Maha notes that the GOP is both leaderless and directionless, but also that the Republicans have been here before and came up with solutions by mythologizing some figure (Ray-Gun, Dubya) into a viable standard bearer. It’s a good point to remember. However, this time, the situation the Republicans find themselves in is particularly dire. I’m not going to do a sweeping historical piece here, but I want to make a few observations.
Many have noted that demographic changes are conspiring to regionalize the Republican Party as a party of the Deep South and Mormon West. What’s less obvious is how the Republican base has been radicalized and how that radicalization has distorted the Republican caucus in Washington. As a simple exercise, think back to all those Palin Rallies during the election where citizen cameras captured rallygoers expressing rage and racism at the prospect of an Obama administration. ‘Go back to Africa’, ‘Terrorist’, ‘Socialist’, Communist’. After the McCain campaign and its surrogates spent months demonizing Barack Obama, they had only succeeded in convincing their most rabid supporters. Is it any wonder that that dementia eventually bled back up and infected members of Congress like Steve King and Michele Bachmann?
Most of us have moved on from the days of William Ayers and Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim, but the consequences of those charges are still resonating where it matters most…among the GOP faithful. President Obama cannot pal around with terrorists one day and be the legitimate president the next. And this leads me to the next disconnect. Barack Obama built a bipartisan cabinet.
In retaining Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense and in choosing Gen. Jim Jones as his National Security Adviser, President Obama brought the ‘realist school’ of the Republican Party into the Democratic tent. Members of the Realist School, like Richard Lugar and George Voinovich, may remain nominally Republicans (due, mainly, to their positions on social and economic issues) but conservative people (voters) that are primarily interested in foreign policy are increasingly likely to consider themselves Democrats in the future.
President Obama also picked the well-respected moderate Illinois Republican Ray LaHood to be his Secretary of Transportation and Yankee Republican Judd Gregg to be his Secretary of Commerce. These appointments also send a message. The message is to moderate conservatives in New England and the Upper Midwest. The Democratic Party is safe. It can be your new home. The Republicans are a Southern Baptist/Mormom creation that is completely alien to your world and values.
Gallup just completed a party affiliation poll that showed that the Republicans now enjoy an advantage in just seven states (only five outside the margin of error): Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans hold twelve of the fourteen senate seats from these states. Their hold on the other twenty-nine senate seats they have is getting more and more tenuous. Retirements in Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and (now) New Hampshire threaten to further regionalize the GOP caucus.
The larger theme of Obama’s bipartisanship (and, to a degree, Dean’s 50-state strategy) is that the Democrats are the dominant national party and that they are inclusive of all but the most severe cultural conservatives. Turn on FOX News for fifteen minutes and you’ll see just how frozen in amber the Republican base has become. FOX News coverage isn’t just offensive…it’s facially irrelevant. It’s impertinent. And being beside the point is the legacy Rovism/Palinism bestowed on the Republican Party.
There is no obvious way back from what Nate Silver called this death spiral. While Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly and Michael Steele and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell circle the bowl, President Obama picks off what is left of ‘reasonableness’ from their party and makes it his own.
The spectacle is impressive to watch, although it doesn’t come without a degree of heartburn for the partisan Democrat. Republican outreach comes at the expense of our hardfought spoils. It muddies the message and takes the ideological edge off the Democratic Party. But it also builds a formidable and seemingly stable governing majority that believes in science, in government, in multilateralism, in sane fiscal policy, and in civil rights. I would do things differently, but it’s hard to not like where this is going.
