For years, there’ve been marginalized and generally unsuccessful efforts to build a Republican pressure group to nudge the party back toward the middle or mainstream or American politics. The model is virtually always the Democratic Leadership Council which in various ways — some under-appreciated, many over-appreciated — repositioned the Democratic party in the late 80s and early 90s. After the 2012 election, there was another hue and cry that such a group had to come into existence. But, it isn’t looking good.
One of the group’s that’s been aspiring to this role for many years is something called the Republican Main Street Partnership. It was set up and run by a former GOP Rep. named Amo Houghton from upstate New York.
Well, today Yahoo is reporting that the RMSP has decided to drop the word ‘Republican’ from their name and will now start accepting center-right Democrats as members.
In other words, the Republican Main Street Partnership doesn’t seem to be able to find enough Republicans to be on Main Street.
From Yahoo …
The organization’s board of directors voted Tuesday morning to scrap party identification from its title and be known simply as “The Main Street Partnership.” The group’s new president, former Ohio Republican Rep. Steven LaTourette, told Yahoo News that he plans to begin conversations with Blue Dog Democrats and centrist groups in the coming months.“The goal is to try and fill the void that is the middle,” LaTourette, who resigned from Congress this year, said. “The American political system is like a doughnut: You’ve got sides, but you don’t have anything in the middle and it would be my goal to work with Republicans and Democrats who want to find the path forward to getting things done and compromise.”
I think this pretty much speaks for itself.
