The breakup of the conservative coalition continues apace. From libertarians to social conservatives, realists to neoconservatives, each group is increasingly alienated from the Republican Party, but is finding a receptive audience in the Democratic Party. Now comes word from the Wall Street Journal that the business community is among them:
The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title.
New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party’s identity — what strategists call its “brand.” The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.
Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don’t share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.
Already, economic conservatives who favor balanced federal budgets have become a much smaller part of the party’s base. That’s partly because other groups, especially social conservatives, have grown more dominant. But it’s also the result of defections by other fiscal conservatives angered by the growth of government spending during the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress.
Some well-known business leaders have openly changed allegiances. Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive John Mack, formerly a big Bush backer, now supports Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. John Canning Jr., chairman and chief executive of Madison Dearborn Partners, a large private-equity firm, now donates to Democrats after a lifetime as a Republican. Recently, he told one Democratic Party leader: “The Republican Party left me” — a twist on a line Ronald Reagan and his followers used when they abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago to protest its ’60s and ’70s-era liberalism.
The article is also interesting because it quotes former McCain chief strategist John Weaver:
Federal campaign-finance reports document shifting support in some quarters of the business community. Hedge funds last year gave 77% of their contributions in congressional races to Democrats, up from 71% during the 2004 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan analyst of campaign finances. Last year the securities industry gave 45% of its money to Republicans, down from 58% in 1996, the center said.
“You see it in the lack of donor support” for Republican presidential candidates, says longtime strategist John Weaver. As former top adviser to presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain, Mr. Weaver recalls hearing Republican businesspeople grouse about the party’s focus on moral issues and Iraq.
Overall, Democratic presidential candidates have raised more than $200 million this year, about 70% more than their Republican rivals.
When looked at separately, these anecdotes don’t amount to much, but when viewed together only one word comes to mind….realignment.
The Republican and Democratic parties will look very different once the dust settles on November 4th, 2008.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I hate George Bush.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Business types support the candidates they think will win. They expect favors and know the people in the majority can give them.
This type of behavior is very common. Leading businessmen as a rule prefer to be friendly with the majority regardless of politics.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Ah, the “R word.” Thrown about so casually.
This has nothing to do with realignment. This has everything to do with trying to buy influence in the majority party. The same thing happened in 1995-96 when it became clear that Republicans would hold the House and Senate for a long time.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I agree John Galt.
Business has traditionally been behind the GOP. Yes they would donate to the Democrats when it looked like a win for that party. Still, the lions share of the money was still spent for Republican candidates. This does not look good for the party at all.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Just so I can remember, which Repub candidate is it that can hold his own in a discussion with these business scions? Not to mention has their respect for his abilities?
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Sean: ‘The same thing happened in 1995-96 when it became clear that Republicans would hold the House and Senate for a long time.’
So are the Democrats going to control the House for a long time?
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm
That is what business seems to be betting.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
The business men have run their projections and have determine that the Republican Party is collapsing and will soon be irrelevant. Demographic changes were going to eliminate the Republican party no matter what but the incompetence of the Bush Administration has sped up the process by about 20 years.
Look at how no former staffer in the Bush Administration is running for office. Bush has so tainted anything called Republican that no one who has worked in Washington as a Republican can return to their home state and run for office. It is a lousy sign of leadership when someone in charge fails to develop a single protege.
October 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I agree with Sean – this will swing back the moment the GOP is in power. Businesses want to be in the favor of the Gov, so they support the ruling party – right now, becuase the Democrats are in a better spot, they are popular. If the GOP takes back control in 2008, it will once again be popular in the business community.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Sean,
It only took three comments before someone inevitably said that this is all no big deal.
Look at the trends. The country is tilting to the left. Virginia, for God’s sake, is turning blue, even though it hasn’t voted for the Dems since LBJ’s landslide in 1964.
The reason that the Republicans have enjoyed such dominance over the past 40 years was because they had a huge lead on who the electorate thought was most capable at keeping the country safe. The only times when Democrats were elected since 1968 were the times when foreign policy wasn’t the overriding concern and because the candidates were pretty conservative themselves, Carter due to Watergate (SoCons voted from him overwhelmingly over Ford) and Bill Clinton due to the end of the Cold War and the recession (he was a great advocate of free trade and welfare reform). But even after that, the GOP maintained their National Security competance.
George Bush has completely destroyed that advantage and the country now thinks that the Dems are best equipped to handle national security.
I also think many people are making the mistake in thinking that even if Hillary wins in 2008 that the Dems will overreach and then the GOP will return to power. What happens in the event that they don’t overreach?
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
That will be a day, when capitalists minge with environmentalists and open-boundary fellows. Increasingly, more and more of businesses are being taken over by the environmentalists, so I am not sure capitalists exist as much nowsdays as they did years ago.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm
LJ, why don’t you go find a nice liberal website where people WANT to talk about the GOP being doomed?
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:29 pm
LJ,
I’ve written here on this site on my opinon about the trends before. I won’t recapitualte them, but as a punchy comeback I’ll just point out that if you looking at polls in early 2004 — or even late 2004 — you could say that Minnesota was turning red for God’s sake, even though it hadn’t voted for the Reps since Nixon’s landslide in 1972.
As for overreach, well, if Hillary wins and governs from the place her husband did post-1994, then yes, you might have your realignment, though not because of the country moving to the left so much as the Dems moving right.
We’ll see how things look in a year. Right now it is still W’s party. In a year there will be a new GOP standard bearer, who will be a new face for the party. The best thing the GOP has going for it right now is that there is no incumbent vice President seeking the nod, which allows its standard bearer to triangulate against the Dems and the incumbent.
On the actual point here — business’ donations — this is exactly what happens when a party takes over Congress. It is the problem the GOP had while in the minority pre-1994, and it is the problem the Dems had in the minority post-1994 until very recently.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Incidentally, I didn’t say it was no big deal either. A major reason being in the minority is a self-perpetuating spiral is because donor money is harder to come by until the other party self-destructs. Its just not arealignment either. We’re still in the same basic political alignment we’ve been in since 1938.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Sean: ‘We’re still in the same basic political alignment we’ve been in since 1938.’
You can’t be serious. The South was the solid South for the Democrats until about 1964, after which it became a permanent Republican stronghold (with one exception).
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Awakened,
Actually, 1938 is when the Southern Democratic party began its serious splintering between populist Democrats and conservative Democrats. It is when Richard Russell and Robert Taft formed the conservative coalition that basically governed Congress since (with a few exceptions). Once segregation was unable to hold the two factions of the Democratic party together, the conservative faction slowly drifted into the Republican party.
(Please note: This is not the simplistic argument that all the racists left Democrats because of race issues. It is that the break from the national Democrats on other issues well before 1964, and the removal of segregation simply took the one thing off the table that was causing Southern Dems to cleve to their national party).
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Sean, I’m not an expert on Congressional history (I had no idea who Richard Russell was), but are you sure that the Russell-Taft-axis governed Congress? Although neither Congress nor its leadership was as liberal as it is now (for example, Tip O’Neill opposed birth control and supported a constitutional amendment to ban abortion), but I think it’s dubious to say that Congress was governed by a conservative coalition. For example, Charles Schumer said some time ago to the New York Times that the ACLU used to write the crime legislation (somewhat of an exaggeration, I’m sure) of the Democratic Congress before 1994. And only one of Reagan’s budgets got passed.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:34 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_coalition
I’d also recommend V.O. Key’s Southern Politics on the matter.
Incidentally, the reason that the Republican party in Arkansas is so weak at the state level is that it never suffered from the fissure between conservative and populist Democrats that occurred in other Southern states, so there was no shell for the Republican party to crawl into like a hermit crab.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Big business has been in the process of realigning for half of my lifetime. It’s been a long time since the GOP was the partyl of big business. We ARE the party of small business, however, and that will not change. Hillary is a socialist who’s main mission in life aside from the maximization of her own power is the redistribution of wealth. Does she realize that she would crush the economy in the process? Not fully, but she knows her agenda would hurt the economy, and she really doesn’t care. It wouldn’t surprise me if she relished it. Nominating Mitt would retard the slippage we see in the business community. Mitt’s issues, e.g., becoming more competitive with Asia, the removal of many of the taxes on capital formation, changing our immigration laws to increase the number of immigrants and temporary workers who possess skills and education, and so many others, will provide a stark contrast vis a vis the Democrats that the business community will identify with. This will help us out with fundraising, 527’s, and votes.
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Thank you, Sean.
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:19 pm
This is to be expected. The party of the financial centers of the Northeast, the industrial centers of the Midwest, and the trade-friendly West Coast, as well as the party that gave us the president who signed NAFTA and balanced the budget for the first time in decades, is the natural party of business. In the late 19th Century, those regions were solid Republican, and even when the Dems made their way into the Northeast and Midwest to form their New Deal majority, the GOP was still basically centered in states like Ohio (Taft), Illinois (Dirksen), Michigan (Ford), and New York (Rockefeller), as well as in California (Nixon, Reagan).
When the GOP began to pick up, as Sean pointed out, the conservative Democrats in the South, that began a partisan realignment (though as Sean points out, probably not an ideological one) in Dixie from D to R. Interestingly, it was Bill Clinton who began the realignment up North. Before Clinton, states like CT, MI, ME, IL, etc, were regularly competitive. Now, pretty much all of the Northeast is solid Democrat, as is California, and Illinois and Michigan are all but solid blue. Meanwhile, Tom Dewey’s PA and Taft’s OH are swing states. Bill Clinton governed as an Eisenhower Republicans and thus gave over to the Democrats the parts of the country that voted Republican when Eisenhower was president.
But while the pro-trade, fiscally responsible, managerial, pro-business voters are now voting Democrat, the converse is also true, as the Truman Democrats are now Republicans, and have thus given the GOP the solid South and the interior west. The problem for Republicans is that they are currently on the losing side of all of the demographic battles. The South is gaining more EVs than the North, but that’s due to migration from blue states that in every case is resulting in red southern and western states becoming bluer (Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, Florida). Republicans have whites as their base in a country that is becoming less and less white every year. Republicans have moral traditionalists as their base in a country that is undergoing a generational change in cultural mores. And so on.
Waiting for Hillary Clinton to fail is no way to build a majority, though a Hillary Clinton victory would send lots of new voters who are currently Democrats by default into the GOP. That would wrench the party from the SoCon/NeoCon/Supply-Sider axis that is the Bush Base and hopefully allow the party to move forward instead of fighting over the same old issues yet another time. The next Republican president, if we lose the coming election, will be one who can move the party forward to address the challenges of today’s America. Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal are the sorts of New Republicans that will win elections in the coming years. Vice President Bayh v. Palin/Jindal ‘16?
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:17 pm
[...] today, our own LJ summarized the political reorganization that is currently underway in our nation, as voting blocs and interest [...]
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:17 pm
[...] today, our own LJ summarized the political reorganization that is currently underway in our nation, as voting blocs and interest [...]
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Dave,
Exactly. As always, you are much more eloquent than I am. I wonder though, who the GOP will nominate in ‘12 assuming Hillary wins next year?
I suppose it would depend on who wins the coming primary. If Rudy is nominated and losses to Hillary, the base will argue that it’s because of the fact that he wasn’t conservative enough, whereas if a more conservative candidate like Thompson or Romney wins the nomination and loses, the GOP would be much more likely to pick a moderate in 2012.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
[...] today, our own LJ summarized the political reorganization that is currently underway in our nation, as voting blocs and interest [...]
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
The coalition is not breaking up. News stories are stories. Votes are what matters, and come 2008, it will show that voters don’t want higher taxes and weakness on defense.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:39 am
Gamecock: ‘The coalition is not breaking up. News stories are stories. Votes are what matters, and come 2008, it will show that voters don’t want higher taxes and weakness on defense.’
Still in possession of that crystal ball?