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June 20, 2007
If This Tent Gets Any Bigger, It May Collapse
What it means to be an early 21st-century Republican
A Pew Research poll recently revealed that, in America’s heartland, the political pendulum has begun to swing away from solid support for the Republican Party. There are numerous ways to explain this (and no doubt the blogs are expounding upon each theory in mind-crushing detail), but the simplest answer comes from remembering how rural voters came to be considered a Republican lock to begin with, and then looking at the ways in which that magnetism has dissipated for this and other factions.
The “Reagan Revolution” of 1980 unified a rather unlikely mix of small-government conservatives, lobbyist-wielding magnates, and firebrand moralist demagogues into an electoral machine that enjoyed great success in the quarter century following, despite the Clinton years. A machine requires maintenance in order to stay running, though; and the fact that this one’s parts were of such disparate manufacture has made that job difficult.
In the inevitable, perfect dance between money and power, the corporate (especially in the defense sector) has won out over other factions as to which coalition component has gotten the grease. For small-“l” libertarians, the hope is in someone like a Ron Paul to steer the party back on course. But the rural voter, largely identified also as the “values voter,” faces a seemingly impossible choice in the near term: either continue to support a party that (they’re finding) has essentially sold them out, or move (back) to one which (they’re told) thoroughly disgusts their moral sensibilities.
As the 2008 national election scene takes shape, many unknowns leave large gaps in the electorate’s consciousness. Given that, for example, we have no idea whether a serious independent, centrist candidacy will materialize, perhaps we should leave speculation to the professional gamblers and concentrate on what we do know. For starters, the large business community’s propensity to have fiendish hordes of lobbyists fling cash at politicians is not exclusively pointed toward Republicans. The bet-hedging began before the 2006 midterm elections, which, amazingly enough, benefitted Democrats. This illustrates two things: one, populist angst over money in politics is irrelevant, and two, that the GOP has been dealt a serious blow by what are effectively economic sanctions in the campaign finance arena.
There are suggestions in the current desperate search for a GOP presidential candidate that all is not well in the elephant family. The poll bid by Fred Thompson is one manifestation of this, but another I came across recently demonstrates just how serious the trend is: it’s a website called “Republicans for Obama.” I admit that I didn’t see that one coming, but I also realize that I’m not surprised. A movement like this, however small right now, could signal a new alliance among earnest citizens who tire of the empty acrimony and dichromatic maps we currently endure. And it’s perhaps our best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton.
Resources:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06072007/entertainment/turning_their_barack_on_gop_entertainment_maureen_callahan.htm?page=0
http://www.news2wkrn.com/vv/2007/06/12/taking-a-slice-out-of-an-already-soft-coalition/
[Cross-posted from the June 20, 2007 Pulse]
Pulsations | By joe lance | 06:38 PM