I finally got around to reading Ron Brownstein’s piece from a couple of days ago, and he subtly points to a political reality that, for reasons that escape me, has gone largely unnoticed.
Shays and Graham embody the two forms of dissent from the dominant conservative orthodoxy in the modern Republican Party. In one category are traditional moderates like Shays, who pursue a centrist course, especially on social and foreign policy issues, but whose numbers have relentlessly declined for decades. In the second are maverick figures like Graham or Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who are too conservative to be considered moderates but too eclectic and unpredictable to be considered reliable allies by the right. Both of these groups — moderates and mavericks — are under siege at a moment when Republicans are struggling to reach independent and swing voters disillusioned by Bush and the war.
In the coming election, moderate and maverick Republicans face mirror-image risks. Because the maverick conservatives tend to represent more solidly Republican areas (like Graham in South Carolina or Hagel in Nebraska), they face relatively less danger of losing to Democrats in a general election next fall. But precisely because they represent conservative regions where demands for ideological purity are more intense, the mavericks are confronting an elevated risk of challenges in party primaries.
Quite right. A year ago this month, every major media outlet in the country was abuzz with talk that Democrats were purging heretics from the party’s ranks. The proof: Connecticut Dems preferred Ned Lamont (who shared their priorities and values) to Joe Lieberman (who didn’t).
It was obvious, the talking heads told us, that Democratic demand for ideological purity had reached a near-Stalin level. After all, what had Lieberman done deserve such treatment from his own party — other than siding with conservative Republicans on the war, the culture, school vouchers, Bush’s faith-based initiative, gun control, “tort reform,” and the legitimacy of Fox News? It was an ideological purge of the worst sort, obviously.
And yet Brownstein points to an actual drive to rid the Republican ranks of those who stray, even a little, which the media seems to have largely overlooked.
Brownstein added a possible explanation for the trend
Historically, moderate Republicans offered the most important voice of ideological diversity in the GOP. But like the American auto companies or the Wednesday night bowling league, moderate Republicans have been in decline for so long that decline itself has become part of their tradition. […]
The upcoming election may further deplete the ranks of both the mavericks and moderates. Bush’s focus on mobilizing the conservative base, while generally helping Republicans in conservative areas, has alienated independent and moderate voters in the suburban districts many moderates GOP officeholders represent. […]
[T]he Democrats today are much more of a coalition party than the Republicans: Polls show that only about half of Democratic voters consider themselves liberals, while three-fourths or more of Republicans call themselves conservatives. That means to win elections, Democrats depend more than Republicans on the votes of moderates — which compels them to accept more dissent from party orthodoxy.
The question for Republicans, as they try to dig out from the collapse of Bush’s second term, is whether they can rebuild a majority coalition without tolerating more dissent and diversity as well.
First, I think it’s highly unlikely. In red states, the GOP base demands far-right Republicans who stick to the party line. In blue states, voters are tired of the GOP’s shift to the right. The Republican Party, in the process, shrinks further, until every elected official in the party can win endorsements from Dobson and Norquist.
And second, as Digby noted, “It seems like just yesterday I was being lectured to ad nauseum that the base of the Republican Party was Real America and the latte-sipping losers who didn’t see that could just STFU and submit. Now it turns out that it’s the lunatic fringe of the right that has the Republican party spiraling down to a regional minority. How’d that happen?”
Pretty quietly, apparently.