{"id":8143,"date":"2006-08-08T09:11:40","date_gmt":"2006-08-08T13:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8143.html"},"modified":"2006-08-08T09:11:40","modified_gmt":"2006-08-08T13:11:40","slug":"the-moderate-republican-has-been-pushed-aside-for-the-extreme-right-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-moderate-republican-has-been-pushed-aside-for-the-extreme-right-wing\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The moderate Republican has been pushed aside for the extreme right wing&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy stories <a href=\"http:\/\/ap.ardmoreite.com\/pstories\/state\/ok\/20060803\/77090196.shtml\">like these<\/a>? (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.intoxination.net\/2006\/08\/05\/another-republican-switches-to-the-good-party\/\">via Intoxination<\/a>)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Oklahoma] Republican state Sen. Nancy Riley, complaining there is no room in her party for moderates, switched to the Democratic Party Thursday and threw a new obstacle at GOP hopes of taking control of the Senate for the first time in state history.<\/p>\n<p>Riley, flanked by a half dozen Democratic Senate leaders, announced her change in party allegiance while criticizing Senate Republicans for what she said was their &#8220;lack of compassion for people&#8221; and for ignoring her and other political moderates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The moderate Republican has been pushed aside for the extreme right wing,&#8221; Riley said. Riley, a member of the Senate&#8217;s GOP leadership team who holds the title of minority whip, said she has received no support among Republicans in the state Senate&#8230;. &#8220;The moderate Republican no longer has a voice.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This, of course, is an example regarding a state legislator, and some of the factors that led to the switch were driven by local issues.<\/p>\n<p>But I suspect there are plenty of moderate Republicans who agree with Nancy Riley and lament what&#8217;s happened to the GOP. As long as these moderates stay with the party, Republican leaders will have no incentive to change direction.<\/p>\n<p>I can only hope others follow in Riley&#8217;s footsteps. After all, it&#8217;s suddenly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/web\/page.ww?section=root&#038;name=ViewWeb&#038;articleId=11804\">the cool thing to do<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy stories like these? (via Intoxination) [Oklahoma] Republican state Sen. Nancy Riley, complaining there is no room in her party for moderates, switched to the Democratic Party Thursday and threw a new obstacle at GOP hopes of taking control of the Senate for the first time in state [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}