Whither the Republicans?

In the heat of last year’s primary elections I ventured my opinion that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was doomed to fail because it was operating on a false premise: They believed that winning what they called “the core constituency” of the Democratic party was enough to win the nomination.

The premise was false because they didn’t understand their definition of “core constituency” was obsolete.

I referred to Danny DeVito’s famous lines in the play “Other People’s Money” to describe the problem:

“It's too late for prayers. For even if the prayers were answered and a miracle occurred, … we would still be dead. You know why? …

Keep getting an increasing share of a shrinking market.

Down the tubes. Slow but sure.

I offered this opinion after the Pennsylvania primary, where the total vote for Clinton turned out to be less than half what they had counted on; either the “white, working class, non-college-educated” voter was not a certain voter for Hillary or the proportion of such voters had shrunk — perhaps both.

I called it “the toilet bowl effect”: When a toilet is flushed, a huge volume of water descends into the bowl and then whirls in an ever-shrinking vortex until it’s gone.
So why drag all this up again? Because those who fail to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them?

Recent events in and around the Republican party reached a crescendo with the decision by Senator Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania (there’s an interesting coincidence!) to give up on the party and join the Democrats.

It had become clear, after a huge number of Pennsylvania Republicans moved to the Democratic party in 2008, that the folks who were left were not a constituency likely to re-elect him in the 2010 Republican primary; a moderate Republican by history, it appeared his chances were better running as a Democrat in the general election.

The reaction in the Republican leadership was mixed, ranging from "sorry to see him go" to “good riddance,” with a heavy tilt toward the latter. Michael Steele, the Republican party chairman, referenced Specter’s “left-wing voting record,” an interesting new definition for “moderate.”

There’s a patchwork of hue and cry from assorted people who profess to care about the future of the Republican party who yearn for the party to rise again, to offer leadership and become a force again. Sad to say, the major players, at least so far, seem determined to pursue an increasing share of a shrinking market.

A good first step would be to dump the word “conservative,” because no one seems to know exactly what it means anymore. Awhile back, it was “low taxes, efficient government, strong national security.” But what does it mean now?

As it is, the lack of any other coherent message on the part of the Republican leadership leaves them defaulting to simply opposing anything the Democratic administration wants to do. With nothing to offer but anger, the party is doomed to keep on shrinking.

There are folks for whom positions on abortion, or gay rights, or school prayer may be a critical part of being “conservative”; but what do they do – refuse to join with anyone who disagrees with them? What if, like Pat Buchanan, they disagree with the war in Iraq but agree on those “social” issues?

What if, like Ron Paul, they disagree on the social issues and on the war in Iraq but believe in low taxes, efficient government and a strong national security”?

What if, like Arlen Specter, they agree on some issues and disagree on others but want to identify with the basic tenets of the Republican party? Drum them out of the roll call?

“Conservative” just doesn’t seem to tell us anything anymore.

Maybe going back to just plain “Republican” will do nicely, but it needs a new sense of purpose. A fractured party is almost no party at all.

Whatever your political leaning, you should want a healthy Republican party. No matter how well our president is doing, no matter how noble the intentions of his administration, a robust and coherent Republican party will always keep them on their toes.

Early Thanksgiving!

Election night was unbelievable. Literally. Down at Democratic Headquarters several dozen folks had gathered to watch the returns, yet the room was strangely quiet over an almost unbearable two hours, as the patient assembly tried to make sense out of the myriad maps and graphs displayed on TV news reports. Then, suddenly, the screen filled with the announcement that Barack Obama would be the 44th President of the United States.

The room erupted into noise and motion as people shouted and danced and hugged and cheered, the emotion of the moment even driving some of us to tears. How to believe that this moment in American history had arrived – and that we had been a part of it?

And yes, everything did change. The rest of the world celebrated right along with us; news flashed from all around the world, like the rolling reports of new years' celebrations, except it was all at once.

It was thrilling, no doubt about it. Especially for those of us who supported Barack Obama for the better part of two years, way too long by some standards, but that’s a problem for another time.

For those who are less than thrilled, but would welcome some good news, let me offer at least one thought.

The election is over.

And another: The winner was Obama, not Clinton.

And this: Rahm Emanuel, known as “Rahmbo,” is to be Chief of Staff at the White House. This appointment likely signals that the Obama administration will be disciplined, and that it will not be pulled to the left by the left-most members of the party. (That could be a whole separate column, so trust me for now.)

There was some collateral damage, too, in that the hapless campaign run by McCain and the Rove acolytes he listened to may have been the death of the Republican Party. And no, I don’t find that cause for celebration, because I believe in the usefulness of a loyal opposition.

But that opposition should be honorable and I think that the Republican Party, after it was hijacked by radicals, lost its moorings. Without those moorings, it will likely be a very, very long time before American politics regains its balance.

How is the Republican Party to become viable again? Certainly not by returning to the slash-and-burn tactics of Rove and Gingrich, now thoroughly discredited as party visionaries. These guys, along with Grover Norquist, are where the blame really should go once the dust settles.

How about revisiting the ideas of William F. Buckley, one of this country’s truly thoughtful intellectuals, about whom George W. Bush said, “Bill Buckley was one of the great founders of the modern conservative movement. He brought conservative thought into the political mainstream, and helped lay the intellectual foundation for America's victory in the Cold War and for the conservative movement that continues to this day.”

Buckley often spoke out strongly against the “neoconservative” approach to government. In a conversation with George Will (no slouch in the matter of conservatism), speaking about the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy abroad as foreign policy, he said:

It's anything but conservative. It's not conservative at all, inasmuch as conservatism doesn't invite unnecessary challenges. It insists on coming to terms with the world as it is, and the notion that merely by affirming these high ideals we can affect highly entrenched systems.

The thoughtful conservatism of Buckley was overrun by radicals like Grover Norquist, head of the euphemistically named Americans for Tax Reform; Norquist once told NPR, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Starve the government of revenue and you can do away with foolish things like, oh, national defense, public education, Medicare, Social Security, and FEMA.

Norquist was co-author of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract with America,” and had a long association with Karl Rove. He was instrumental in securing early conservative support for George W. Bush in the lead-up to the 2000 race for the presidency.

In 2003 Paul Krugman, who this year won the Nobel Prize for Economics, wrote:

Here's how the argument runs: to starve the beast, you must not only deny funds to the government; you must make voters hate the government. There's a danger that working-class families might see government as their friend: because their incomes are low, they don't pay much in taxes, while they benefit from public spending. So in starving the beast, you must take care not to cut taxes on these "lucky duckies." (Yes, that's what The Wall Street Journal called them in a famous editorial.) In fact, if possible, you must raise taxes on working-class Americans in order, as The Journal said, to get their "blood boiling with tax rage."

If I were trying to rebuild the Republican Party I’d get out a new broom and run these guys out of town.

The loveliness of the Obama victory is that it did not involve viciousness (pleas by some worried supporters notwithstanding) and remained calm and thoughtful throughout. And it paid off: Obama won in almost every identifiable constituency, including college graduates making more than $100,000.

Question for Karl Rove: Does this mean that to build a permanent Democratic majority all we have to do is provide college education for everyone that wants it?