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Monday, January 16, 2012

Party leaders to meet in forum

SALISBURY -- With a presidential race around the corner, local party leaders are set to discuss the origins and ideologies of the Democratic and Republican parties.
Harry Basehart, the past chair of the department of political science at Salisbury University and a current member of the Wicomico County Democratic Central Committee is expected to discuss party politics with David Parker, the past chair of the department of mathematics and computer science department at SU and the current chair of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee. The "Forum for Civil Discourse" is set to be moderated by Don Rush of Delmarva Public Radio in SU's Fulton Hall on Tuesday.
"I think dealing with the current presidential race, the definition of the parties -- in terms of government involvement in the economy -- are being worked out," Rush said. "It's a good idea to look back at where they came from. Hopefully, this will give people a sense of how they came to take a particular position on the economy."
Working on remarks for the forum, Parker said he is disappointed that major issues are being largely ignored both by the majority in the media and in the ongoing GOP presidential debates. Instead, he said, minor issues and personalities are dominating the reporting.
He identified such major party issues as centering around their different philosophical views regarding the nature, role and size of government; the role of the Constitution; the effects of large budget deficits; the actions of "activist" judges; the level of taxation; and "being responsible for one's actions."
"I suspect that Harry and I will have several points of agreement," he said. "But we will hopefully explore the very real differences in philosophy between the two major parties -- in the above areas as well as in others."
He said he also expects to address the absence of civility in politics, as "we have now apparently reached the point where demonization of opponents is both expected and acceptable."
Basehart agreed the substance and tone of today's campaigns is frequently poor.
"Too often we focus on the horse-race character of elections," he said. "This forum will call attention to core beliefs and values of the two major parties and remind us where our focus should be as we decide which presidential and congressional candidates to support in November."
Basehart said he also hopes to explore the problems a president, Democratic or Republican, has in consistently following an ideology when governing.

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