TW: I have opined before that parties go through cycles whereby they create majorities for whatever lose the majority but for a period of time afterwards cling to their prior coalition in hope of bringing back the good old days. Eventually the old stalwarts within the party lose their grasp on power within the party to moderates who move the party back towards the middle where elections are actually won. To me the Dems went through this catharsis from roughly the late 1960's through the early 1990's as the old FDR coalition frayed then splintered then disintegrated. Bill Clinton patched together some new factions, W. Bush spoiled his own party's brand and now Obama potentially becomes the next great POTUS energizing his own party whilst bringing independents into the tent.
Meanwhile the Republicans are at the stage where their leadership is still owned by the old base and new leadership is too weak to move the party back towards the center. There remains a hard-core base of folks who are genuinely culturally conservative and for whom things like gay marriage and immigrants are anathema. Unfortunately for the Republicans that hard core base is on the wrong side of history with those issues. I suspect 2010 and 2012 will be very painful for the Republicans as a result.
The anti-tax, anti-"big government" (as conservatives define it) will have more legs ultimately. Low taxes will always hold appeal (and always have). But for now that message is not appropriate (regardless of the Hooverites) amidst a massive worldwide contraction. Furthermore any traction it should have is likely drowned out by the hard-core cultural issues being intermingled amongst the anti-tax message. By 2014 or so though, I would think the anti-tax, "smaller government" message will have gained precedence setting the stage for a Republican resurgence at least from the depths, it will have attained in the interim.
From Politico:
"...headlines suggest the Republican Party is beginning to come to terms with the last election and that consensus is emerging among GOP elites that the party needs to move away from discordant social issues...The party’s top elected leaders in Congress, meanwhile, spooked by being attacked as the “party of no,” were recasting themselves as a constructive, respectful opposition to a popular president.
But outside Washington, the reality is very different. Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction. There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.
...And it is perhaps most tangible in Iowa, where same-sex marriage will become the law this month in response to a state Supreme Court ruling. There, Republican activists and officials say the party is as resolute as ever, if not more so, on cultural issues...The marriage issue was the No. 1 issue on their minds. No. 2 was the massive federal spending taking place. In every discussion, immigration came up.
...The marriage issue and other traditional conservative litmus tests aren't likely to fade before the state's next presidential caucuses, either. Asked about how a presidential candidate urging the party toward the middle on cultural issues would fare, Scheffler said flatly: “They’re not gonna go anywhere.”
...But the party’s battered infrastructure, still recovering from its drubbings in 2006 and 2008, is also listing to the right. Liberal Republican groups like the Main Street Republican Partnership and the Republican Majority for Choice remain essentially irrelevant, and even the main gay GOP group, the Log Cabin Republicans, is fending off a challenge from a more conservative gay splinter faction. Ralph Reed, the longtime Christian conservative activist and former chair of the Georgia GOP, predicted that opposition to same-sex marriage would become, like abortion, a litmus test, if a lower-profile one. "There used to be muscular and vocal disagreement in the party on our pro-life plank," he recalled. "That has largely been resolved. Nobody raises the issue of changing the pro-life plank."
Meanwhile, the hottest new conservative outfit is the National Republican Trust PAC, which raised a stunning $6 million in the waning days of the 2008 contest from millions of small donors who helped fund a slashing television advertisement attacking Obama for his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It’s taken a similar approach to recent congressional races. Rick Wilson, a consultant to the group, explained the outlook of “real Republicans” when it comes to Obama. “They think this guy has grabbed the reins of power and that he is racing as fast as he can first off to reshape the economy and the culture in his image – they are mortified at that and they are terrified of it.”
...Two of the most prominent GOP Senate moderates face serious primary challenges in 2010. In Pennsylvania, former Congressman Pat Toomey, a down-the-line economic and social conservative, is running against Sen. Arlen Specter, attacking his “liberal agenda on social, labor, immigration and national security policies.” In Arizona, Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Project, a group that mounted armed opposition to illegal immigration at the border, announced this week that he’s running against McCain. “We’ve had it with the elitist establishment in Washington and John McCain is one of those,” Simcox said. A conservative Republican operative, meanwhile, said two other prominent conservatives are mulling challenges to sitting GOP senators. The party will be shaped most clearly, however, when its presidential hopefuls begin their early state pilgrimages after the 2010 midterms.
And they’re unlikely to emerge convinced that courting gay and Hispanic voters, in particular, is politically saleable within their parties..."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21677.html
No comments:
Post a Comment