One Utah

Over at tompaine.com, Paul Waldman has an intriguing article about the important dynamic of this year’s election - conservatism repudiated.

Waldman writes:

After Lyndon Johnson made Democrats the party of civil rights, a grand exodus occurred among conservative Southerners from their traditional home in the Democratic Party to their ideological home in the GOP. As a consequence, the power center among Republicans migrated southward. It was in the 1990s that Southerners finally took over the GOP leadership, as Robert Michel of Illinois and Bob Dole of Kansas were replaced by Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Trent Lott of Mississippi. (It should surprise no one that Republican senators put aside their squeamishness about those who pine for the days of Jim Crow to bring Lott back into the leadership.)

. . . Try to find a representative of the once-powerful “Rockefeller Republicans”—they’re an endangered species. Indeed, there is only one Republican Congressman left in all of New England (emphasis mine). It was the Republican moderates who lost, not just in the Northeast, but across the country.

. . . the most important result of the shift that took place is symbolic. The election shrank the Republican Party, both geographically and ideologically. Their identity will continue to be defined by their most socially conservative, Southern members, who will oppose popular initiatives like increasing the minimum wage and fight unending battles on hot-button social issues in which they inevitably alienate large swaths of voters who call themselves “moderate” but think like progressives.

Conservatives have already begun attempting to argue that George W. Bush is no real conservative; that argument is nothing more than positioning for the next “true conservative” to come along and has no basis in reality. The conservative movement has gotten almost its entire laundry list from Bush - massive military spending, war with Iraq, conservative judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, then Griswold, Bush has advocated intelligent design, given government money to churches, and backed bans on same sex marriage. With the help of the rubber stamp Republicans, George W. Bush has governed as a letter perfect conservative. We need to drive home that point, again and again and again.

Waldman takes his argument one step further:

It’s all well and good to celebrate the defeat of Rick Santorum, but it would actually serve Democrats’ long-term interests far more to find a way to defeat his Pennsylvania colleague Arlen Specter when he comes up for re-election. Moderates like Specter put a mainstream face on the GOP; Santorum, on the other hand, convinced voters that Republicans are nuts every time he went on a tirade about “man on dog” sex.

The few moderates left in the Republican party are a very endangered species these days. When the hard right isn’t gunning for them, they have to run away from their party to win elections. In some sense, if the Republican party continues its trajectory, it will only have the Rick Santorum’s and Trent Lotts - that’s what we want - then the Republican party’s full hypocrisy will be on display:

The party that claimed it would “get government off your back” was reaching one hand into your bedroom and the other into your hospital room.

It is the Terri Schiavo Republicans that voters in the interior West, the Southwest—and indeed, everywhere but the Deep South—are turning away from

Its social conservative wing has been running the Republican Party, funded by corporate conservatives. Social conservatives are increasingly turning against the corporate wing (regularly boycotting and protesting them for not fully kowtowing to the “family” agenda). Both have long since given up pretending they care about libertarians. The effect has been simply enough that the Republican has moved so far to the right that they have effectively abandoned the center. That vacuum has been filled in two ways - first, the Democrats have for long been desperate to be in the center that they were already there when the R’s stepped away, second, the majority of Americans actually hold liberal views on social issues. A large minority hold libertarian views and are more amenable to the Dems approach than the R’s. To keep the base happy, Republicans will have to take socially conservative positions and alienate the majority of American voters.

Waldman concludes with this passage that seems exactly right to me:

If the Democrats can succeed in furthering the GOP’s ideological and geographic isolation, they can send them into a vicious spiral of defeat, where they have to keep feeding their socially conservative, Southern base in order to avoid total annihilation, but their efforts to do so end up harming them in every other region of the country.

So how do you that?

First, target moderate Republicans and tar them with their party affiliation. Make them wear the Republican “R” like a modern day scarlet letter.

Second, never speak ill of another Democrat unless he/she is corrupt. Then, attack them for their corruption, call for their resignations. Support their opponents in the primary.

Third, keep up the 50 state strategy. You can’t win if you don’t play. Contest every seat. It works - Mark Foley was secure in his seat. His resignation delivered that district to a Democrat. Tom Delay was secure before the full extent of his corruption was known. Nick Lampson, Democratic Congressman, will represent that district starting in 2007.

Fourth, and finally, invest in the grassroots. Community activists make great candidates and then great elected officials. And they become the farm team for other seats. Today’s city council member is tomorrow’s state legislator and next year’s congressional candidate. The grassroots have passion, ideas, energy, and enthusiasm. They’ll lose a fight this year and come back next year. Rather than running away from the liberal grassroots, the Dems should embrace us. In my experience, liberal grassroots community activists are both idealists and pragmatists. They’ll take 25% of a win because it’s better than a 100% loss, they’ll head back to their headquarters and start strategizing on how they can build on that 25%. Strengthen the grassroots today and tomorrow the state and national parties will be stronger.

This entry was posted Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Elections, Party Politics, Republicans, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.