The GOP food fight still simmering

November 29, 2006

There should have been a nasty, knock-down-drag-out fight within the Republican Party after the election results came in. By any reasonable measure, 2006 was a total disaster for the GOP — the party lost the House, the Senate, the majority of governors, and 11 state legislative chambers. Given the fiasco, I was kind of looking forward to the right pointing fingers, assigning blame, and basically imploding for a little while.

That never really happened. We heard isolated complaints about Karl Rove, the Rumsfeld ouster caused some grumbling, and Ken Mehlman stepped down, but the expected crack-up never came to fruition. The House GOP even kept the Boehner/Blunt leadership tandem that got the party to where it is today.

I’m pleased to report, however, that the blame game has not been completely called off. Reader D.D. alerted me to this interesting Red State post, for example.

…I think the “moderates” as typified by the Republicans featured on these websites here; The Republican Main Street Partnership, The Real Republican Majority, GOP Progress, etc. are largely to blame for the split in the Republican coalition between the so-called “moderates” and social conservatives. […]

It is remarkable to say the least to see people who claim to be Republicans and yet have such a visceral dislike of their fellow members of the Big Tent even as they preach “inclusion” and praise Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment to not speak ill of another Republican.

This doesn’t happen with Democrats. I have never seen any Blue Dog, even the most conservative among them, go on the national stage and attack any of his far more liberal Democrat colleagues as “extremists” and/or captives of the “Far Left.”

Now, anyone who thinks Democrats are suddenly the model for intraparty unity is probably a little confused, but Red State nevertheless pointed out some interesting insights from the handful of groups who want to drag the GOP, kicking and screaming if necessary, away from the right-wing cliff.

Consider some examples of not-quite-as-conservative Republican organizations. Here’s GOPProgress:

It’s the wrong strategy, being pursued and driven by all the usual suspects: social conservatives; immigration fanatics; ethically-challenged pork addicts who the former two groups are now calling “moderates” in a fatuous and cynical attempt to portray themselves as the party’s real standard bearers, which they are not (please remind me just when Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan proposed amending the Constitution to deal with a social concern, or when either claimed that there was simply no more fat to trim from the federal budget).

As Silver suggests in his post, too many moderate and libertarian-leaning Republicans are staying silent on this subject, instead of standing up and pointing the finger for our loss squarely where it belongs: not with the Arnold Schwarzeneggers, John McCains, Rudy Giulianis, Susan Collinses, Jim Kolbes or Mary Bonos of this world, but rather with the Tom DeLays, Rick Santorums, Marilyn Musgraves, John Kyls, Jim Inhofes and Conrad Burnses – a.k.a., the loss-makers.

And here’s the Real Republican Majority:

The pro-active extreme agenda of Senator Rick Santorum and his fellow extreme right cohorts such as Falwell and Robertson were responsible for the loss of this key Senate seat, among others.

For that matter, the Republican Main Street Partnership issued a statement saying, “Far Right Soley[sic] Responsible for Democratic Gains.”

Red State is offended by all of this, of course, and I probably would be too if I were a far-right Republican who rejected moderate factions.

But shouldn’t the handful of remaining not-quite-as-conservative Republicans have some chance to gloat here? They’ve been warning the party for a decade that the GOP is moving too far to the right to keep winning. Every year, the party’s mainstream blew them off. Now they finally have a chance to say, “We told you so.”

Regardless, this kind of infighting is probably healthy after an awful election season, so my advice to the Republican Party is simple: keep fighting with each other. There’s plenty of blame to go around, so start dishing it out. Frankly, it’s overdue.

“Now, anyone who thinks Democrats are suddenly the model for intraparty unity is probably a little confused.”

I don’t belong to any organized party: I’m a Democrat.

  • “I think the “moderates” … are largely to blame for the split in the Republican coalition between the so-called “moderates” and social conservatives.”

    That’s like the bully of the playground complaining that the victum reported him to the teacher.

    “Everything would be great if he’d just let me keep beating on him without whining!”

    The difference between a beating and a fight is in the latter, both participants are throwing punches.

    The difference between class warfare and class oppression is in the latter the rich get everything they want and the middle and lower class keep quiet.

    Is it any surprise that the Republican’ts scream “class warfare” whenever someone stands up to oppose their welfare for the rich policies?

  • Uh, maybe it’s tricks of memory, but I seem to remember Zell Miller speaking at the 2004 Repub Convention and taking shots at his fellow Dems.

  • The secret of the Democrats is that they’re NEVER unified and that lock-step loyalty and totalitarian procedural unity such as the Republican neo-Fascists practiced in Congress is pretty difficult to achieve. It should be made the selling point of the party, anchored to the idea that Democrats don’t place party before country.

  • I tend to agree with jay, except that the lock-step loyalty and totalitarian unity is somewhat easy to achieve–the difficulty is in maintaining that unity, with all the competing interests who quickly believe they are entitled to their “due” and who do not believe in compromise.

  • Why CB it sounds almost as if you WANT the Republicans to implode (or explode) or disappear up each others asses. 🙂

    They have been awfully quiet. Maybe it’s because the Repubs left town quickly so they wouldn’t have to finish up the people’s work they were supposed to have done.

  • “Far Right Soley[sic] Responsible for Democratic Gains”

    Didn’t Foley almost get 50% (despite votes for him actually counting for someone else)? I thought this theory had been discredited.

  • I think I know why the Republicans are so quiet right now. They are waiting.

    As long as I can remember, the Republicans have only stood for one thing, and that’s “being in opposition to the Liberal Democrats”. Now that they will have their nemesis in power, they’re just waiting to crank up the noise machine just as soon as the Dems try to do anything that can be construed as liberal.

    Hopefully the Dems have learned how to create frames which avoid deliberately handing the wingnuts big buckets of red meat, because they’ll be bad enough with just a few scraps here and there.

  • “[…] but rather with the Tom DeLays, Rick Santorums, Marilyn Musgraves, John Kyls, Jim Inhofes and Conrad Burnses – a.k.a., the loss-makers.”

    It is too funny that this most salient of observations is freaking out the fundies and extremists. I have a feeling that if the moderates (both of them) in the GOP actually won control and direction of the party the Dems would work with them very well for years to come. Dems have learned a lot since 1994 and I think a fiscal conservative libertarian agenda along with a left leaning environmental and foreign policy would spur another 20 years of America thriving.

    Or we can tear eachother apart over unborn babies and end up working for the Chinese.

  • “Far Right Soley[sic] Responsible for Democratic Gains”

    Didn’t Foley almost get 50% (despite votes for him actually counting for someone else)? I thought this theory had been discredited.

    Comment by Allen K. — 11/29/2006 @ 2:36 pm

    =====

    Allen, I think the [sic] refers to the misspelling of “solely” as in exclusively. Not as a play on Foley.

  • Let’s face it, the R’s & the D’s greatest strength is their greatest weakness. Unity. They have it we don’t.

    We can never truly get behind one message and stick to it, they can. That is because we are the party of free thinkers and free thinkers never agree in large numbers, which makes getting anything of significance accomplished, but allows multi-alternatives to the issues.

    They are always unified, which leaves little room for thinkers, yet makes getting things accomplished so much easier. But that accomplishment usually turns out to be mediocre at best.

    As much as I hate R’s and like D’s, why can’t we get a party in the middle, where we have free thinkers, but not so free as to get nothing accomplished and not so inline as to pass bad legislation.

    That being said, this 100 hr plan by Pelosi looks like all the D’s are in line and ready to go to work. But what about all these budget issues, shouldn’t that take priority ?

    There was a point, don’t expect too much bickering from the Republican party anytime soon, it is not their forte’.

  • “But what about all these budget issues, shouldn’t that take priority ?” – ScottW

    Tell it to the Republican’ts who can’t do their own work. There is no reason for the Democrats to finish their homework before the Dems start on their own.

  • There will be a fight for control of the Republican party, even if the current silence is just the anger coalescing. The Dems were able to run against a despised Republican majority by just saying the weren’t them. The Repubs will have to redefine themselves for 2008. Will they head for Goldwater or head in Santorum’s direction is the big question. I expect the religious right will be the meat cleaver that splits the party into its warring halves.

  • Unlike petorado I’m not so certain that the Republicans will do much of anything except to maintain their current status — and act as obstructionists to everything the Democrats attempt to do. Their base of radicals sees the election as only a temporary blip and will use every “failure” of the democrats to reestablish their power; thus the unpassed budget items, thus future legislative quagmires, and thus the continued, and essentially unchanged apoplexy of their noise machine.

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