Former Rep. Tom Davis (R?) Goes “No Labels”

For the segment of this video with former Rep. Tom Davis (R-11th, VA) talking about “No Labels,” click on the image above and go to minute 4:00 or so. I find it simultaneously pathetic, poignant, and amusing that the Virginia Republican Party has gotten so extreme that a smart, sane, moderate Republican like Tom Davis feels the need to join up with a group “united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America.”  According to Davis:

…a lot of Republican moderates got knocked out in 2006 and 2008…outside of New York, New England hasn’t come back for the Republicans, the west coast hasn’t come for the Republicans, we are seeing a pretty red and blue nation and some reassertion of a huge cultural/political divide…

…even people like Robert Bennett didn’t even get through the nomination process. You know, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Castle, we can go through the whole list. Charlie Crist and Specter were non-starters in their party primaries. So it has gotten so that each party has now gotten in the nomination process moved right and left, and that, of course, you have a huge group in the middle who has swung back between the elections and basically looking for a place to go.

By the way, the people doing this interview are insufferable, constantly posing false dichotomies between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, MoveOn and the Tea Party, etc. It’s complete horses***, but this brain dead, “on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand” blather posing as “analysis” is what the media generally does these days. The fact is, the Democratic Party has moved right over the past decade or so, and today is largely a corporatist/centrist party. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has moved hard to the right, becoming something akin to the John Birch Society, certainly not a place where the Bob Doles, Gerald Fords, Nelson Rockefellers, Lowell Weickers, Russ Pottses, John Chichesters, Mike Castles, and…Tom Davises of the world could possibly feel welcome at this point.

Finally, I’ve just got to say, from what I read in the Kaplan Post this morning about “No Labels”, this thing just seems completely laughable. Read Salon’s take on “No Labels” ” “nationwide campaign for civility,” including ” a theme song composed and performed by R&B superstar and conflict diamond profiteer Akon.” It almost seems like a Saturday Night Live parody skit. My guess is that it may turn out to be just as funny, but not nearly as influential, as one of those.

h/t: Too Conservative