., said as he sat with his wife, Deanna, in their home above Lake Sammamish. But Mr. Schuler abhors what he sees as a new Republican habit of meddling in private affairs.
“The Schiavo case. Tapping people without a warrant. Whether or not people are gay,†he said. “Let people be free! It’s not government’s job to interfere with those things.â€
In Bellevue, the professional is political. Rather than religion or culture, what unites the diverse population — a quarter of residents are foreign born — are the values of their workplaces: technological innovation, accuracy, efficiency.
And this year, one issue incenses them above all others: restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.
It is a matter of concern across the country, even across parties. But for many engineers and their ilk, restriction of stem cell research is what gay marriage is to conservative Christians, a phenomenon so counter to their basic values that they cannot vote for any candidate who supports it. After all, for Bellevue’s professionals, science is not only a means of creating wealth but also an idealistic pursuit, the most promising way they know of improving the human condition.
“For hundreds of years, science has had its own jurisprudence over the truth. It’s called peer review, and it works pretty well,†said Mr. Mattison, whose father had Alzheimer’s and his uncle Parkinson’s disease. “I’m outraged that a mere politician would interpret science for me.â€
I wholeheartly agree with the points made here. The republican party basically sold its soul to the fundamentalist to get and keep power. The other area where they have lost many, including me, is that the spending is so far of control. The prime example was the transportation bill last year with something like 6000 added pork barrel projects which passed and was signed by the president and hailed as great work. In contrast 20 years or so earlier another transportation bill was passed with only a couple of hundred pork barrel projects and Pres. Reagan vetoed it as too costly and pork filled.
This idiot Harvard M.B.A finally figures “it” out. Christ, another melodramatic journey of self-discovery published in the mainstream press offered to us uneducated boobs in the suburbs like a parable from Jesus hisself.
I’m in the middle of this fight out in WA-08.
I know it can be frustrating, but what this election cycle has done, if nothing else, is force a lot more people than you would think to re-evaluate just who they vote for, and why.
We have two Republicans with time served in the state legislature from around here that want to get into the state Senate. Both would normally be slam-dunk candidates, given their time served, but there is such a hatred of what the national Republicans stand for, and a questioning of what these two guys have backed when the chips were down, that both are in serious trouble.
One of these two candidates has gone so far as to show up within the local left blogosphere to deflect claims regarding his right-wing fundie support, even willing to disparage in a subtle way his fellow Republican, and our present Congressman, Republican Dave Reichert.
This race will go down to the wire, and nothing is guaranteed. But at least out here, it’s 1980 in reverse and the Republicans are feeling the heat like never before in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle.
I am also in the 8th CD, and it has been said, all politics is local: Darcy is young and a very quick study. She is articulate, but inexperienced. Reichert looks like the guy from the Leslie Nielson(”Surely you jest! Stop calling me Shirley”)airplane movies, but is not as smart. He has limited his exposure to any venues in which he might actually have to say anything unplanned.
The NYTimes article only discusses the Microsoft end of the district. The South end, down towards Mt. Rainier is much more conservative, less educated, less diverse and less wealthy. Those are the tough votes to convert.