I realize most of the talk about political division is focused among Dems right now, particularly as party insiders debate among themselves about the next chair of the DNC, how aggressive Dems should be in their opposition to the Bush agenda, positioning for ’08, etc.
But taking a step back, isn’t the GOP far more divided at this point that the Dems?
Ron Brownstein noted today, for example, that many conservatives, even on the Hill, are thoroughly unsatisfied with the strains Bush is placing on the military.
“The problem for the United States is not imperial overstretch, it’s trying to run the planet on the cheap,” American Enterprise Institute fellow Tom Donnelly, a leading neoconservative defense commentator, wrote recently. Military historian Frederick W. Kagan delivered a similar indictment in the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine.
Most strikingly, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) this month urged an increase in the active military and condemned lengthy deployments that he said were compelling Guard and Reserve volunteers to effectively “serve in the permanent forces.”
These dissents signal an important shift in the political weather as Bush begins his second term. Until recently, complaints about the Pentagon’s personnel strategy came from Democrats and a few maverick Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But it’s a more ominous sign for the White House when a GOP leader such as Blunt, ordinarily a loyal soldier for Bush, breaks ranks.
I agree, but I also believe there are equally “ominous” signs on the rest of the White House agenda.
The conventional wisdom has been that the real fight in the coming years is between a united GOP front against a scrappy Dem minority. The reality isn’t that simple. In just the last few weeks, congressional Republicans have indicated that they have fairly significant concerns with Bush’s position on the federal role in public education, immigration, a yet-announced tax-reform initiative, and, of course, privitization of Social Security.
And that’s just in DC. At the state level, Republicans are distressed about unfunded mandates and expanded federal power — and they’re not concerned that the abuse is coming at the hands of those in their own party.
Ten years after Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolutionaries won control of the House under the banner of states’ rights, states across the country are again complaining about the heavy heel of federal authority on everything from taxes to tort law to education to the environment.
But now, the mandates and pre-emptions emanating from Washington are coming not from big-government Democrats but conservative Republicans. And thanks to the party’s successes in recent years, more of the state and local officials who are complaining about those actions are Republicans, too.
Just about the only item on Bush’s campaign wish list that Republicans are really excited about is some kind of gay marriage amendment to the Constitution — and Bush has already indicated he won’t be expending too much “political capital” on that one.
Maybe the GOP will close ranks in the coming months and their penchant party discipline will keep everyone in line. Then again, maybe not. The point is the myth of post-election Republican unity is losing some of its veneer, while the Dems are getting closer together all the time.