David Brooks, stopped clock of the New York Times, has a column entitled The Possum Republicans. He describes the process by which otherwise reasonable Republicans get forced ever rightward by less reasonable members of their party.
It reminds me of a couple of sayings I’ve seen in other contexts: “Whoever cares least in a relationship has the most power.” The rightward edge of the party (I hesitate to call it the “fringe” anymore) doesn’t care about elections or governance nearly as much as it cares about ideological purity. Unless they see unalloyed conservative purity — as defined by them, of course — they’ll attack through a primary or otherwise. Witness Mourdock v. Lugar. Sen. Lugar is a lock as a candidate, is essentially sound with his governance, and is hardly a liberal. Yet, because he dares to talk with the “other side,” he’s persona non grata among the more foaming elements of his party.
The other notion is that “If you’re trying to beat me up, and I’m trying to kill you; I’m going to win.” Ideologues of any kind are simply more ferocious than pragmatists. They’re more emotionally invested and less prone to restraint. Moderates simply don’t have the energy or incentive – at least in the short term – to stand up to these people.
But, sooner or letter, there is going to be an inflection point. I don’t know how far away it is or what pain will be involved when it arrives, but eventually the ideologically approved spectrum will be so narrowly defined that the in-group will simply be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the out-group; ferocity and purity notwithstanding.
The ferocity may contribute to the weak GOP field. You’ve got to have a very unusual personality or outlook to put up with the crap it takes to get elected to national office these days, especially in the GOP 8t seems. That gives guys like Herman Cain a brief moment of plausibility until someone – no, make that “opposition research” – figures out where his less-than-fully-public history is.
Very thoughtful post. I called Brooks a thoughful conservative and this Medicare loving fire eater said he hoped I was not calling Brooks a conservative.
Perhaps the Republicans need their Goldwater or McGovern moment, losing in a landslide and taking only six or seven seats. Or maybe they should call it the Night of the Long Knives.
Brooks is right, the Republican base that was formerly known as the Tea Party fringe does not seek to govern. They seek to annihilate and humiliate. I recall a Florida woman slavering over Newt Gingrich and his speaking skills. She said that she looked forward to Newt mopping the floor with Obama in the presidential debates. She probably never considered that Obama would mop the floor with Newt in the presidential election. But if she wants to vote for the president of the debating team instead of the president of the US, it’s her dime.
There is certainly a bit of this in both parties. There are some people on the idealogical right that push the Republican party too far that direction. The same can be said for certain issues on the left.
Let’s take union labor for example. Something like 8% of all Hoosiers belong to a private union. Yet for some reason I do not fully understand, the overwhelming majority of Dem. Representatives thought the best course of action regarding Right-To-Work was to walk out, preventing any legislation from passing. This despite the fact that RTW’s effect is minimal. Just goes to show the power of Big Labor.
I’m not going to suggest that this is an affliction only of the Right; but I think it’s much more pronounced. I don’t recall Democrats getting primaried for being insufficiently pro-union.
Meanwhile, the Indiana Republican that comes immediately to mind is Bob Garton of all people. He was a good government conservative; having improved the operation of the Indiana Senate and the Indiana General Assembly immeasurably. And, yet, he was primaried and beaten by Greg Walker because Garton was insufficiently responsive to social conservative pressure groups like Indiana Right to Life. (If you’re interested, my blog entries from when that was happening: 4/6/06, 4/29/06 and 5/2/06.)
I am guessing you’re right, if we limit our focus to Indiana. However, that may result more from Indiana being a red state than it does anything else. Most of the voters exist on the right of the middle, so the best way to beat a mainstream, incumbent is by going to their right. That’s just the numbers talking, not politics.
At the national level, this is not the case. Best example is Joe Lieberman, nominated for V.P. in 2000, then lost the Dem. nomination in 2006. I also note that Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is firmly on the left side of the Democratic Party. Nobody will ever beat Ms. Pelosi by running to her left. The fact that she recognizes liberal S.F. is a good reason for this.
If all of the Indiana Democrats were transplanted to San Francisco, Chicago or New York, they’d probably start voting Republican.
Doug- we haven’t seen the left get primaried… yet. As long as Obama is in office, we probably won’t, maybe in the 3rd or 4th year of a second Obama term. We didn’t see the right and the Tea Party emerge until Bush 2nd term, as you point out with Walker in 2006, then the Tea Party in 2009.
I suspect that if Obama somehow loses in November, you will see the same dynamic play out- a rise of a frustrated progressive left that didn’t get what it really wanted out of an Obama Administration- especially with regard to foreign policy and civil liberties.
Indeed, the left is generally following the form set by the right eight years ago, where the fiscal conservatives were simmering with dissatisfaction, but holding back because their guy was in charge. You certainly are not seeing any primarying right now, but the dissatisfaction is there, being held in check, especially given the possibility of either Santorum or Gingrich winning the Republican nomination. There are plenty of places to see the parallel dynamic today- HuffPo, Salon (Greenwald, especially)- a lot of dissatisfaction with the slowness to address Iraq drawdowns (and still not out), failing in Afghanistan, adding Libya, Gitmo still open, Patriot Act reauthorized, indefinite detention reauthorized, slow to act on DADT, etc. Still, going to hold their noses on that, if they recognize it at all, and stick with the team. Only the very bold are challenging the status quo from the left right now.
I suppose if that dynamic is fairly predictable, we should be able to go to 2001-2002 and see a leftward lurch in the Democrats as they worked out their frustrations over the Clinton years.
Maybe that’s what was going on in the rest of the country, and I was too blinded by Evan Bayh voting for tax cuts and wars to notice.
Maybe the left and right are more polarized now than they were after Clinton. That was a time of prosperity, and complaints aren’t so great then. By the end of the Bush years? Different story. Now? still not much better.
These things move in cycles and aren’t limited to just one party. The D’s moved pretty far to the left in the 60’s…so far that the candidates selected by the primary voters were basically unelectable for the next two decades. (Carter is an exception, but his election (and similar legislative elections at the same time) were generally a reaction against Nixonian politics rather than a vote for Carter. It wasn’t until Clinton that D’s became electable again as president…and much of this has to do with Clinton’s strategy of “triangulation” and “running to the middle.” Clinton’s entire approach was to avoid giving the lefty base the red meat (“blue meat”) that they wanted so that he could run as a centrist. Clinton recognized (he was not alone in this) that the policy preferences of the primary base had moved so far to the left that the candidates who would traditionally have satisfied them were not electable in the general election. His repudiation of “sista souljah” can be seen in this light – it was popular with independent swing voters, and while in angered some in the base, what were they going to do? Vote for Bush?
If R’s keep moving to the right, they will eventually fall off the edge and become unelectable. But the big question is when – it could be this election; or it could be in 40 years. And of course the R’s may self-regulate and find a happy medium before moving too far out of the mainstream.
Considering that Indiana is farther to the right than even our delegation numbers would suggest, I doubt that there is going to be “an inflection point” anytime soon. I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen, just that, right now, it is unlikely.
Don’t think of Indiana as Indiana, think of it as Texas. If these news stories had come out of Texas, would you bat an eye? I don’t think so. We all know that Texas is Republican, hard right, and fundamentalist. That is where Indiana is going.
I couldn’t disagree more. Indiana (and Texas, btw) are all becoming less fundamentalist all the time. I take Santorum and his bleatings as a last gasp.
Have you seen any polls on the trending on things like gay marriage and drug legalization? These things are shifting rapidly to the left, and are going to do so at an accelerated pace as the older generations pass.
I don’t disagree if we are talking about a very long time horizon. But if we are talking about the next few years, which I think was probably what Doug was talking about, then no. And, in fact, in the next couple of years, Indiana is going to look a lot more like Texas than, say, the Indiana of 2002, or 1992 (the last two redistrictings, which were Democrat controlled).
Oh, based on the redistricting, absolutely.
I really believe the issues of gay marriage and drugs are going to change very rapidly. In 10 years or so, the old prevailing positions will been seen as quaint at best, and more likely archaic and stone age.
The old and middle aged white people in Indiana and Texas are statistically more hard right, Republican and fundamentalist. They cannot live for ever. They are going the way of Harley-Davidson. HD will soon be selling motorized wheel chairs. Wait until they put their logo on caskets.
I teach online classes and sometimes a ground class as an adjunct. I don’t have polling data, but I would agree with Mike. Gay marriage is a nonissue for most younger people. Let gays have the rights of everyone else.
I don’t have a read on drug legalization.
But I do sense the students are not as keen on military interventions as the rest of the electorate.
Here’s a useful link with info on Gallup polling since the 70s’ on drug legalization question: http://www.gallup.com/poll/150149/Record-High-Americans-Favor-Legalizing-Marijuana.aspx
I would be careful about over-generalizations. I am over 60, a grandfather of 5, white, a native Hoosier, and I consider myself pretty progressive/liberal on social issues. Gay marriage? I see it as a civil rights issue, it doesn’t affect me personally one way or another, but I want to live in a fair and just society. Drug legalization is another thing, I have seen so much damage from drug use that it gives me considerable pause. I have been a gun owner, but believe in strong background checks and registration laws. So some of us old white men and pretty darn progressive.
And some of the loonier Tea Partiers I have seen are young. Go figure.