Republicans & Democrats: Trading Places...

I've been waiting for the Weekly Standard to post this one all day.

Paul Mirengoff, a contributor to Power Line, comments on how the two major parties have played a bit of a role-reversal in recent year:

"There was a time when the Democrats seemed like the party of pragmatism and the Republicans like the party that opposed, on principle, solutions that offered hope. Forty-five years ago, the Democrats were bursting with ideas for alleviating human suffering and want: a minimum wage, Medicare, various elements of what became the War on Poverty. The Democrats were flawed pragmatists because they didn't account for the hidden costs and burdens of their programs, but at least they were proposing serious solutions to real problems. Conservative Republicans seemed less interested in this project, even to the point of opposing, in the name of states' rights, legislation designed to combat the evils of racial segregation and discrimination. But today, we find conservative Republicans pushing for reform and Democrats resisting on principle."

The GOP is now the party of "problem-solving", although it must beware the traps of government growth. As Mirengoff explains:

"If it is true that Republicans have become the more pragmatic of the two parties, how and why did this transformation happen? The "how" part has a great deal to do with the failure of a potentially great pragmatist, Bill Clinton, to propose a pragmatic answer on healthcare. It has even more to do with the rise of George W. Bush and his big government conservatism. But that's a subject for another day."

Posted by: Gary at 04:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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