THE MADAME LAFARGES OF THE RIGHT :

The emerging confused GOPer? (Matt Towery, June 6, 2002, Jewish World Review)

Several weeks ago, this column suggested that political insiders were noticing evidence that the 2002 election cycle might be much like the one of 10 years ago. The 1992 national election brought to the polls many voters who viewed the country as adrift.

Now top GOP political strategists reportedly are beginning to get seriously worried that the mistakes of elections past might be getting ready for a repeat performance now, in this age of more rapid and sophisticated political communications.

On Monday, Matt Drudge informed the army of visitors to his Web site what conservative icon Rush Limbaugh had already told his own loyal legions -- that conservatism had apparently been "hijacked." While Limbaugh's comments were primarily reserved for the Bush administration's apparent flip-flop on the issue of global warming -- Bush now says it's a man-made problem -- top Republican strategists reportedly have more to worry about than just a government report that spells out the believed human causes and future negative effects of an environmental phenomenon that Bush once refused to even acknowledge.

The Republicans are concerned that other Bush-led initiatives, such as his siding with Senate Democrats over amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, and his flirtation with a massive and aggressive build-up of the IRS, are new potential sources of alienation of the far right. [...]

Significantly, Bush's strong approval ratings have been coming not only from the traditional Republican voter, but also from moderate Democrats, whom this column identified last March as "Bush Democrats." The question now appears to be whether the administration's apparent move to the center -- or as some might suggest, left of center on issues such as global warming -- will further strengthen his appeal to these otherwise traditional Democratic voters, many of whom indicated in our March poll that they would likely support Bush in 2004.

Even if Bush continues to pick up crossover support from Democrats, will his recent actions keep Republicans excited about their party's congressional candidates this fall -- most of whom are unlikely to garner many traditional Democrat votes?

It used to be easy for Republicans to hold Democrats in contempt--we were the ideologically pure, and therefore tiny, party. They were the vast agglomeration of special interest groups that a presidential candidate had to pander to. While we cleaved unshakably to a few set principles, nearly all anti-government in some shape or form, they seemed always to be on the verge of being cloven by wrangling between the Naders, the Sister Boom-booms, the Jesse Jacksons, the various Kennedys, the union bosses, etc.. They were a sloppy mess--we were a tidy little clique of clean cut
dweebs of whom Phyllis Schlafly could be proud. Of course, they just happened to control the government for seventy years--that was the one big advantage of cobbling together all those disputatious groups. So while we sneered, they ran America.

Now there's a chance, and only a chance mind you, that the GOP might be able to return to the majority party status that it enjoyed from the Civil War until the Depression. We might get a chance to undo some of the damage left over from the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Cold War. We might be able to reduce the size of government and return power and responsibility to individuals. We might...we might...we might...

But a really interesting phenomenon is taking hold within the party : its activists and ideologues seem to be more interested in maintaining ideological purity than in governing, more concerned with strict adherence to conservative dogma than with the types of compromises that could actually put into effect certain aspects of the conservative program. So rather than attract Hispanic voters, whose ethos of hard work, emphasis on the importance of family, and belief in Catholicism should make them natural conservative voters, the old liners in the party want to fight immigration tooth and nail. Rather than win the education issue, the zealots would rather have vetoed the Education bill because it didn't have vouchers. Etc., etc., etc....

A small but significant group of inside the Beltway operatives and pundits seems determined to enforce ideology even if it means Republicans remain a minority party. These people would rather be always right about their ideas and never achieve anything than to compromise on occasion and win great victories. They are horrified at the fact that the Party has begun to appeal to voters outside the Republican mainstream. They see poll numbers in the 70s and all they can make of it is that their previously private preserve is being infiltrated by unbelievers. (One is reminded of Yogi Berra's comment about a fashionable night spot : No one ever goes there anymore, it's too crowded.) Like the Jacobins of France or the Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union, these folks seem to want to see the revolution eat its own. And when the last tumbrel rolls away from the last guillotine and the last boxcar rolls away from the last reeducation camp, who will have won?--not the conservative/libertarian ideologues, but the Democrats. The lasting monument of this brand of Rightist fanaticism will be the authoritarian Welfare state, which they'll never have compromised with, but whose final victory they'll have assured. How odd.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2002 2:31 PM