The Republican Party: No Leader, No Strategy

With eight months to go until the presidential election, the Republicans aren’t thrilled. “It’s almost certain that we are going to lose,” a former speechwriter for George W. Bush declared. “And we’re going to lose to a president who’s been confronted by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” Now working in a conservative think tank, the former speechwriter asked to remain anonymous as he was referring to the party’s defeatist attitude. “The fact that we’re presenting a group of weak candidates speaks volumes about the state of the GOP,” he sighed.

The Republicans haven’t lost yet, but they’re embattled in a stormy primary election that isn’t going well. Candidates are usually civil, but this time the race looks set to be included among the great confrontations that have long punctuated the party’s history. “It’s become personal, almost like a civil war,”* says Republican historian David Pietrusza. Thomas Friedman, columnist at The New York Times (and certainly not a Republican), bluntly remarked: “[O]ne wonders whether the GOP shouldn’t just sit this election out — just give 2012 a pass.”

The GOP can only blame itself. In August 2010, the method of picking the presidential candidate had changed with the admitted intention of prolonging the race. “The 2008 Democratic primary demonstrated that long, competitive primaries can be a good thing,”* explains Doug Heye, communications director at the Republican National Committee. The GOP, according to majority vote, enacted proportional representation in certain states, with the result being that candidates inch toward nominations at a snail’s pace, giving time for a general uneasiness to settle. This is especially so for GOP favorite Mitt Romney, who has been unable to win outright.

Time Magazine Reports: An Identity Crisis

Consultant Juleanna Glover, who works with several big-shot Republicans, notes that the proportional representation in the primaries leads the candidates to be locked into unbearable situations. “It is essential to convince even the smallest segments of the population, from the evangelicals in Iowa to the conservatives in South Carolina to the Medicare recipients in Florida. The candidates should be able to be themselves and not defend ideas that they don’t necessarily agree with.”*

In mid-February, Time magazine discussed the GOP’s “identity crisis,” a buzzword that displeases the Republican Party. “Every time there are primaries, the question of identity comes up. It’s not exactly a ‘crisis,’” assures Doug Heye. “The divisions are underlined during the campaign, but they quickly blow over.”* Campaigners show the Democrat’s reconciliation in 2008 as an example; however, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were very similar in their political agendas.

For the conservatives, it seems to create a gap between those who want to end the income tax and those who advocate austerity measures. A gap between those who say — surreptitiously — that it will be better to align oneself with two-thirds of Americans and who envision augmenting the nation’s treasury by taxing high revenues, and those who absolutely refuse to take this course of action. A gap between those who want to withdraw from Afghanistan as quickly as possible and those who think that we should stay put in Afghanistan to display America’s leadership expertise. Between the fundamentalists who view contraception as a danger to society and those who believe that the government should not be involved in what goes on in people’s bedrooms.

It’s Our Moment!

Some people are at the point where they’re ready to throw in the towel, such as Olympia Snowe, the very dignified Maine senator and one of the last moderates in Congress, who was ready to give up her seat because she was challenged by a member of the tea party. She’d had enough of the fundamental conservatives.

After more than 30 years in the political machine (and a Nixon tattoo on his shoulder), consultant Roger Stone faced a similar situation. On Feb. 21, he left the party in an uproar because he was disgusted to witness religious fundamentalists imposing litmus tests on other sects, that was “making a cohesive coalition of social and economic conservatives ultimately impossible,” he bemoans. Instead, Roger Stone joined up with the libertarians, believing them to be the “next big party:” conservative-minded regarding the fiscal budget; against costly wars in foreign lands and liberal on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

The conservatives should otherwise have it made. Never has their mantra of limited government and deficit reduction been so clear. “What crisis?” asked commentator (and provocateur extraordinaire) Ann Coulter. “This is our moment of triumph!”

Thanks to the breakout tea party, the party struck an impressive blow: it holds 47 seats in the Senate (out of 100), 242 seats in the House of Representatives (our of 435), 29 governorships out of 50, 1,001 seats (out of 1,291) in local assemblies — who set up electoral voting districts — and 3,021 seats in the local Senates out of 5,410. “If this is a crisis, every ideological movement should want to suffer one,” writes Rich Lowry of the National Review (and Mitt Romney supporter).

“Where Are the Decisions Coming From?”

Political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia also rejects the “identity crisis” buzzword. “The GOP’s identity is well-established: it’s conservative. The only question for the Republicans is what is most important and who the decisions are coming from: the top or the bottom?”* In other words, it’s not so much an identity crisis as a power struggle within the party. A struggle which pits those who want a “Republican Party that progresses, against those who want a conservative Republican Party,”* as former spokesman Doug Heye says.

To better understand this struggle between the establishment and the rank-and-file, let’s go back to 1964 when Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater won the primaries over notable moderates from the East Coast to the West, from bankers to lobbyists such as Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney, Mitt’s father. Goldwater was crushed by Democrat Lyndon Johnson in the November elections, but moderate domination over the GOP since the 1940s was finished. The party had to consider the Western activists’ positions, to be more rigid and hostile towards détente with Moscow and the arguments of the intelligentsia who were taken with Goldwater’s manifesto. Twelve years later, Ronald Reagan, hailing from California, dared defy incumbent president Gerald Ford in the fratricidal primaries. He lost the nomination by a few dozen votes at the National Convention. “Camp Ford wasn’t joking. The delegates were warned: vote for Ford and fall from grace or look for a job,”* recalls historian David Pietrusza.

Gingrich’s arrival brought the end of moderate rule after the “revolution” of 1994, when both chambers of Congress came under Republican control for the first time in 40 years. “If they wanted to get concessions, the Republicans should have negotiated with the Democrats before 1994,” recalls a lobbyist from Homeland Security. Newt himself believed that the only way to fight them was with full-out war: He attacked their ethics, their agendas, their ideologies. And while it did cost him, it worked.

The lobbyist had been a young legislative assistant when Capitol Hill ignited with the cries of a Republican victory in November 1994. “It was crazy. You got the impression that Gingrich had taken up Reagan’s torch.” In a short time, the new speaker “felled the moderates from their pedestals.” The establishment didn’t forget.

Today, Gingrich is considered the “Father of Party Polarization,” the man who created the never-ending war in Congress which prevented the House from ever reaching a compromise. “His comeback in the primaries was like the return of Napoleon,”continues the lobbyist. “The enemy fell before him…”

George W. Bush himself had straight-out carried the Republicans into enemy territory. Right in the middle of the Iraq War, he voted for tax cuts that increased the national deficit. Even worse, he had coaxed the Democrats into expanding medical coverage for senior citizens, a.k.a. one of the programs that the eagle-eyes consider “charity.” The Republicans had better defend themselves: the tea party is as much a reaction to the “decadent Bush years” (in editor Richard Lowry’s words) as it is to Obama’s stimulus plan.

The radicals have even invented a new faction: along with fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, neoconservatives, chamber of commerce Republicans, country-club Republicans (those notables from the countryside) and the tea party; as well as big government Republicans — those who betray their ideals just to be elected. “This is where the suspicion towards Romney comes from,” explains historian David Pietrusza. “People get the impression of already witnessing this with Bush.” The “conversion” of the former governor of Massachusetts — a son who is more of a “Rockefeller Republican” — doesn’t convince them. “In 1994, he voted in the Democratic primaries,” recalls Pietrusza. “And he no sooner won the Nevada caucus than he proposed to raise the minimum wage!”*

Backlash and “Purification”

The Republicans have a communication problem as well: The economy’s nascent recovery has thrown them off. “If unemployment continues to fall and if the Dow Jones remains high, this will be beneficial for the president,” admits Doug Heye, who worked for the Bush administration. The Republicans are looking for different ways of attack: For example, setting up of health reforms as Karl Rove, the former strategist for George W. Bush, advised them. President Obama’s promise to “cut the deficit in half,” gas prices…Rick Santorum, a very religious Catholic who chose to revive cultural issues around subjects such as contraception and religious freedom. But his attacks have had more of an effect in mobilizing women, essential voters this year, which earned him scathing critiques from his own camp. And when he let on that “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” the public’s astonishment was great.

The candidate who could have resolved the contradictions between the different factions with his charisma, such as Reagan did in his time, hasn’t materialized; the rising stars of the party are too green for the role. The Republican Party prefers to nominate established candidates: Aside from Goldwater and George W. Bush, who was the son of a former president, they rarely choose unknowns, unlike the Democrats who prefer totally new entities (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama). Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, could have jumped into the race as Obama had done, after just two years in the Senate, but he didn’t have the intellectual background of the former president of the Harvard Law Review.

“Purge the Party now, win in 2016,” proposes influential tea party blogger Eric Erickson. For political scientist Larry Sabato, the potential candidates have recognized that Barack Obama has the chance to be reelected if the economy recovers even slightly, and that it would be better to wait for 2016.

In commentary, the effects of the conservative movement have already been discussed, depending on whether Mitt Romney is defeated or if the “other candidate” is. In both cases, the fanatics expect a backlash and “purification” like in 2010. “What will define us is with who we choose to lose with,” summed up the former speechwriter for George W.

* Editor’s Note: These quotes, though accurately translated, could not be independently verified.