The American Republican Party in Crisis

The Republican Party has a big crisis nowadays. When the candidates of the party face their probable defeat in the southern states of the country, which has been the cradle of the party for decades, and when the party has become divided unto itself and even witnessing its major members exchanging accusations back and forth in the midst of a hectic electoral contest, we can see that the Republican Party is likely to have an electoral catastrophe.

John McCain, who has been trying throughout the whole campaign to distance himself from Bush and has even avoided to appear in public due to the president’s low poll numbers, has now written an article for the Washington Times showering the Republican president with accusations and to lay the responsibility of the crisis America now faces on him. After the article was published, some figures in the Republican Party have started to criticize McCain severely – their own candidate in the presidential election!

Furthermore, McCain’s electoral campaign, which might eventually be known as one of the most confused and worst presidential electoral campaigns in American history, lacks a coherent electoral message to earn American voters. Depending on the day, McCain’s campaign has given a different electoral message, only to be replaced by an even worse message when one fails.

The key reasons for McCain’s crisis start with two weak points: the first is he that was one who agreed with Bush ideologically concerning foreign and domestic policies; the second is his unstable relationship with the base of the Republican Party. This has created an impossible mission for McCain to achieve; staying far from Bush while at the same time needing to have a good relationship with that wing where Bush is still popular! McCain was never the candidate of this leading group in his party, that being the religious right, with whom the relationship has always been tense.

As a result, McCain needed to keep the votes inside his party after being named the candidate instead of trying to gain the support of Independents. This can explain his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, who has indeed created enthusiasm within the base, but as she has limited experience in foreign and internal policies, she has pushed away the independent voters.

By the beginning of the third week in September, McCain was not able to lead the campaign he intended. He wanted Americans to fear the outside world under the claim of “national security,” and this is exactly what Bush succeeded to do in 2004. Consequently, McCain has lost some of his popularity, becoming obligated to deal with the financial crisis in America.

McCain has got a clear political history; he is one of the biggest supporters for capitalism, where the state has no control over the market, and this opinion remains even in the current financial crisis. And this has made it more difficult to him since he has had to now say the exact opposite of what he has believed throughout his public service career.

As McCain’s opinions on the critical issues did not help his chances, the only solution for him was to make Americans fear Barack Obama. In order to succeed, the Republicans have launched a violent campaign to incite fear towards Obama, making many false and occasionally racist statements towards him.

These kinds of tactics were used in earlier elections and have proven successful. But McCain’s campaign was not aware that these tactics have never succeeded when America was facing a major crisis. The main mistake is that McCain’s campaign was involved in a lot of attacks against Obama and even some against Bush, but during these attacks he has not given the American voter a clear idea why John McCain is the best choice.