Andy Warren breaks away
Longtime Republican Bucks County Commissioner turned PennDOT regional chief Andy Warren has flown the GOP coup—switching party affiliation this past week. Which confirms something I’ve long suspected:
I’m not the only one.
Of course, my departure from the land of the right officially took place over four years ago, but it has continued in spirit since. In that time, I’ve heard many Republicans express their displeasure with the state of modern GOP politics; for all their bluster, however, few have possessed the initiative to break free. And I’m not necessarily bashing them —I’m sure the tie is a hard one to sever.
Which is why I’m even more impressed with Andy Warren, who has been a fixture in Republican party politics for decades here in Bucks County (PA). In the aforementioned article, he becomes the second former Mike Fitzpatrick colleague to express disappointment with the shift in the freshman congressman’s political personna (Jim Greenwood did the same within the last couple weeks).
Alongside criticisms of an “out-of-control” national debt and an impossible-to-understand Social Security system, Warren reserves more harsh words for Fitzpatrick’s positions since taking office in January.“Personally, I like Mike Fitzpatrick and believe him to be a very engaging gentleman,” Warren wrote. “Politically, our philosophies are poles apart. I believe he is far more a ‘DeLay disciple’ than a representative of Bucks County residents.”
His assessment of Fitzpatrick’s performance as closer to Tom DeLay than the average Bucks resident is understandable. Even though Bucks County is nominally Republican, Bucks County Republicans tend left the way Texas Democrats tend right. Fitzpatrick certainly doesn’t appear to fit that local trend.
It makes me wish more folks who expressed half-hearted discontent would follow suit. What if John McCain decided to spin off from the party that’s shown him more disrespect than respect over the past several years? Imagine not just having that more moderate voice out there as an option, but also what the presence of that option might do to reign in the nuts who’ve taken over the party I once considered mine. Either result would signify a welcome shift.
I’m not saying GOP defectors would have to become Democrats (as Warren has done). They could simply become independents, like Jim Jeffords did (-and like I did).
But far too often, when those teetering on the border of their party’s fringe are encouraged to jump ship, they come back with the ridiculous idea that they owe something to their party, and thus, they cannot imagine abandoning it. It would be so nice to see more politicians who felt more duty to their country than to their party. After all, only one of those two loyalties is actually mandated by our Constitution.
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