Welcome to TPM! It's always good to hear from dissenting voices, especially when they're kept respectful. Obviously the vast majority here at TPM are Democrats, or at least Democrat-leaning (such as myself), so be aware that you will be in the minority. Hopefully you have a thick skin as I'm sure that if you voice Republican opinions, several people will lay into you quite hard (and many will do so disrespectfully). Don't take it personally and do realize that many of us appreciate alternative viewpoints. Note, however, that if you cite Fox News as a reputable source, I might have to chide you a bit myself. :)

/signed

I don't agree with the ideology, but calling Republicans 'reTHUGlicans' or 'repugs' is lowering the discourse to the same level of 'demoCRAP', 'democRATS', and 'LIEberal'. As soon as you stop making valid points and start trying to display your cleverness with cute names, readers shut off. I have to wonder if a lot of the more bilesome folks ever try re-reading what they post.

Not everyone on the other side of the isle is Cheney!

Hey - welcome here.

I am slightly guilty of bashing people who want to throw unsubstantiated bombs. or who show a willful and repeated desire to deliberately read things the wrong way. Ok - maybe a tad more than slightly. But that has been largely aimed at certain Clinton supporters that - rather than engage in discourse - toss the Molotov.

First of all, as I have told my kids - there are, and there have been in the past - some very decent people who ran as Republicans. I do tend to qualify that with the regret that many of today's 'leading' Republicans are not anything like the Republicans that made the brand great in years past.

There have been many Republicans that I may not have agreed with lockstep in the past, but have had great respect for, and whose views were more than worth embracing.

While I have chastised Voinovich (I'm in Ohio) for a few things in the past, I have also written him for taking what I thought had to be daring stands in the eyes of his compatriots; that is, I thanked him, and heartily so.

I was actually somewhat taken aback the other day when he was pretty frank with the Good general and - uh - um -uh - uh Cro - uh -ck - uh -er. Haven't written him yet on that - he deserves to know it was appreciated.

As you note - I do think Obama could help turn the page in American politics and help guide back to a day when it wasn't so darned divisive. And regardless of which party a newcomer to the greater political scene supports, if Obama can engage their participation - that's really great.

The dumbing down of political discourse exemplified by certain members of both parties is disgraceful. The mainstream media is abetting this as much as they abetted the march to war.

Dear David,

Thank you for liking this amazing young candidate for the Presidency, whom many of us here on TPM heartily support. And thank you for exhorting the more enthusiastic of us to keep his style in front of our eyes when we encounter those who do not yet understand the strength and good will which it personifies.

It is vastly more difficult to pass through life with that evenness of temper, breadth of perspective and openness of mind and spirit which Senator Obama's style embodies, and I continue to be amazed at how he does it.

With good will and tolerance, some of us will rise to the challenge of that style.

But many will find it impossible, and sink to the usual junk of human life.

As long as TPM wishes to keep itself accessible to all and open to different styles, there will be those who simply can't do any differently than their spirits drive them to. They need understanding and a certain measure of forgiveness. With luck they will grow.

WWOW. Sound good to me.

"You should understand that TPM becomes irrelevant as soon as it grows too insular."

Exactly right. Thank you for the breadth of perspective.

You're totally right. I try to monitor myself, often failing, but, well, trying. It'd be nice if more people did the same thing.

As a sixty-year-old who was raised in a strong Republican household and who stayed in the family camp in my early years I have fond memories of many Rockefeller Republicans so welcome!
As the Republican Party shifted dramatically to the right I was left in a void. I spent years as an Independent voting either party seeking the best candidate--until the Bush administration. I realized then that my home was definitely on the other side of the aisle. But it was with Barack Obama I finally felt a missing joy. At last we had a candidate who seemed genuinely interested in doing the right thing for all of us. He doesn't fall into the typical traps and lash out when it would be so easy to do so. He avoids the the easy retorts and does not make snide references like "Repugs." He has a consistency we can all admire and his equanimity under attack shows he has the kind of first class temperament we should all want in a president.
Thanks for the WWOW acronym! In our desire to see him win against not only Hillary but McCain we often forget to live up to the ideals we admire in him.

I find the whole "Repuglican" "Rethuglican" thing as idiotic as the "Annoy a Liberal -- Be Happy and Succeed" bumper stickers. Stupid noise.

Yes. By all means raise the level of political discourse. But don't blame the intemperate words on the young.

Place it where it surely belongs: The criminally unconstitutional policies of the Bush administration. And the lies, over and over and over again.

And, let us not forget Cheney's comments on the floor of the Senate, the greatest representative body perhaps in human history. This showed us all what Bush and his people think about representative government.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/24/cheney.leahy/

Quelle coincidence! (Not sure why this needs to be French, but it sounds better.) I just chastised another reader earlier today for using "repug":

The use of the term "Repugs" doesn't advance your thesis and demeans the discourse by bringing it to the level of schoolyard name-calling. Moreover, while there are of course many repugnant Republicans, there are more than a few decent ones, some of whom even read TPM (and support Obama). I don't see any benefit to alienating them, and one of Obama's greatest strengths is his willingness to engage them.

Anyway, thanks for your post, David. I hope that there are a lot more moderate Republicans like you out there.

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

I love the WWOW concept!

I personally try to avoid the name calling because I've found that the names are usually cheap substitutes for thoughtfulness. (Unless, they're clever. I'll shamefacedly confess to giggling at whoever called Clinton the "wedgied pantsuit.")

Sometimes, the ugliness of comments around here (and elsewhere on the net) can get depressing. But after awhile, you notice that 90 percent of the bile comes from about 5 percent of the posters. Once you identify those 5 percent and stop paying much attention to them, everything gets easier.

I come from a family full of Republicans, but they're old school Republicans, from decades ago before the party was hijacked by the current crop in power. Frankly, I'd like it if moderates like you could bring the party back to some semblance of sanity. Stop the cronyism and incompetence, stop the corporate giveaways and runaway deficits, stop the evisceration of the Constitution, return some integrity to the process. The Republican party can only be fixed from the inside.

I think part of this was directed at me cause for years I have called Republicans Repugs. My fingers just type it now.

I'm sorry it offends you. But you know, your party offends the hell out of me. Your party has started an unnecessary war, turned America into a nation that flaunts all sense of common decency among nations and stands for unbridled violent power and torture and lies.

I cannot get too excited about offending someone who is still a Republican under the circumstances. I think I'm owed an apology from the Republicans for their trampling all over every one of my ,most cherished beliefs and the hopes and ideas I grew up with about America which does not resemble that country in any way anymore. If you're offended, then stop and think how some of us must feel.

By the way, I voted against Bush in the 2000 primary, the general and again in 2004, your disdain for all Republicans is unfounded, many of us were extremely disappointed someone like Bush became our nominee. Democrats didn't try hard enough, blame yourselves for putting forth a lackluster candidate - chosen for his 'electibility'.

So... only Republicans have committed crimes of corruption and worse?

It's okay, I've been attacked by Republicans too - for years now - because I think abortion should remain legal and I have criticized Bush from the start. Rabid Republicans have a fabulous way of marginalizing people with differing viewpoints too, seems the so-called "Progressives" are merely adopting their tactics. I think thats the point David is making, don't become that which you hate.

My conscience is clear, as a Republican I never give money to political campaigns. I don't support Republicans who try to thrust moral legislation upon us and I have voted against Bush every chance I got. I don't jump ship just because we get lost, I think its more important to work from within to help get our party back on course.

Read: Conservatives without Conscience and Worse than Watergate by John Dean these books helped me see the point that giving up is giving in when it comes to internal party conflicts.

I dislike Hillary as much as you do if not more, in fact... I happen to think Hillary = Bush when it comes to policy and style.

Bad childish behavior is universal. I'm an atheist and the democrat in Illinois who yelled, insulted and claimed he 'didn't have a right to be there' to an atheist testifying before the state house disgusted me... but I don't lump every person whose voter registration card says 'democrat' in with her.

I am not the Republican leadership, and by my measurement they have served the country badly, me included. I feel its my duty to work towards replacing them, with Republicans who can advocate for the issues I care about without behaving badly.

I don't buy the argument that Democrats should be given every seat in the house, senate and oval office. I think much can be accomplished by giving them a simple majority... Bush made lots happen with that advantage.

I think the Republicans will figure it out eventually.

It'll take one or two more losing elections before they figure out that the Republican Mondales(McCain, for example) will eventually have to give in to the Republican version of Bill Clinton, the Mike Huckabees of the world. I see two directions the party can go: More social conservative but economically liberal, OR, more socially liberal but economically conservative.

Either it becomes the Huckabee party or the Guiliani party. One thing is for sure: Republicans will abandon the doctrine of preemptive war. As long as they subscribe to preemptive war, they'll be tied to Bush. They'll lose again and again as more Americans increasingly realize the economic burdens the war has placed on our economy.

I actually think they will be more Guiliani than Huckabee. Why do I think that? Because, increasingly, we are seeing a dissolution of evangelicals and this is becoming a more and more secular country with each passing year. The dominant young conservative writers seem to be libertarian-bent rather than religious-bent.

I also think the Democratic Party will absorb some of the evangelicals who fall out of the Republican Party. It is interesting that Democratic polls show that Obama supporters are, on average, more religious than Hillary supporters. The Audacity of Hope crowd is more metaphysically-inclined, I guess.