The Possibly Not Coming Storm

Ross Douthat previews the next great conservative crack-up:

It's true that the current conservative intelligentsia, forged in the crucible of Ronald Reagan's successes, is heavily invested in keeping the triple alliance intact - hence the Thompson bubble, the anti-Huckabee crusade, and the "rally round Romney" effect. And it's true, as well, that if the Republican Party recovers its majority in the next election the alliance will be considerably strengthened. But such a recovery is unlikely, and already, in the wake of just a single midterm-election debacle, it's obvious that the Norquistians and neocons and social conservatives aren't inevitable allies - that many tax-cutters and foreign-policy hawks, for instance, would happily screw over their Christian-Right allies to nominate Rudy Giuliani; or that many social conservatives don't give a tinker's dam what the Club for Growth thinks about Mike Huckabee's record. (So too with the neocon yearning for a McCain-Lieberman ticket, which would arguably represent a far more radical remaking of the GOP coalition than anything Chuck Hagel has to offer.) The "movement" institutions, from the think tanks to talk radio, have resisted these fissiparous tendencies, and if Mitt Romney wins the nomination they'll be able to claim a temporary victory. But if the GOP continues to suffer at the polls, in '08 and beyond, the (right-of) center can't be expected to hold, and the result will be a struggle for power that's likely to leave the conservative movement changed, considerably, from the way that Tomasky finds it today.

To which I say: Maybe!

Seriously, I sometimes do think that'll happen. Alternatively, maybe Romney gets the nomination and Romney gets beaten pretty badly. Then maybe conservatives say he was done in by (a) flip-flopping, (b) anti-Mormon bias, (c) bad political headwinds and decide nothing really needs to be done. Then, the congressional GOP just realizes that the conservative movement is really more comfortable in a quasi-opposition role, sets about using the filibuster and the timidity of the remaining southern Democratic senators to make the country ungovernable, does well in the 2010 midterms, and everything just kind of keeps on keeping on. It could happen. One's natural desire, as an observer of the political scene, is for something dramatic and interesting to happen. And sometimes something dramatic and interesting does happen. And it really might happen. The signs are there. But then again, it might not.

Comments

Good points. Every generation likes to believe that it is living through the most critical point in human history; or, what is a similar idea, that the End is Nigh, and the Day of Judgment is At Hand. In fact, true turning points are few and far between, no one, except by accident, can really see them coming.

The study of the past is History, and the study of the future is Propaganda.

Posted by lampwick | January 1, 2008 2:24 PM

> Then, the congressional GOP just realizes that
> the conservative movement is really more
> comfortable in a quasi-opposition role, sets about
> using the filibuster and the timidity of the
> remaining southern Democratic senators to make the
> country ungovernable, does well in the 2010
> midterms,

One key factor you left out: dolschstosslegende.

Maybe... the people who control the Republican Party are quite content to lose in 2008, let President Hillary (or whoever) clean up the mess in Iraq, then unleash all of the above plus a huge heaping of dolschstosslegende on the Democratic Party and "libruls" to prepare the ground for the Man on the White Horse in 2012.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 1, 2008 2:33 PM

"and everything just kind of keeps on keeping on."

Yup. It's worth noting just how long it normally takes political parties to remake themselves.

After the Democratic coalition blew up in '68, it took many decades before the more suburban oriented party could form.

And after Perot made his appearance, it's taken the Democratic Party almost twenty years to put together the Edwards revolution.

Posted by Petey | January 1, 2008 2:34 PM

The only issue with the Republican using the filibuster in a quasi-opposition role is that they will need at least 41 members in the Senate.

Isn't it a little early for them to rely on that?

Even if they do stop up the works just because they can, but without a compelling logic (such as Dodd's late December threats) then how will the midterms treat them better than the last mid-terms?

Great article, btw.

Posted by mdhatter | January 1, 2008 2:36 PM

"and everything just kind of keeps on keeping on. It could happen."

Really going out on a limb in 2008, aren't you?

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 1, 2008 2:37 PM

To prosper in the long run, the GOP needs to wean itself off its addiction to neocon money and media influence, which has been so disastrous in foreign policy. But that's hard to do because of, well, neocon money and media influence. (E.g., Krauthammer and Kristol get fired at Time, but Kristol pops up instantly at the NY Times).

It will be doubly hard for the GOP to wean itself off the neocons because anybody who points out the mere fact of neocon money and media influence is denounced as an anti-Semite, and most people in public life would rather let America blunder into more Middle Eastern wars than be denounced as an anti-Semite.

Of course, neocon/neolib loyalty to the GOP is a lot less of a sure thing -- they are maneuvering already to try to dominate the foreign policy of the next Democratic administration.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 1, 2008 2:47 PM

I love how people with a vested interest in moving the Republican Party to the left - people like Ross Douthat and David Brooks - keep predicting that the party's going to crack up if it doesn't move to the left. Give me a break.

If and when the Republicans lose in 2008, the appropriate thing to do is move to the right, not the left. Sam's Club Republicanism is going to lose a lot more Republicans than it gains. We saw the same thing from the other side in 2004. After a devastating defeat, Democrats moved to the left, not the right. And they prospered.

Posted by Al | January 1, 2008 3:09 PM

Well, if Kristol's promotion to one of the most coveted spots in American journalism---becoming an NYT columnist---doesn't deal a crippling blow to the Times and its remaining credibility, perhaps our society is just plain hopeless.

Look, following Kristol's foreign policy advice dealt our country its greatest strategic disaster in two hundred years AND following Kristol's political advice cost the Republicans their seemingly permanent control of Congress.

The sheer stupidity, dishonesty, and incompetence of all those conservative-appartchiks in DC must rival that of Brezhnev's Moscow.

And now the NY Times is saying "That's just what we need!"

Posted by RKU | January 1, 2008 3:15 PM

What about the great national unity that Bloomberg will bring, and everything will go smoothly??

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | January 1, 2008 3:17 PM

Two points:

1. "fissiparous" = 10 point word. Nice.
2. Steve Sailer reads your blog? Yikes!

Posted by Ginger Root | January 1, 2008 3:17 PM

"If and when the Republicans lose in 2008, the appropriate thing to do is move to the right, not the left. Sam's Club Republicanism is going to lose a lot more Republicans than it gains. We saw the same thing from the other side in 2004. After a devastating defeat, Democrats moved to the left, not the right. And they prospered."

Except that you guys aren't in Dem'04 position, you're in Dem'68 position. What's worked for a generation is now breaking down.

As the Dems did after '68, you'll try moving both left and right before finally finding a way to co-opt some part of the Dem coalition by moving moderately left on a number of core issues.

But again like the Dems after '68, you're correct that you might move dramatically to the base in the short term. Who'll be your McGovern? Santorum '12?

Posted by Petey | January 1, 2008 3:19 PM

The "conservative movement" has always been, and continues to be constructed on lies and voter suppression and division. They win elections by hiding their true intentions, by inciting false bogeyman in the minds of the ignorant, and by suppressing moderate and liberal voter turn out.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED except that in spite of Big Media's best efforts to cover for conservative lies, deceptions, and corruption, the true insidious anti-American nature of conservativism is so pervasive that even Big Media can't cover it all.

Any conservative crack-up is all about the great disinterested masses getting a glimpse of what conservatives are all about. Consequently there is no conservative that can save the conservative movement.
.

Posted by pluege | January 1, 2008 3:44 PM

"Norquistians and neocons and social conservatives aren't inevitable allies"

I think they are inevitable allies, but their numbers can drop drastically because voters' interests change. Yesterday's social conservative can be tomorrow's economic populist. Yesterday's neocon can be tomorrow's civil libertarian. So a lasting Democratic alliance is conceivable. Still, I think it's unlikely. America's global military dominance and temptation to bully makes it naturally rightist; and its prominent frontier and commercial traditions do nothing to help. Since the Republicans have created all these catastrophes everywhere, I expect a decisive Democratic victory in November; but I don't expect anything beyond that. If the Democrats don't deliver big time and soon, voters will go running back to the Republicans.

Posted by Gary Sugar | January 1, 2008 3:56 PM

What characterizes a realigning election is that there's no way back to the status quo ante: no way to undo the war in 1864, no way to restore conservative economics in 1936, no way to restore Cold War liberalism and the Solid South in the Democratic Party in 1972.

The question now is whether the credibility of Republican governance on their old platform has been shattered beyond repair. Will they be able to run credibly in 2012 as the party of fiscal discipline, small government, and a strong foreign poilicy? Can they maintain their position among suburban women and not lose further ground among Latinos? Can the passing of the generation born in the 1920s and 1930s be offset by what now looks like very unlikely Republican gains in voters under 35 years of age?

I don't see how, unless the new Democratic President elected this year is a complete failure. But I can imagine that failure, especially if Clinton is elected and repeats the experience of 1993-94, or if Obama is elected on his personal attributes and repeats the experience of 1977-81.

Posted by Ron Thompson | January 1, 2008 4:01 PM

Re: Then, the congressional GOP just realizes that the conservative movement is really more comfortable in a quasi-opposition role, sets about using the filibuster and the timidity of the remaining southern Democratic senators to make the country ungovernable, does well in the 2010 midter

I don't see how they could do well in 2010 (absent some transforming event or major Democratic scandal) while blocking popular legislation and failing to offer an alternative of their own. In 1994 they had the Contract For America, a positive agenda which, though largely gimmick-centered, did at least appear to address concerns voters had with the long Democratic dominance of Congress. Today the GOP can manage to hide behind George Bush (or rather, the public's disgust with him) so that their obstructionism really does not matter since the public understands that nothing can be done against Bush's wishes anyway. But with a Democratic president in the White House an obstructionist GOP would find itself squarely in the limelight center stage, held accountable for every failure to address the nation's needs. Moreover individual members would probably peel off to support bills that were locally (or even nationally) popular in order to save their seats in 2010, for example (one we have already seen stopped only by veto) an expandeed SCHIP.

Re: After a devastating defeat, Democrats moved to the left, not the right. And they prospered.

Because the Democrats had moved too far right. And the GOP is already way too far right for the country: the last thing they need is yet more rightwing crusades, whether it involves Social Security privatization, anothet Terri Schiavo-type fiasco, or an invasion of Iran. The truly popular stuff on the right has already been done, leaving only half-baked wingnuttery that the public neither trusts nor desires. A GOP that moves even farther to the Right will be navigating in the far fever swamps, reducing itself to a few deep-red redoubts in the South and Utah and leaving a huge hole in the center-right for some ambitious third party, or even a conservative/populist Democrat to fill.

Posted by Jonf | January 1, 2008 4:05 PM

I think these predictions of some sort of shake-up/breakdown of the Republican/conservative coalition overlook the glue that holds them together. People rightly observe that the coalition is rationally illogical to begin with, but Rush Limbaugh can sell it as a single coherent world view because it is emotionally consistent. Every aspect of it plays to an authoritarian psychology. The conservative power structure with their massive intellectual infrastructure has spent a lot of money figuring this out. I really can't see them abandoning it, because it's all they've got. Conservatism sucks. Can anybody see a way for them to remain politically viable without holding the same coalition together with the same emotionally charged quasi-fascist bullshit?

Posted by miasmo | January 1, 2008 4:06 PM

It's hard to see what the current factions of the Republican party have in common. This is an advantage when you're ahead, but not when you're behind since there's no 'value-added' from sticking together. So, I think the economic moderates will go leftward, the Christian right will go ever further rightward, and the libertarians will wander off into the complex plane.

Posted by MattF | January 1, 2008 4:10 PM

Al,

To say that the Dems moved to the left after '04 is true in terms of their rhetoric at the national level, but for all that, they needed to run a significant number of conservative candidates to win in '06 -- despite the double tailwinds of the war in Iraq going badly then and a series of often lurid GOP scandals. When to win big in the midterm elections you need to run Reagan's Navy Secretary, the son of a pro-life Dem governor, a retired Admiral, etc., it doesn't look like the ideological sea change among Americans some Dems make it out to be.

Posted by Fred | January 1, 2008 4:16 PM

"It's hard to see what the current factions of the Republican party have in common."

It's hard to see what Maxine Waters has in common with Jim Webb. Don't kid yourself that the Dems have molded together some logically coherent coalition.

Posted by Fred | January 1, 2008 4:19 PM

Realistically, neither party should have survived the last 2 decades or so: both have reached a point of intellectual exhaustion, and are getting by based solely on the legal props that exist in all states: it's simply not easy to get on the ballot as a non-party person, and the hurdles in front of any third part are enormous. Both parties are made up of illogical unions of the sort that doomed the Whigs in the 1850s - but unlike then, the legal props simply make it next to impossible to replace them.

Posted by James Robertson | January 1, 2008 4:31 PM

Does anyone really believe that black, Hispanic, and Asian voters (three demographic groups growing faster than whites) really care about social conservatives or progressive ideals.

The Democratic Party will eventually be the one, dominate party because demographics ensures it. The ineptness and stupidity of the Bush Administration has just sped up the process.

The problem with the Republicans is that they no longer have a brand to sell. They cannot talk about fiscal conservatives or smaller government because the Bush Administration did none of that. The Bush Administration failed to deliver anything for the fiscal conservatives, the social conservatives, or the neo-cons. Thus, future elections will be about getting a larger slice of government largess or defending the slice a group already has. Those elections can easily occur in a one party state.

Posted by superdestroyer | January 1, 2008 4:32 PM

If and when the Republicans lose in 2008, the appropriate thing to do is move to the right, not the left.

Sigh. Al, you're not learning. Look, after 8 years of a "get the government off the backs of corporations" Reagan presidency, the Democrats thought they had the election in the bag, so they nominated a pro-union liberal establishment New England technocrat. And they lost. Badly. And it forced the Democrats to realize that, you know, Americans actually liked Reagan, and maybe they needed to rebrand themselves in such a way as to get business interests on their sides, and that's what they did.

When the Republicans lose in 2008, likely to Hillary Clinton (but hopefully to Edwards), Republicans are going to have to confront the reality that Americans liked the Clinton years and the Democrats and competent government, and perhaps the Republicans would do well not to cast themselves as the anti-Clinton and anti-government party.

Look, you've tried government hatred and war-pimping, and that didn't get you very far after '04. Do you really think that people abandoned the Republicans in 2006 because they were pissed about earmarks?

Posted by Tyro | January 1, 2008 4:46 PM

it doesn't look like the ideological sea change among Americans some Dems make it out to be.

What never ceases to amaze me is the stunning delusionalism that Republicans have dedicated themselves to in the 2006 elections, which just reminds me that they really need to be kicked firmly in the teeth in 2008 if they're going to ever learn to accept reality. There were 7 toss-up seats in the senate in 2006, and Democrats won 6 of them. The Democrats have a larger majority in the House than Republicans EVER had. Republicans were not able to oust a SINGLE democratic incumbent. The senate Republicans are still forced to carry with them plenty of pro-choicers in their ranks.

The propaganda institutions of the Republican party went on overdrive to broadcast to their easily led, mathematically incompetent members how the election of 2006 "was close." It wasn't close. Just about every race you needed to win, you lost. Because the American people wanted nothing to do with what Republicans stood for.

If Republicans wanted to win in 2006, they would have started running in favor of ending the Iraq war. The problem was that their angry, delusional base would have crucified them for that, as they did with Senator Hagel, upon whom bile and hatred was unleashed from the ignorant, delusional right. And you keep supporting them, Fred.

Posted by Tyro | January 1, 2008 4:52 PM

I'm sort of hoping that machetes and samurai swords are distributed at the 2008 GOP War Criminals Convention and that the various factions hack away at each other until only Barbara Bush is left standing. Then I hope she gets locked up in a cell next to Manuel Noriega.

But I guess that's just me.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 1, 2008 5:23 PM

Well, one new thing HAS unquestionably happened -- the fact that the GOP has suddenly decided to start using the filiuster THREE times more often than they, or any other party, ever used it before in US history (Democratic majorities or not).

What happens after a Democratic White House win now depends on whether the Democrats react to this major new strategic change with a major new strategic change of their own -- either dropping the Nuclear Option on the filibuster, or forcing the GOP to actually carry out all those endless filibusters before the TV cameras (while the President flays them for the filibuster's "misuse"). Harry Reid's maddening failure to do the latter may, indeed, be the major reason the GOP is suddenly using it so much more -- although my own view of the best way to "use" the filibuster, like Matt's, is to get rid of the damn thing altogether. The Framers didn't want it; it's not in the Constitution; and it was created by pure accident in 1804.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | January 1, 2008 5:26 PM

Tyro wrote, And it forced the Democrats to realize that, you know, Americans actually liked Reagan...

I think the extent to which Americans liked Reagan is exaggerated. And given how much in love the press was with Reagan, it's not surprising he did as well as he did.

Posted by liberal | January 1, 2008 5:38 PM

"Norquistians"? Really? I would have chosen "Norquistadors". But that's just me...

Posted by raff | January 1, 2008 5:50 PM

"What never ceases to amaze me is the stunning delusionalism that Republicans have dedicated themselves to in the 2006 elections"

"Delusianalism". Our first Tyro-ism of 2008?

"There were 7 toss-up seats in the senate in 2006, and Democrats won 6 of them."

One with Reagan's Navy Secretary Jim Webb, one with pro-life conservative Dem Bob Casey, Jr., and one with Ben Cardin, who co-wrote key parts of the Bush tax cuts (with Rob Portman).

"If Republicans wanted to win in 2006, they would have started running in favor of ending the Iraq war."

If they were political opportunists like John Edwards, perhaps, but fortunately, enough Republicans stuck by Bush's successful change of strategy in Iraq.

Posted by Fred | January 1, 2008 6:46 PM

Excellent analysis (by you, not Douthat).

Posted by Exile on Ericsson St. | January 1, 2008 6:59 PM

t fortunately, enough Republicans stuck by Bush's successful change of strategy in Iraq.

Elected officials work for voters, not for George W. Bush. Because Republicans lost sight of that, they lost, badly, in 2006, losing almost every toss-up race in Congress, failing to displace a single Democrat, and facing a situation where Democrats dominate the governorships of America.

As I said, Republicans have deluded themselves into thinking that the election in 2006 was somehow "close." They got their asses kicked because they were more loyal to GW Bush than to the American people, and they were so psychologically unable to accept the magnitude of their defeat (and, in any case, so mathematically illiterate and so disdainful of empirical data (eg, evolution and climate change)) that they were fooled by GOP Propagandists who peddled the "the election was close" line to their gullible followers.

One with Reagan's Navy Secretary Jim Webb,

Who has run on a populist platform that has generally had you hypersensitive crybabies screaming about "class warfare".

But by all means, convince yourself that you "weren't conservative enough" in 2006.

Posted by Tyro | January 1, 2008 7:09 PM

Despite what Cranky (and several others, here and elsewhere) say, nobody wants to lose a presidential election. That's just silly. No one goes through all that trouble just to go through the motions.

Now, it's another thing to say that the GOP wouldn't be entirely disappointed if they lost - there's a silver lining, and look for the usual gang of Village idiots to proclaim that a Democratic victory this year 'is good news for the GOP.'

I hope that the Dem nominee starts thinking about inoculating the American public against the inevitable dolschtosslegende, either shortly after the election or else well before.

Posted by r€nato | January 1, 2008 7:11 PM

Seriously, I sometimes do think that'll happen.

The social conservatives won't leave the party. They can't vote Democrat since Dems, to their credit, won't look the other way when confronted with, say, gay-hatred. Neither do social cons have the funds, connections, or depth of civic theory necessary to create a new party apparatus from scratch.

If the GOP coalition breaks up for good, it'll be because the small government types, the fiscal conservatives and the country club Republicans leave it and start another party (something like a whig resurrection). The latter groups do have the money, the connections, and, in classical liberalism, the single deepest well of civic theory to draw from. The only thing they don't have are votes, which would come with time.

But, as I've said before, the party doesn't break up unless Huckabee wins the nom. And if McCain or Thompson win the nom, the fissures temporarily disappear.

Posted by Shinyk | January 1, 2008 7:23 PM

Look, you've tried government hatred and war-pimping, and that didn't get you very far after '04.

The last Republican presidential candidate who ran on "government-hatred" did so in 1984 and won in a landslide.

It never ceases to amaze me when liberal Democrats pretend it was their ideas that won them the 2006 election. It wasn't. Between corruption, Terry Schiavo, bad fiscal policy and the Iraq war, the 2006 Republican party would have lost the election to the Black Panthers. And rightfully so.

Posted by Shinyk | January 1, 2008 7:45 PM

"Because Republicans lost sight of that, they lost, badly..."

The two big reasons why Republicans lost were public disapproval with the way the war in Iraq was being conducted and a series of GOP scandals and screw ups in Congress (e.g., the gay pederast in Florida, George Allen's macacca moment, etc.). Even so, a number of the races were extremely close (e.g., Webb's victory, McCaskill's victory).

Posted by Fred | January 1, 2008 7:49 PM

And after Perot made his appearance, it's taken the Democratic Party almost twenty years to put together the Edwards revolution.

Since when does mindless, myopic populism constitute a "revolution?"

Posted by Shinyk | January 1, 2008 8:09 PM

When you look at the voters and the issues and where the parties line up, it's hard to imagine the Republican party as we know it, ever winning another presidential election. Brooks understands this and calls for "a new brand of Republicanism" but doesn't say what this brand would be. And indeed, it's hard to imagine how the GOP can move to the center after having empowered the Christianist and given them such a central role in the party.

Admittedly, the Democrats ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is remarkable, but given where the GOP lines up on every major issue, it's hard to imagine them again running a competitive national ticket.

How this all plays out in the next 8 to 10 years, I have no idea, but my guess is that the GOP is reduced to a Southern regional party with moderate Republicans leaving the Christianists behind and looking to a 3d party.

Posted by Don | January 1, 2008 8:17 PM

the 2006 Republican party would have lost the election to the Black Panthers.

there's an idea.

Posted by mdhatter | January 1, 2008 8:19 PM

"When you look at the voters and the issues and where the parties line up, it's hard to imagine the Republican party as we know it, ever winning another presidential election."

It's funny that whether it's politics or investments, people have the same instinct to assume current trends will continue for years into the future.

"Brooks understands this and calls for "a new brand of Republicanism" but doesn't say what this brand would be."

I think you could make a strong argument that Bush 43 tried out a new brand. Of his three major domestic accomplishments, two of them -- No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D -- were more pragmatic compromises with the Left than traditional conservative policy ideas. With the NCLB, Bush deferred to Ted Kennedy (and, by proxy, the teachers unions) in limiting the choice provisions to public schools. For Medicare Part D, Bush was hammered by nearly all the conservative talking heads, including Rush Limbaugh.

Of course, the discussion of Bush's domestic policies gets obscured by the politics of the war in Iraq, Bush's anti-intellectual, good ol' boy pose that the country has long since tired of.

Posted by Fred | January 1, 2008 8:50 PM

I agree; yes, are we to think that if the massive fissures in the Republican party, visible to almost all who admit to even the slightest contact with reality cannot be defeated? Thing is, when the Dems do not present a unified alternative, the Repubs will continue to stumble through in their zombified, logically incoherent manner. We all know that nature abhors a vacuum and if the Dems continue to eat their own and defecate on their base, Republicans will continue to thrive to a degree completely unwarranted by the savage, user-unfriendly nature of Republican "policies" (if by policies you mean anything that makes stockholders money and screws regular Americans).

Posted by Todd | January 1, 2008 8:53 PM

Left out a comma between the clause about the war in Iraq and the one about Bush's anti-intellectual pose.

Posted by Fred | January 1, 2008 8:54 PM

Paul Krugman is right; 2006 was NOT a close race, despite the GOP's frantic and predictable attempt to throw up rhetorical radar chaff on that fact. (They are not alone, of course, in that respect -- I'll never forget Lloyd Bentsen telling a CNN reporter with a straight face on election night 1994 that it wasn't all that bad for the Democrats, because Sens. Lautenberg and Bingaman had been relected.)

The real indicator was how the nationwide vote for House of Representatives split. In 1994, the GOP won the nationwide House vote by 7% -- which (as they trumpeted at the time) is definitely not a close margin. Every election since then was a lot closer, House-wise -- until 2006, when the Democrats won the nationwide House vote by 8.5%. That ain't close, either. (We haven't had a Presidential election with a winning margin that big since 1984.) Had all US Senators run for reelection in that same year, there would have been a GOP massacre on the Senate side of the aisle. And they're consistently running a little bit better in the polls so far for the generic 2008 House race.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | January 1, 2008 9:01 PM

By "they", I mean the Democrats -- damn near every poll in 2007, including all of those over the lat few months, have given them a double-digit lead.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | January 1, 2008 9:03 PM

re: Between corruption, Terry Schiavo, bad fiscal policy and the Iraq war, the 2006 Republican party would have lost the election to the Black Panthers. And rightfully so.

And do you see any evidence the GOP has changed in this regard? Like the 19th century Bourbons they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Re: It's funny that whether it's politics or investments, people have the same instinct to assume current trends will continue for years into the future.

If the GOP has any sense it will most certainly change its tune. But currently I hear no new tunes coming out of it, at least not at the national level. It's going to take at least one more solid drubbing at the polls. Maybe a couple more. Eventually the GOP will start listening to people like Ross Douthat, or looking to successful state Republicans like Charlie Crist. But until then the GOP is going to be like the Dems in the 80s.

Posted by JonF | January 1, 2008 9:06 PM

Todd responds, when the Dems do not present a unified alternative, the Repubs will continue to stumble through in their zombified, logically incoherent manner. We all know that nature abhors a vacuum

Absolutely true and the reason the GOP has hung on this long.

The problem for the Dems is that the party really is a big tent with many competing interest that the GOP doesn't have.

Who is the Democratic base anyway?

Posted by Don | January 1, 2008 9:09 PM

I think you could make a strong argument that Bush 43 tried out a new brand.

Agreed. Trotskyist meddling, entitlement expansion, a Big Brother state, and anti-federalism were unthinkable as positions for a Republican before 2000. I'd love to see them leave office with Bush.

Posted by Shinyk | January 1, 2008 9:10 PM

Who is the Democratic base anyway?

Reality-based voters. Not trying to be a smart ass, but that is what largely defines Democrats, as opposed to Republicans. If you believe in leaders who speak directly with God, in magic economic hands, in mystical properties of freedom, that the earth is 6000 years, and other forms of superstitious mumbo jumbo, you almost certainly vote Republican. If you don't, you vote Democrat.

It really is that simple.

Posted by Exile on Ericsson St. | January 1, 2008 9:13 PM

"The two big reasons why Republicans lost were public disapproval with the way the war in Iraq was being conducted and a series of GOP scandals and screw ups in Congress (e.g., the gay pederast in Florida, George Allen's macacca moment, etc.)."

I truly hope you are a key Republican consultant who'll be advising your candidate in the 2008 GE. You couldn't be more wrong about your conclusion that the public disapproval is with the execution of Iraq policy. The clear majority of American people disapprove of our elective war and illegal/immoral occupation of that country. We are sick of the money drain, the trashing of our international reputation, and the idiotic idea that we can promote Big Oil democracy in the ME.

On your second point, yeah, the Republican Party leadership has some real psychological problems. But it's my observation of watching this Party devolve over the past 40 years that, when you morph into an organized crime syndicate, running people of integrity and common sense is counter-productive to your core agenda (stealing the country blind). In fact, having compromiseable/blackmailable legislators appears to have become an important criteria in selecting Republican candidates to run for office. Accommodating the individual perversions and corruptions in exchange for protecting the Party and assuring Party Line voting - an interesting quid pro quo your Party has institutionalized.

Assuming we can finally get control of Congress and increase our majorities, I hope we finally start doing serious investigations leading to trials in 2009. I suspect that we'll be doing conservatives a real favor driving a stake into the rotting carcass of today's Republican Party.

Posted by Innocent Bystander | January 1, 2008 9:20 PM

The problem for the Dems is that the party really is a big tent with many competing interest that the GOP doesn't have.

Disagree. The Democratic party is on a linear continuum. Moderates, progressives and leftists have all the same views, varying, it seems, only by degree of anger and extremity of solution (see Obama/Edwards mandate kerfluffle).

The Republican party, by contrast, is so ideologically broad and divergent that it includes groups with no visible overlap like fiscal conservatives v. social conservatives or isolationists v. neocons. Most of these groups can correctly claim to be to "the right" of the others.

Posted by Shinyk | January 1, 2008 9:31 PM

couldn't be more wrong about your conclusion that the public disapproval is with the execution of Iraq policy. The clear majority of American people disapprove of our elective war and illegal/immoral occupation of that country. We are sick of the money drain, the trashing of our international reputation, and the idiotic idea that we can promote Big Oil democracy in the ME.

Possibly. But that only provides a compelling reason to vote against Republicans as long as the party advocates a Neoconservative foreign policy. Nowhere in that rebuke is there a compelling reason to vote for a Democrat.

Posted by Shinyk | January 1, 2008 9:47 PM

You voting for Paul, Shinyk?

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 1, 2008 10:09 PM

But it's my observation of watching this Party devolve over the past 40 years that, when you morph into an organized crime syndicate, running people of integrity and common sense is counter-productive to your core agenda (stealing the country blind). In fact, having compromiseable/blackmailable legislators appears to have become an important criteria in selecting Republican candidates to run for office. Accommodating the individual perversions and corruptions in exchange for protecting the Party and assuring Party Line voting - an interesting quid pro quo your Party has institutionalized.

Yes, exactly. The sheer criminality and corruption of the Republican Congress was something breathtaking to behold. As near as I could tell, its only activity was taking bribes from gambling casinos and propositioning teenage boys.

I think there's an ideological component to this. Since the Democrats have their roots on the Left, there's always a strong---if far from dominant--- anti-Greed element in the party and especially its activist grassroots, which constitutes some small check upon unbridled corruption.

But since much of the modern conservative/Republican movement is based on the ideology of "Greed is Good," this situation is different on the other side of the aisle. This might apply least to the Christian Right conservatives, but their influence in DC was minimal outside a few narrow, mostly "fabricated" issues.

On the other hand, the ability of the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory must never be discounted.

Again, consider the NY Times, about the only powerful American media organ still regarded, even minimally, as being part of the "Democratic coalition" (disagree?---then name another...CNN? WashPost?). Yet their influential Sunday Book Review is now edited by a neocon, who apparently also controls their political Week in Review section. And now they bring Bill Kristol, the most totally discredited neocon of all, in as a key columnist. Maybe the next step is to bring back Judith Miller as their new Foreign Affairs Editor.

Does anyone think Rupert Murdoch will select Katrina vanden Heuvel as the new WSJ Ed Page Editor? It would actually make more sense, given that she'd been right on Iraq, while Kristol's package of policies have been proven totally disastrous and totally unpopular.

I honestly can't imagine what really goes through the empty heads of all those cocktail-party type political/media people in NYC/DC...

Posted by RKU | January 1, 2008 10:51 PM

RKU writes: "I honestly can't imagine what really goes through the empty heads of all those cocktail-party type political/media people in NYC/DC..."

I honestly can't imagine what really goes through the empty heads of all those cocktail-party type political/media whores in NYC/DC...

There. I fixed it.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 2, 2008 12:38 AM

"You couldn't be more wrong about your conclusion that the public disapproval is with the execution of Iraq policy. The clear majority of American people disapprove of our elective war and illegal/immoral occupation of that country."

If the war itself -- and not the execution of it -- were that unpopular, Bush wouldn't have been reelected in 2004. The difference in 2006 was that the Golden Mosque bombing of that February radically changed the situation in Iraq for the worse, and yet Bush refused to change strategy or personnel to respond to it. He didn't start making those changes (the first of which was the axing of Rumsfeld) until the day after the midterm elections in '06, and he didn't get Petraeus in place as theater commander until early '07.

Americans have tended to be pretty tolerant of and patient about wars of choice far more expensive (relative to the size of our economy) and bloodier than this one. What Americans won't tolerate is a poorly-run war. If current progress in Iraq continues, I wouldn't be surprised if by next November a narrow majority of Americans supports the war again. At worst, if current trends continue, its political relevance will have decreased to that of the war in Afghanistan.

Posted by Fred | January 2, 2008 12:44 AM

On Jan. 1, 1976, Democrats were saying the exact same things about how the Republicans would never ever win again.

It's a two-party system. To win, you only have to be less awful than the other team. It's not all that hard to do.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 2, 2008 12:57 AM

"If current progress in Iraq continues, I wouldn't be surprised if by next November a narrow majority of Americans supports the war again. At worst, if current trends continue, its political relevance will have decreased to that of the war in Afghanistan."

But those, of course, are two extremely big "ifs" -- given that the US troop presence is going to have to shrink significantly next year no matter what happens in Iraq, for th simple reason that we don't have the manpower to sustain our current level. And the whole point of the discussions on this blog -- and many another site -- is that there is very little evidence that the Shiites and Sunnis are backing wawy from their plans to initiate a civil war the moment we're no longer there to interfere with it.

My own feeling remains what it has been for a long time: even if we somehow retrieve the situation -- and even if the war thus fades as a 2008 campaign issue -- it will be the mother of all Pyrrhic victories. To quote Hilzoy ( http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/12/this-is-your-ar.html ): "People sometimes talk about 'doing what it takes in Iraq', or 'giving the surge a chance', as though such choices had no actual downside; as though letting George W. Bush have his way on Iraq policy was like letting your child pursue some wildly improbable but ultimately harmless dream. 'Why not let him try?', they say, as though he were a teenager hoping to become a movie star, or me trying to make the NBA. This is obviously crazy: nothing about Iraq is harmless. Our soldiers are dying in Iraq; our money is being spent there; our resources are being diverted away from places like Afghanistan, where they might have done a lot more good. And, to top it all off, we are doing damage to our Army that will take decades to undo [she goes into more detail on this], and that might prevent us from responding adequately the next time we face a real threat, rather than one that exists only in Bush and Cheney's imaginations."

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | January 2, 2008 1:13 AM

Americans have tended to be pretty tolerant of and patient about wars of choice far more expensive (relative to the size of our economy) and bloodier than this one. What Americans won't tolerate is a poorly-run war.

No, Americans are not patient with wars that they realize are not being fought for their benefit. We're funny that way.

Posted by Jeff S. | January 2, 2008 1:24 AM

You voting for Paul, Shinyk?

Not in the primary.

I'll hopefully vote for Fred. More likely, I'll sleep fine having voted McCain (as I did in the 2000 primary). I could, however, see myself voting Obama if it's Obama v. Huckabee/Giuliani.

The only way I'd vote for Paul is in a Hillary v. Giuliana v. Paul matchup or a Hillary v. Huckabee v. Paul matchup.

I think Paul's asking a lot of the right questions, and some of his answers are fantastic. More frequently his answers are fantastical and ignorant. I don't think, for instance, I could actually pull the lever for someone who opposes all treaties in principle. Also, in case Paul missed the first day of US History 101: legal, competitive currencies resulted in a failed state when it last was tried on this continent.

Posted by Shinyk | January 2, 2008 2:31 AM

"...it's obvious that the Norquistians and neocons and social conservatives aren't inevitable allies."

Corporations (Norquistians), the military (neocons), and the church (social conservatives) banding together in the way you describe is close to a textbook definition of fascism. In fact, it is difficult to define fascism without providing some reference to the alliance of these three powers. You seem to act as if these powers are simply discrete constituencies, or the equivalent of demographic groups; however there are precise historical political parallels to the very coalition you describe. I would go further, and say that there is little popular support for any of these entities holding political power apart from the manufacture of consent. This argument would be persuasive were we only given the history of the U.S. But, through the study of other 20th century governments and political alliances, it is quite easy to see the natural alliance that far right power structures (such as corporations, the military, and the church) tend to form.

Posted by littleblackpropaganda | January 2, 2008 7:22 AM

"But those, of course, are two extremely big "ifs" -- given that the US troop presence is going to have to shrink significantly next year no matter what happens in Iraq, for th simple reason that we don't have the manpower to sustain our current level. And the whole point of the discussions on this blog -- and many another site -- is that there is very little evidence that the Shiites and Sunnis are backing wawy from their plans to initiate a civil war the moment we're no longer there to interfere with it."

It's a sign of the improvement in Iraq that a pessimist such as yourself would write about "plans to initiate a civil war": last year this time, many argued that Iraq was already in a civil war. I can't share your pessimism though, and I'll tell you why. Look at things from an Iraqi perspective.

If you were a Sunni or Shia sheikh, how would you benefit from another round of sectarian bloodletting? Oil revenues are already flowing your way. Young men in your tribe are getting on the government payroll with security force jobs. You are wetting your beak with reconstruction contracts. And the local morgue isn't filling up with your nephews and sons every day. You look around the region, and what do you see? Gleaming cities and prosperity in the American protectorates to your Southwest: Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia. If you are a Sunni, you look to the West and know there is no grand Sunni Army that will ride to your rescue if you start another terror campaign against the Shia. If you are a Shia, you look to your east at your co-religionists in Iran -- and then you remember those gleaming cities and prosperity in those American protectorates. Which do you choose?

Could be I'm wrong and the Sunnis and Shia will chose mutual suicide over shared prosperity, but I think they already looked into that abyss in 2006. Why do that again when there's $100 per barrel oil revenues to share?

Posted by Fred | January 2, 2008 8:29 AM

Trotskyist meddling, entitlement expansion, a Big Brother state, and anti-federalism were unthinkable as positions for a Republican before 2000.

What the hell are you talking about? Trotskyist meddling == "we coulda won vietnam if only we stayed." Big Brother State == "we have every right to wiretap anyone, at any time, and we will as soon as we can roll back those pesky 70s-era laws! Innocent people have nothing to worry about!" Anti-Federalism == "national ban on abortion." All of these have been part and parcel of Republican rhetoric for as long as I've been alive.

Could be I'm wrong and the Sunnis and Shia will chose mutual suicide over shared prosperity

The same reason the Republican factions are committing mutual suicide. They're more interested in their own power within that institution than the institution's power itself.

Posted by Tyro | January 2, 2008 8:53 AM

One with Reagan's Navy Secretary Jim Webb, one with pro-life conservative Dem Bob Casey, Jr., and one with Ben Cardin, who co-wrote key parts of the Bush tax cuts (with Rob Portman).

They may have been to the right of the average Democrat or the official Democratic platform, but they were all to the left of the people they were running against. Trending to the left slightly slower than it might seem at first glance is still trending to the left.

Posted by Cyrus | January 2, 2008 12:02 PM

What the hell are you talking about? Trotskyist meddling == "we coulda won vietnam if only we stayed." Big Brother State == "we have every right to wiretap anyone, at any time, and we will as soon as we can roll back those pesky 70s-era laws! Innocent people have nothing to worry about!" Anti-Federalism == "national ban on abortion." All of these have been part and parcel of Republican rhetoric for as long as I've been alive.

1. Vietnam was a proxy war (though not a necessary one), not a great plan to remake southeast asia in our image (i.e. Trotsky's "permanent revolution"). Besides, in case you've forgotten, it was the Democrats who got us into Vietnam.

2. You didn't hear this: "we have every right to wiretap anyone, at any time, and we will as soon as we can roll back those pesky 70s-era laws!" until Bush II. Nixon may have done some of this, but he never said it was legal. Moreover, this sentiment was utterly nonexistent during the Reagan, Bush I and Gingrich Congress years.

3. The only people calling for a "national ban on abortion" are the same people who think the FMA was a serious effort instead of the cynical, insincere ploy that it was. Even Huckabee has hedged on a national ban. More often, you hear calls for overturning Roe and punting abortion back to the states, which is the position of Romney, McCain, Paul, Thompson, Giuliani. That's a proper federalist position--pro-life or pro-choice. Federalism that has been sadly absent during Bush's administration.

Posted by Shinyk | January 2, 2008 2:32 PM

Re: Americans have tended to be pretty tolerant of and patient about wars of choice far more expensive (relative to the size of our economy) and bloodier than this one.

What Americans do not tolerate are wars of choice that are not quickly over with. Reagan. Bush I and Clinton all the good sense to realize this and they kept their foreign military adventures quick and to the point.

Re: If current progress in Iraq continues, I wouldn't be surprised if by next November a narrow majority of Americans supports the war again.

Unlikely. Iraq is seen as a failure, and more importantlty, an utterly unnecessary failure. Recall that the US in Vietnam enjoyed any number of small-scale military successess, but public opposition continued to mount until the end.

Re: Corporations (Norquistians), the military (neocons), and the church (social conservatives) banding together in the way you describe is close to a textbook definition of fascism.

Nonsense. Fascism has nothing to do with corporations or any church. It's a sepcies of hyper-nationalism, pure and simple. In a true fascist state, both business and religion is expected to toe the government line as well, and profits and dogma be damned if they get in the way. The US is absolutely not fascism: we would not be in hock to China, or shipping thousands of jobs there if we were. America Uber Alles may be our foreign policy but it is certainly not our domestic policy.

Posted by JonF | January 2, 2008 5:42 PM

"If the war itself -- and not the execution of it -- were that unpopular, Bush wouldn't have been reelected in 2004. The difference in 2006 was that the Golden Mosque bombing of that February radically changed the situation in Iraq for the worse, and yet Bush refused to change strategy or personnel to respond to it."

I disagree. The difference in 2006 was that earlier, the cognitive dissonance between movement conservatism theory & practice had reached a fever pitch. Many people, including myself, were suddenly forced to confront internal contradictions that had long gone unexamined.

I'm now permanently immune to their propaganda machine, having consciously analyzed its effects on me from the inside, like developing powerful antibodies to a poxy disease. And, my now-visceral repugnance for their anger- and hatred-based manipulations keep on pushing me further left over time, like getting nauseous from the smell of tequila for the rest of your life after one too many vomitous binges.

That's also why I'm not attracted to Clinton or Edwards either. Clinton reminds me too much of the sneaksy, power-hungry, two-faced aspect of the neocons. Edwards reminds me too much of their amygdala-exploiting propagandists.

Fortunately, those are not my only options. I'm very excited about working hard for a positive future with Obama.

Posted by SciVo | January 5, 2008 5:39 PM