Rebuilding The Republican Party: Not Tabula Rasa

Regardless of who wins the election, the collapse, reconstitution and rebirth of the Republican Party will be one of the top political stories for several years to come, and this column, presupposing that it exists, will cover it closely. As a pre-requisite, perhaps one needs to make the argument that such a crisis exists. One Republican strategist thinks the question smacks of the Democratic Party's circular firing squad circa 2002 - that is, four years later, the party was back in power and six years later, it has the chance to remake the electoral map for years to come.

The debate about the future of the new Republican Party usually hinges on how its constitutive political nodes: the National Security node, the Social Conservative node, the Free Marketers, the Total Libertarian -- coalesce. This organizational principle assumes a tabula rasa that will not, in actuality, be so rasa. Consider: the members of the Republican National Committee will elect the chairman of the Republican Party; they'll be a faction. House Republicans from safe Republican districts will be a faction; Governors will be a faction; iconoclasts (Rep. Shadegg and Rep. Paul) will be a faction; the donor class will be a faction; Christian activists will be a faction; Professional conservatives will be a faction. The idea mavens - those who tap the ground to find new sources of intellectual energy - will be a faction too. Certainly, some of these groups plot easily along an X axis; RNC members are markedly traditionally conservative; the House Republicans organize around grievance politics; the donor class worries about regulation and their finances. But the nation's Republican governors, are all over the map, united more by their pragmatism than their adherence to any of the older ideas. Temperaments are different too. RNC members are irascible; House Republicans are pseudo-populist and looking for a political savior; the governors are moderate; the professional conservatives are keepers of the orthodoxy and soul-searchers; Christian activists are stalwart and (justifiably) unyielding. The point is: putting the ship on even keep won't simply be matter of finding an idea, pulling together interest groups, and winning an election.

In Britain, the Tories have essentially reinvented themselves by secularizing and modernizing, and de-aging. The buzzwords now are youth, pragmatism, experimentation and efficiency. They're moving out of rural areas and into big cities. They're urban populists. What's the big idea? Well, there isn't one, really. They'll discover one, eventually. Thatcher who? They've been aided by the intense dissatisfaction with the regime in power, something that American Republicans won't be able to take advantage of until it arises.

So upon what foundations can Republicans being to rebuild? John McCain and Barack Obama will preside of an enormous expansion of government, of the reregulation of American economic life, of massive changes in our health care delivery system and epochal shifts in how we find, use and pay for energy. Americans paradoxically want regulation and ; they support an efficient, effective government, not a government whose reach extends into every area of their lives, as this government inevitably will. The counter-party to the dominant government paradigm might be an economic libertarian, or it might be something else entirely, a hybrid of economic conservatism and communitarianism, perhaps.

One thought I'll throw up for debate: if American Republicans think they can emulate the Tories and rebuild the party without the full participation of social conservatives, they're wrong.

Comments

The kinds of factional dynamics you're looking apply to the Democratic party as well, with the tensions between the Blue Dogs and progressives increasing after FISA and now the bailout. Regardless of "party affiliation" many key issues are now multi-partisan with some repeated alliances: libertarians and progressives on civil liberties issues, corporatist Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats on telecom immunity and handouts to Wall Street. So I think it's worth considering the Republican rebuilding in a broader perspective. Increasingly, the two-party system is only part of the story.

Posted by jon | October 3, 2008 3:17 PM

If Obama wins, I can see the religious base breaking with Big Business and change the GOP to a populist, nationalistic party. Popularity of the Democratic Party vanishes over 4 years of dealing with the horrible mess left by Bush, and maybe another terrorist attack.

Huckabee or Palin is elected in 2012 on a anti-elite, anti-foreigner, isolationist and surveillance/torture agenda.

Scary stuff.

Posted by Why oh why | October 3, 2008 3:22 PM

The GOP needs "rebuilding" because it yoked itself to conservatism (it used to have liberal and pro-civil-rights elements), and because conservatism as currently espoused in the U.S. is simply an inadequate philosophy for governing a modern nation. It ignores the interdependencies that such nations are built on, including even the interdependences of markets and economic actors, which is why conservative governance led to the present financial fiasco. In short, conservatism is always wrong (a point I develop further at http://conservativesarealwayswrong.googlepages.com , for anyone who's interested), and any party for which it's the central principle is heading for long-term decline. (The British Tories referenced above have, quite simply, become less conservative, and even so it's not clear if they've gone far enough to become a winning electoral force again.)

Posted by Jefferson Smith | October 3, 2008 3:24 PM

As anybody looked at the roll call today on the Bailout?

The Republican Leadership, John Boehner and Roy Blount, both voted NO!!

Is it me or did I not see them on television exhorting their membership to vote Yes?

Posted by Joan | October 3, 2008 3:32 PM

One salient point about the Tories, they've been out of power for 11 years. It took them three election losses before they decided to adopt a less conservative, more Blairite face.

Posted by Mitch Jones | October 3, 2008 3:34 PM

The Republican Party is very likely to reconsolidate.
The various factions might coalesce around ideas - but I think they are even more likely to coalesce around voices: will Gingrich come out of the wilderness? Will Romney provide a center-of-gravity for the Wall Street Repubs? It is the charismatic leaders who will certainly spark and frame the debate within the party. Barbour for example will present himself as a pragmatic problem solver more than a regional (Southern) favorite son. I suspect that the evangelicals could find themselves without a home for an election cycle; perhaps Huckabee will be their spokesman (Palin will not, because she does not - yet - have the gravitas for a compelling voice), and they might connect with the Matthew 25 group or they might not (will abortion continue to be a Grand Canyon for people of faith?).
And while the Blue Dog Democrats might begin to move toward a classic economic conservative proto-party, they will not move for the next three or four years. Because the Dmocrats will win, the victory itself will hold that party together for at least two and probably three to five years.

Posted by RICHARD | October 3, 2008 3:38 PM

A key problem, though, is what kind of relationship to embrace with social conservatives?

The literalist, nativist, and homophobic aspects of social conservatism are generationally obsolescent. A large part of the Republicans' current problems can be placed squarely at the door of their enthusiastic embrace of the Falwell/Robertson evangelical style. It's killing them with voters under 40. The party will need to figure out a new way to relate to the religious right, one that embraces different issues that will speak to Gen X/Y/Millennial voters.

Until they do that, they will be in an electoral wilderness, able to count on the Deep South and the rural West, and losing badly everywhere else.

Posted by Grunthos | October 3, 2008 3:47 PM

I have been a Republican all my life (first time I voted was for Reagan over Carter) but I am leaving the Grand Old Party because it has left me.

I am a conservative. I believe in a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. I believe that our military should only be used to protect American interests. I believe in balanced budgets. I believe in lower taxes. I believe government should be as unintrusive in people's lives as possible.

The Republican Party, at least those people in charge of it right now, may say they are conservatives, but they do not act as such.

The Constitution has been used and abused. Our military has been sent to Iraq with no clear purpose or exit strategy. Our GOP leaders have adapted a "borrow and spend" policy, which I find, far far worse than the Democrats' "tax and spend" motto. At least that way, we are paying our own bills, not dumping the debt our our children. Government interference into a person's life has expanded.

I see nothing in today's GOP that makes me think these people have an understanding of what being a conservative means. For the first time, I will be voting for a Democrat for president. The difference between Obama and McCain is so small, I am going to select leadership.

Plus, Sarah Palin in the White House scares me.

Posted by Robert | October 3, 2008 4:10 PM

Marc - near the end of your second paragraph, you write keep when you mean keel. Just a heasdsup.

Posted by Meridian | October 3, 2008 4:11 PM

The Democratic Party unified in response to it's failure as an opposition party during the Iraq War Debate. It's come together on the idea that Iraq was wrong and embraced a platform that's widely accepted through the party: the primaries showed how closely the democrats have hung together.

A hell of a lot of this is the opposition to the Republicans and Bush: once in office, if Obama wins, the Republicans will have the same thing. In and Obama-Biden adminstartion and a Reid-Pelosi controlled Congress the Republicans have something to organize AGAINST.

Now, there's no Iraq to form a popular mandate and create a realignment. But they can start to make a case for conservative governement and absorb the lessons of Bush years IMO.

The conservatives will have plenty to bring them together; nothing concentrates the mind like a fight. And they'll have a lot to fight if the Democrats control the White House and Congress.

Just wait til Obama's first supreme court nomination if he makes it.

Posted by Rhoda | October 3, 2008 4:21 PM

"One thought I'll throw up for debate: if American Republicans think they can emulate the Tories and rebuild the party without the full participation of social conservatives, they're wrong."

If American Republicans think they can build a future winning electoral majority with a platform of homophobia, racism and immigrant demagoguery, they're wrong.

Younger voters (who will become the older voters of the future, of course) overwhelmingly reject such hatred.

The voters of the most populous state in the union are, by all polling, about to ratify same-sex marriage rights by rejecting Prop. 8. The dominoes are falling.

The culture war is just about over, and it's crystal clear that the social conservatives and evangelicals are being routed. The GOP can keep fighting a rear-guard action if it wants, but all it'll do is slow things down a little.

Honestly, if you'd have told me 10 years ago that same-sex marriage would be a reality in 2008, I'd have called you a hopeless idealist.

The ground is shifting far faster, I believe, than anyone's expected - and it's not going to shift back. There's no mass movement to take away a woman's right to vote. There's no popular support for reinstating Jim Crow.

The "Moral Majority" will forever lose its wars.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | October 3, 2008 4:26 PM

-American Republicans must rebuild the party with the full participation of social conservatives -

My point is similar to Grunthos. Evangelical fervor is cyclical. I'm not sure when the current cycle, which took it's energy from the 60's) peaked, but it is clearly on the decline. With virtually all the current Republican demographics on the decline, they have to incorporate new groups in order to compete on a national level. In doing so there may need to lose the tight affiliation of some its constituancies. The Bush/Rove strategy of targeting Latinos was an example of a group that could have been incorporated without losing the evangelicals, but even if successful, this would have meant a major restructuring.

So basically I'm saying that any real winning realignment will necessarily bust up the old one and take perhaps a decade to reconstitute itself into a national power. That being the case, the evangelicals could end up as the odd group out. how this happens will most likely be event driven rather than a long term strategy.

Posted by Pragmatic Idealist | October 3, 2008 4:30 PM

A commenter above claims that the Republican leaders voted no on the bailout. This isn't true, they voted yes.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml

As far as reconstitution of the GOP, it will be interesting to see if it possibly fractures. You might see three parties develop of this:

A social conservative and populist branch represented by the House GOP and which will probably continue to own the name "Republican." This movement would be epitomized by Huckabee and Gingrich.

A civil libertarian and "good government" practical/libertarian party which pulls alot of the business support base of the GOP, as well as alot of blue dog democrats and many of the currently republican governors. This would be epitomized by Bloomberg and to a lesser extent Romney.

A somewhat smaller Democratic party working from the current party ideals, but losing some ground to the Bloomberg party.

Will be interesting to watch.

Posted by Peter | October 3, 2008 4:55 PM

"One thought I'll throw up for debate: if American Republicans think they can emulate the Tories and rebuild the party without the full participation of social conservatives, they're wrong."

Answer: correct.
Now, will it be possible to maintain cooperation, if not coalescing, between social conservatives and moderates? Perhaps the Tories' example can provide insight.

The evolution of Tory policy-thinking is oriented, I believe, towards the concept of well-being; as in government helping to maintain the conditions of well-being - for oneself and one's family.

More concretely, this translates into policies emphasizing the role of local government & efficiency at all levels.

I recognize that I'm not doing a splendid job representing Tory ideas (for a better view check out the website of Oliver Letwin, MP)

But what I find is that their concepts could be of good use for the GOP since they are sufficiently simple for voters to understand, sufficiently devoid of doctrinal content so as to appeal to various factions, sufficiently different from leftist/Labour/(Democratic?) platforms and sufficiently intelligible within the tradition of Tory policies that they can be seen as both a rupture with a polemic-ridden past but a continuation of policies that appeal to conservative sensabilities.

Posted by NJB | October 3, 2008 4:57 PM

If the best the party has to offer is an idiot like Palin look for many, many more years in the woods. As a former moderate business-oriented Republican turned Democarat, I can tell you that the near-complete takeover of the party by the radio-talk show screaming theocrats has been a disaster. It is the equivalent of the hippy fringe in the Democratic party of the 70s and 80s. From Buckley and Goldwater to Limbaugh and Palin is a joke. The coming disaster will only push the party further into the hands of the fringe. The few honest intellectual conservatives left just aren't enough to overwhelm this rebirth of the John Birch Society.

Posted by Jonah | October 3, 2008 5:45 PM

I think the Republican Party will rebound a bit easier than people expect.

I think we can assume that January 2009 will bring President Obama, a Senate with 55+ Democrats and probably 250+ Democrat House members. This is not because the Democrats re-discovered a great winning message. Obama is running a highly conventional Democratic campaign that is not too dis-similar to Gore and Kerry in terms of message. Bush's incompetence is what altered the equation. And there are some political environment changes that make it very hard for McCain to win. If Iraq keeps looking better, it is good for Obama because it becomes less important. If Iraq gets worse, that makes McCain look bad for being so strongly in favor of it. And the economy is like going to an NFL game where one team is spotted three touchdowns to begin -- McCain can only hope to make the gap respectable on this issue.

But Bush will fade from the landscape. Americans will listen and be moved by the "Bush's third term" charges right now. But come Jan. 2009, they will expect the Democrats to move forward. As long as Bush is out of the public eye during this time, he becomes completely politically irrelevant. Controlling the WH, Senate and House has been a recipe for political disaster in post-WWII America. It leads to over-reaching. It leads to showdowns between a president who has to be concerned about his re-election and members of his own party who know this is their chance to pass legislation they could never get through in divided government. Obama is a very politically astute man, but this is an almost unavoidable minefield.

The over-reaching will open up opportunities for the Republicans, who will be united against the common enemy of Obama and the Democrats. The public is not liberal as much as it frustrated and desiring someone else to run Washington. If the Democrats take this election as an endorsement of a new liberal era, they will over-reach and the GOP will use that political opening to give themselves a new brand.

Posted by Craig | October 3, 2008 6:35 PM

Ruy Teixeira was right - the "GOP" has by and large made itself into the party of either cold-blooded plutocrats who can flout all of society's rules through obscene wealth, or Southern/Western fundamentalist White Men.

And so demographically, they have lost the middle, increasingly diverse and tolerant majority of the electorate and won't get it back for a very long time if ever. They're screwed, even if Obama somehow manages to lose.

The only thing they can place faint hope in for a miracle is that the American electorate's memory is so short, that in another 8 or more years they may forget the disaster of Bush 43's presidency, like they did for his Poppy Bush 41 back in 2000.

Either that, or a disastrous Obama presidency, which is tough to envision right now given what he's following up and what kind of potential he brings.

It's time for a serious third party to emerge on the national scene like never before, but I don't know who it could be. The Libertarians look good on paper but it's hard to run against government and at the same time ask to be given the very power you condemn.

Posted by Guy Fawkes | October 3, 2008 6:46 PM

I wonder what are the chances of this: As happened to the Democrats 40 years ago, the reactionary, bigotted wing of the Republican Party finds a new home elsewhere. That leaves the fiscal conservatives and libertarians to pickup the pieces.

Could be fun watching the fight over who gets the title "Republican". But somehow, I think the bigots would fail to hold onto the Party of Lincoln. It's just not where their core constituency is.

Of course, if the theocrats do not decamp, the Republicans are probably stuck, at least on the national level, with a shrinking minority. And for a long, long time. Whether they hang on to state or local viability is likely to be more mixed.

The wild-card is the sort of legal change that is in prospect in California: Removing control of redistricting from the (political) state legislature. At which point, safe districts drop in number, and moderate politicians (on both sides) have a decent chance to win the primaries.

Posted by wj | October 3, 2008 7:14 PM

Craig--interesting, but of course in retrospect, Clinton's achievements in 1993-94 look very, very good: the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 put us on a path to fiscal responsibility, no matter what Gingrich claims; NAFTA certainly wasn't liberal overreaching; health care was, to the extent that Clinton & co. didn't realize the billions of dollars at stake for the health insurance industry; and one may argue with Ginsberg & Breyer's positions, but they're both competent, also their positions are non-controversial compared with Roberts and, in particular, Alito. Obama knows how to work the Washington system in a way Clinton doesn't. Don't just sit back and count on a backlash.

Marc, I do find your comments about Obama massively expanding government a little disingenuous--compared with Bush? Seriously? The George W. Bush who thinks his aides don't have to respond to subpoenas to answer questions about criminal activity? The George W. Bush who believes people can be locked up indefinitely without a trial? The George W. Bush who wants to spy on Americans without a warrant? My guess is Obama's going to be REIGNING THOSE POWERS IN.

Posted by Greg | October 3, 2008 8:48 PM

I wonder the degree to which the Republican Party is, in fact, constructive of the social conservative movement in the country.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | October 4, 2008 4:01 AM

The last paragraph is correct: the GOP counts on us social conservatives to provide muscle (door-knocking, phonecalls, yard sign distribution) during campaigns. Because of the groups that we "theocrats" belong to (churches, pro-life, bible studies) we have a natural network that facilitates these activities. Now that patronage is no longer as widespread as it used to be, such natural networks are invaluable for a campaign. Moreover, social conservatives bring a depth of commitment to issues that the other nodes may not because we believe that our issues are dictated by the moral and/or natural law.

If anyone "drops out" of the GOP, I predict that it'll be the donor class. Those with money have been moving toward the Dems for a while already for two reasons. First, the GOP really practiced very poor fiscal stewardship. When we controlled Congress and the White House, we spent like the proverbial "drunken sailors." Second, many in the donor class simply are uncomfortable with having our laws reflect the moral law or even natural law; they are more comfortable with the relativist view espoused by society today.

The GOP of tomorrow will be more populist and geared toward the working and middle classes. Win or lose, it'll be a party I'm much more comfortable with.

Posted by Carlos Lam | October 4, 2008 6:00 AM

The problem the GOP faces isn't just that it will be defeated, but that Reaganomics is as discredited now as laissez faire capitalism was during the Great Depression. And this crash came after 7 years of net downwards socioeconomic mobility for most Americans even as Kudlow and Limbaugh and Gramm boasted of how great the economy was. It will be a generation before the voters trust the GOP with the stewardship of the economy.

The donor class has never been weaker. The Giuliani campaign was a blatant attempt by them and the neocons to push social conservatives out of the tent. It was a declaration of war against all those "snake handler yahoo fundies". That the legacy of distrust created was so deep that McCain felt the need to fire up base voters instead of reaching out to independents with his VP pick shows how weak the Reagan coalition is.

The only future the GOP has is to be reconstituted as the "Sam's Club" party of Huckabee, socially conservative and economically populist. The party of Bill O'Reilly, Jerome Corsi, the talk radio screamers and white male anger is finished.

Posted by Charles Warren | October 4, 2008 7:33 AM

Assuming McCain loses, it will be very difficult for the Republicans to reinvent themselves in any meaningful way. The blame for the defeat will fall squarely upon John McCain who has long been disliked as to moderate and as an antagonist of the Republican base. He will be seen to have failed because he was not conservative enough.

Thus there will be little incentive for Republicans to move leftwards away from their hard-core right-wing politics. The Club for Growth will continue to help push out centrist Republican candidates to replace them with right-wing ideologues (as they did successfully in the primary season this year!) and so the Republican rump in Congress will remain ideologically pure.

Even Sarah Palin will get a free pass. Despite the fact that moderates and independents see the glaring deficiencies of her candidacy, McCain's bizarre protection of her from any serious questioning by the media allows the right-winger who adore her to maintain the illusion that she's the real future of the party. They will actually blame McCain for not unleashing her, even though it's obvious that she would crash and burn if he did.

So I believe that everything is in place for the Republicans to maintain their extreme right-wing tack. The failed presidency of George Bush is already blamed on his "too liberal" policies. The failed candidacy of John McCain will be blamed on his being s RINO. The abject failure of deregulation of the finance industry and lack of oversight is being blamed (believe it or not) on there not being *enough* deregulation and too much oversight. And powerful groups like the Club for Growth are still in places to push out any Republicans who might want to dabble in a little centrism.

In 2012, I expect to see a hard-line conservative nominated -- Bobby Jindal springs to mind -- and as long as Obama and the Democrats have shown themselves to be at least half-way competent, the Republicans will lose badly again.

The rest of the western world is leaving the American brand of hard-core conservatism behind, and successfully too. Europe is overtaking America as the leading marketplace in the world, and they have done it with policies that are lampooned and poorly caricatured as extreme socialism and communism.

Barack Obama is not a socialist. Since Marc brought it up, Barack Obama would find himself quite at home in David Cameron's British Conservative Party. Americans, especially Republicans, have got to wake up to the fact that right-wing conservative ideology is failing. The rest of the democratic world moved more than a decade ago, leaving American conservatives behind.

America is changing. It is growing more secular, and more tolerant of the things that the culture war Republican base decry. And it has to move leftward back into the mainstream of political thought if it is going to survive.

Republicans will have to come along eventually if they ever want to be trusted with power again. The past 14 years of Republican rule have been a nightmare for the country, but it is a nightmare that the Republican base doesn't seem to be wanting to wake up from yet.

Posted by tacitus | October 4, 2008 9:05 AM

In response to the argument that Democratic control of the White House and both Houses of Congress leads to "overreaching," I would argue that the budgetary constraints an Obama administration will face come January 2009 will be so severe that there will be small likelihood of that occurring. I think Obama and the intelligent people around him are almost certain to have studied the Clinton White House's first 22 months in office as a guide to what not to do if you don't want to lose Congress in your first midterm election.

Posted by Patience | October 4, 2008 9:35 AM

It's going to be an internecine war that will last for a long time. And can we dispense with the fiction that Obama is not going to win this election. The guy is clearly one of the greatest talents in US political history and seems largely free of the personality flaws of his only recent challenger.

Whether Mr Ambinder wants to recognize it or not the Republican party both in terms of its electoral representation and its organizational machine at the national level and mainly, if not entirely, at the state level, is in the control of a group of conservative fundamentalists. They are fundamentalists in just about every policy area you can think of: economically, socially, internationally. It gets worse because all the think tanks like AEI, The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, what could be called the brain and face (ie. the talking heads) of modern Republicanism, are in the grip of these same fundamentalists. Eric Cantor and the ed page of the WSJ "are" the Republican party in 2008.

Now you can decide for yourselves how in touch with the realities of America's current situation these people are. Personally I believe they are completely disconnected from the demographic shifts occurring in the country, the economic and structural challenges we face, and our standing in a multi polar world where relative American decline has commenced. There used to be a time when the GOP was against the dumbing down of America, but this is long over and has reached its nadir with the nomination of Sarah Palin who is a totally empty vessel of staggering ignorance and lack of reasoning power. She is an embarrasment to America, to the GOP and to John McCain.

Electorally, we can see the picture that is emerging. The GOP has lost the managerial and professional classes (the people who basically make the country work) because of their contempt for competence and due process, hispanics over immigraton, blacks because of racism, the young because of fundamentalism, women of all ages and classes over social issues. Geographically they have lost the entire North East from Maine to Virginia, the entire west coast, most of the mid west and demographics are also starting to shift the rocky mountain and south west. Given that you could say that the Boston/Washington corridor and California represent the economic, political, intellectual and artistic heart of the country and are now derided as largely elitist in orientation, it's a shocking situation. The GOP could as others have speculated could very easil become the party of fundamentalist old Dixie.

I also think the most potent force in American politics - big business - is starting to shift its position. Generational changes, a belief the system is not working, the increasing clout of high tech industries are producing a different outlook. Then there's the rather obvious fact you cannot sustain an economy where 70% of gdp is consumer spending while real incomes for 80% of the country are declining, any more than the idea that running a healthcare system that costs twice as much as any other, and is mainly paid for by business, makes economic or social sense.

As some psephologists have argued I do think we could be on the cusp of a watership election. There's clearly going to be a big shift left and Americans basically want the party of center left to supervise this shift. Tory men, liberal measures will NOT be the formulation. How the Republican party climbs down off that far right branch it's climbed onto I don't really see at this point beyond believing it will be a messy and protracted process that could take a generation to achieve. And contrary to what Ambinder claims it will involve the wholesale dumping of social conservatism because at the end of the day it involves finding some formulation that enables the GOP to tack back to the vital center.

Posted by John | October 4, 2008 10:18 AM

I love the article and comments.

Almost everybody's talking ideas (which I love), but I think there's a pretty clear case for the notion that movements don't gel or come to successful fruition until they luck upon a personality that the various compenent groups can project upon. To wit, FDR crystallizes a number of leftist movements, though in reality he may have stood for only one or two; Reagan manages to convince social cons, fiscal cons and Cold Warriors that he is their man; Obama does the same for a wide number of groups, ranging from hardcore environmentalists and labor-types to some of the same fiscal conservatives that voted for Reagan (thanks to the abovementioned Bush expansion of government). Blair did this for Labor (and see how they've done since he exited!), and Cameron does this for the Tories. In all cases, ideological and historical realities smiled on the moment for that party, but I firmly belief the opportunity would have been / is / will be lost whenever the right personality is for some reason unavailable.

I wonder who people think might serve as this lightning rod for the Republican party of the next 10 years. Myself, I'm stumped and depressed. It's not McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Palin... any thoughts?

Posted by Alex | October 4, 2008 10:31 AM

I am not an ardent Democrat. I consider myself a moderate and voted Republican for years, mostly because I was disgusted with Clinton's narcissistic behaviour. However, Bush taught me that there are worse things you can do as President than sexually harass your interns.

The Republicans have been walking a tight rope by tying blue collar white Americans to a Wall Street that has been devastating them economically. Wall Street gets its tax cuts and corporate welfare, and the Religious Right gets antigay rhetoric but no healthcare. I call it "Voting against your own economic interests for Jesus."

Despite Iraq and the economy, this coalition was doomed in the long run. Young voters overwhelmingly support gay marriage and Hispanics are becoming too large a voting bloc to be scapegoats for immigration. California is about to embrace gay marriage, and New York will soon follow, making 1/4 of Americans living in states that have legalized gay marriage. Just as you can no longer win an election by attacking interracial marriage, soon overt homophobia will be a political taboo.

Karl Rove won 2 elections based on dividing the country, and it ticked off the center and pealed away moderate Republicans, like myself. I don't want to give Democrats absolute power, as shown by their ridiculous actions on the bailout. However, the Republican Party is sick and needs to heal itself.

In the short run, it can adopt political orthodoxy and lose elections, but political parties are based on winning elections. If Republicans cannot compete with Democrats because of their ideology, they will be replaced. More likely, they will evolve as parties do.

It took the Tories a full decade to recover from the 1997 blood bath. If Republicans lose as many Senate and House seats as predicted, they are looking at a long stint in the wilderness, which is precisely what they need right now.

Posted by AxelDC | October 4, 2008 10:44 AM

As stated previously, the GOP cannot jettison us social conservatives without at the same time cutting off its most dependable, hard-working footsoldiers. In an age where patronage is no longer a motivating factor, it is cultural issues that motivate the troops.

Of course, most Atlantic readers are not social conservatives and would even relish seeing us driven from the GOP. Simply put, though, it ain't gonna happen. Because of civil service reform, the GOP just doesn't have the physical ability to run campaigns without us.

I'm also intrigued by the posters on here who keep saying that the population is much more "tolerant" of homosexuality. During the early 1980s, the same was said of abortion. Yet, pro-lifers are the most active of GOP activists.

Posted by Carlos Lam | October 4, 2008 12:24 PM

"I'm also intrigued by the posters on here who keep saying that the population is much more "tolerant" of homosexuality. During the early 1980s, the same was said of abortion. Yet, pro-lifers are the most active of GOP activists.
Posted by Carlos Lam | October 4, 2008 12:24 PM"

As I indicated in my post above, there is no doubt in my mind that if the GOP wants to remain competitive it is going to have to jettison much of it's social conservative agenda or become a marginal party. Of course the population is much more tolerant of homosexuality, I'm personally a textbook example of it. I'm a boomer from an upper middle class, trad background and 25 years ago shared to the full all the prejudices of my generation and class. No longer. As for pro lifers being the most active constituency in the GOP: what exactly has fifty years of activism got them. Nothing. It's never been a majority opinion and never will be. Whenever it gets tested in it true colors as happens occasionally with balloted propositions in even the most conservative states it gets beaten and so the pro lifers have to try and advance their agenda by subterfuge which they always get exposed on. Women simply don't want this state interference in their lives particularly when it's mainly driven by men.

"Posted by AxelDC | October 4, 2008 10:44 AM"

Clinton never sexually harassed an intern. She was an adult for godsake and probably loved it. My family have voted GOP for for generations, my grandpa used to like to boast he voted for Alf Landon in 1936, but it was I think the Lewinsky nonsense coming on top of all the other stuff like the govt shutdown and the relentless campaign against Clinton that started to sour me on the GOP. I'm not terribly interested in the sex lives of politicians, I assume that like most of us they like it and being A type personalities probably have higher libidos than usual. Most societies have got beyond this and I see signs as for example in the recent Edwards case that we may be getting over it too. It certainly has nothing do with whether you're a dem or a Republican since the Republicans seem to have more problems in this department than Democrats. But it was clear from the events of the nineties that the GOP was starting to lose it's reason and willingness to work across the aisle. As I explain above, because of gerrymandering and other factors, it has fallen under the control of fundamentalists of one sort and another personified by people like DeLay, Gingrich and co who are mountains of hypocrisy everyone knows it.
Karl Rove "the genius" raised the politics of polarization and alienation to an art form. Ultimately, alienation and exclusion (along with incompetence because of the elevation of ideology over governance) is going to sink the GOP because it has created an aura of dishonesty they cannot shake.

Posted by John | October 4, 2008 5:06 PM

The last time the Republican Party collapsed the way it's now collapsing was in 1932. It didn't win another presidential election for 20 years, and in those twenty years it took Congress only once, in 1946, and lost both houses two years later. The Eisenhower Republican party of the 1950s--internationalist, willing to accept a large government role in the economy, no longer resistant to social security--was, after 20 years of liberal government, more liberal than the Democratic Party had been in 1932.
As Carter and Clinton were more conservative than their four Democratic predecessors, I'd expect the next Republican President to be more liberal than any Republican President since Eisenhower,

Posted by Ron Thompson | October 4, 2008 7:03 PM

Carlos said:

I'm also intrigued by the posters on here who keep saying that the population is much more "tolerant" of homosexuality. During the early 1980s, the same was said of abortion. Yet, pro-lifers are the most active of GOP activists.

One look at surveys of attitudes toward gay marriage, civil unions, gay adoption, and equal rights for gays over the past couple of decades and the trends are obvious. Americans, and in particular young Americans, are most certainly becoming more tolerant of these issues, whether you like it or not.

There was a spike against during the 2004 election when Republicans used anti-gay ballot initiatives to help turn out the base, but the numbers have fallen back since. The California proposition to ban gay marriage will almost certainly fail this time after passing quite easily last time.

As long as there are "Bible-believing" fundamentalists like Palin there will always be some opposition to these issues. But like abortion, where support for the extreme position of banning all abortion hasn't risen above about 16%-18% in a couple of decades, it will be continue to belong to a slowly decreasing minority.

Finally, the demographics of America are slowly changing toward the more secular. The number of non-believers (atheists, agnostics, and other secularists) has more than quadrupled from about 4% to around 20% in three generations. There are hints that the next generation of under 30s could be as much as 25% non-religious. If the Republican party continues to be in the thrall of the religious right, they will be in for a very long walk in the wilderness sooner or later.

Posted by tacitus | October 4, 2008 10:46 PM

Carlos, I would point out that homosexuality and abortion are not the same thing. Polls of young people, even young evangelicals, show them being more tolerant of gay rights than of abortion. Of course that could be meaningless because if abortion is their #1 concern, then they're going to vote for pro-life candidates no matter what, but I do think that many Republicans and many social conservative groups have put all their eggs into the pink basket and we've seen some of the price paid (Rick Santorum lost in a landslide after becoming a crusader against gay rights...Wisconsin Republicans worked tirelessly for a gay marriage ban that passed but unexpectedly lost them control of the state senate and nearly the state house...Marilyn Musgrave is widely loathed by most of her deeply conservative district and each cycle scrapes through with a smaller win, if she even manages to win this year).

I don't go along with the idea that America is all that accepting of gays, or that California will reject the gay marriage ban (it's too early to tell). What I DO think is the GOP has become chock full of candidates who adopt extremist, hard right positions in order to gain power within the party, and then they think they can espouse some vague generalities about tolerance and the general electorate will fall for it. After the past 8 years, that's done. The Republican Party has become a party which is all about puritanism and absolutism and many people in America just cannot deal with that anymore because on some issues, like gay rights, a lot of people no longer understand exactly what is so terrible about homosexuality or why it should be an important issue to rally against.

Posted by Jon | October 5, 2008 5:49 AM

One name: Mike Huckabee. I think he's where the party is going to go. Especially if this election is a bad defeat.

Posted by m | October 5, 2008 8:05 PM

The generation of emerging GOP leaders, such as Palin, Jindal, Cantor, Shadegg, etc. are all extremely right wing. Any vestiges of moderate Republicanism are rapidly disappearing. Invariably, the young Republicans will blame losses on insufficient devotion to their definition of conservative principles. There may not be any real future for the GOP as a national party until the Millenials/Generation Y cohort becomes ready to run for high public office, which is at least 20 years in the future.

Posted by KNL | October 5, 2008 10:25 PM

As I see it, there can only be three directions that the Republicans can go. Which ever way they choose will likely be more due to responding to the Democrats than any leadership of their own.

1. The "RLC" direction: If the country makes a permanent shift to the left, the Republicans could decide that the solution is to tone down all of their ideology, becoming "Democrat light" This will probably work as poorly for them as it did for the Democrats over the last 20 years.

2. The Huckabee direction: It's highly possible that the Republican brand could be so damaged big business decides to switch sides entirely, slowly morphing the Democrats into a soft-libertarian party with a mainly professional base. In response, as some suggested, the Republicans could become the culturally populist party. Depending upon what they give way on, I could see Latinos, African-Americans, and even many union members eventually leaning Republican, although certain parts of the Democratic coalition, like seculars and gays, will not be swayed.

3. The most likely outcome, however, will simply be the depolarization of party and ideology. This can already be seen in the Democrats, where there are now more blue dogs than four years ago. 2010 will probably see a few moderate, pro-choice Republicans, like Schwarzenegger and Linda Lingle, elected to the Senate. Having parties line up with a distinct ideology is *not* the norm in U.S. politics, and there is no reason to expect it will remain this way a decade from now.

Posted by Karl Zimmerman | October 5, 2008 10:51 PM

Karl, where are the moderate, pro-choice Republicans going to come from? The Club for Growth has poured millions into defeating such candidates in the past couple of elections, with considerable success. Until there is a sea change in the base of the Republican party, there will be no moderation.

Posted by tacitus | October 5, 2008 11:17 PM

The Republican Party and its so-called "conservative base" has showed the following characteristics, which must be remedied if they are to take power again without utterly destroying America.

1. They currently refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is not a "conservative" behavior, and it makes their mouthpieces sound like they were reading from the Palin equivalent of the "Sayings of Chairman Mao."

It also guarantees that their policies are immune from being tuned, or otherwise made more effective.

2. Despite being the party of "conservative values" they routinely campaign in the most vicious and irresponsible fashion imaginable. This makes it impossible to solve hard problems. --Even no brainers, like raising the age for retirement under Social Security, or raising taxes to pay for our many wars or --once again --paying the costs of their cosy relationship with large corporations, becomes basically impossible. Politicians are much less likely to engage in "bipartisian" legislation to fix critical problems when they know their "partners" will lie about what was done and what it means.

Basically, "partnering" with Republicans, in their current form, is like kissing a rattlesnake. It may be exciting, but it doesn't show much common sense.

If even those two behaviors could be ameliorated, there might be hope for our political system. If not, we'll be lucky if there isn't a military coup within the next 20 years.

I mean, it's obvious that the current system isn't getting the job done. That's when military coups are most likely to occur.

Posted by Tim Connor | October 6, 2008 1:12 AM

I don't see how economic conservatives are going to have a leg to stand on in the future. George Bush's economic policies are fundamentally similar to those of Reagan. Both are "supply side", that is, they promote investment (among other things). Under such policies asset prices rise more quickly than they otherwise would, creating so call wealth effects that promote prosperity.

When Reagan took office asset markets were grossly undervalued from a long-term perspective. Supply side policies did produce large rapid increases in asset prices. For example, there was a bubble and crash in the stock market in 1987. But long-term undervaluation meant that recovery was quick, the stock market recovered from the '87 crash in two years.

When Bush came to office asset markets were overvalued from a long-term perspective. Even before Bush came to office a capital gains tax passed in the face of a moderately overvalued stock market had goosed the market to its most overvalued level in history. A housing bubble market also got underway in 1997.

Bush passed enacted supply-side tax policies just like Reagan, but he did so in the face of a fully-valued housing market and an extremely overvalued stock market. Stocks could not benefit, they were in free-fall. The the full effect of Bush supply side policies showed up in real estate, producing the most overvalued housing market in US history.

It is the relaxation of the housing market from this overvalued condition that is the cause of our current financial crisis. Financial crises have always followed real estate or stock bubbles (examples, the panics of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1932 and 2008). Such crises are normal when policy favors asset price rises as was the case before 1933 and after 1980.

The last such crisis before this one led to a serious defeat of the Republican party who supported the supply-side policies that makes crisis possible. Republicans fell as low as they did because their primary "brand" was based on their economics. And when economic disater struck, this brand was toast for 50 years. Republicans only became rehabilitated when they developed the "stong on defense" brand in the 1950's (pre New Deal Republicans had favored a small defense establishment).

Republicans today still have the defense franchise, but it has been damaged. 911 showed that what the Department of Defense does in not defense of the nation from attack. That job has been given to the Department of Homeland Security. What the DOD does is fight overseas wars. The Iraq war has not been a shining example of effectiveness in this arm of the defense establishment.

McCain ia the embodiment of the defense brand. If he loses big, this suggests that neither the economic/free market node or the defense node of the GOP will be useful poles around with to rebuild the party. The only pole that has not been damaged is the social conservative node. This is the only remaining pillar of strength. Candidates like Huckbee and Palin represent a future based on this last pillar.

Posted by Mike Alexander | October 6, 2008 7:52 AM