GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
There’s this popular, but largely mistaken, notion that the Republican Party could easily reclaim it’s image by jettisoning social conservatism. Millions of blue dog Democrats and open-minded independents would, so the theory goes, eagerly fill up any gap that the evangelical exit left. But, it usually takes decades to permanently shed party loyalty (usually through a transformative presidency), and even temporary shifts only occur when something has been DONE. Or rather, think about it this way. During the primaries, which race were you (the social moderates and liberals within the GOP) following more closely? The Democratic or the Republican race? In the general, which candidate will you pay the closest attention to? John McCain or Barack Obama? These answers should be obvious to anyone.
Barack Obama could start talking about fiscal responsibility, and about the need to encourage the creation of wealth, and you might miss it entirely, unless it became big news. This is doubly true of the average voter. They have a party preference, and from the beginning of the race until the end, the vast bulk of their attention is focused on what that party’s candidates say and do. To the extent that this is true, Barack Obama has nothing to gain, and quite alot to lose, by talking about fiscal responsibility and wealth creation. Because you’re not paying enough attention to Obama, to assimilate his unorthodox message; you aren’t yet considering whether or not a more fiscally conservative Democratic Party isn’t a better fit for you, given your social positions. Barack Obama starts to potentially gain some traction with you when his message becomes more then a message, and turns into a meme. Until then, he simply bleeds support (from the liberals who are paying attention to him, and who are alarmed by his message), and has no easy means of making it up.
This is, in my opinion, the reason why Rudy’s campaign strategy was doomed to fail. Because, from the get-go, the people most interested in Rudy, within the broader electorate, were more moderate then the average GOP’er. We can see this in early Rasmussen ideology polls. These folks were his potential base. But, when Rudy actually ran, because he didn’t want to alienate so-cons, he simply didn’t talk about social issues in any context. So he looked like a regular right-winger to the moderates (because he’s quite conservative fiscally and on defense issues), and the conservatives that he might of won over by not emphasizing his social liberalism weren’t, by and large, paying enough attention to him to be won over. This is what happens when you (either individually or as a party) change your ideology/emphasis without making sure that the folks you’re trying to rope in, are actually TUNED IN to what you’re saying. Newt Gingrich has moved a ton to the left on a number of issues in recent years. But, all he’s managed to do is alienate some conservatives; because moderates aren’t paying enough attention to mean ole’ Newt, to notice that he’s now a kinder, gentler, Newt.
Rudy had, really, only one viable option. 1. He had to actively repudiate extreme social conservatism, and hope that the less extreme social conservatives would hold their noses. Bill Clinton did things of this nature numerous times in 92′, having rationally calculated that after 12 years out of the White House, liberals would vote for him regardless. Sister Souljah is an obvious example. But, he also talked about, fairly prominently, a “Third Way”. And recall that famous quote of his? “The era of big government is over”? Bill Clinton didn’t just reject certain elements of Democratic orthodoxy, he actively repudiated them in such a way that he could ensure that those Republicans and independents who might be open to this message, were actually tuning in to what he was saying.
If you don’t do this, if you don’t manage to cast a narrative of repudiation, then all you’ll manage to do is quietly bleed support from your base, without gaining anything in the middle. But, this all goes to a broader point, which is this; strategies like this are most successful when A.) Your side is relatively committed to voting the party line, and B.) When the other side is relatively open to crossing over. That’s, generally speaking, true right after periods of long dominance by the opposing party or during periods where your own party is very well liked. The 2008 election is nothing like that for the GOP (though it is for the Democrats). The 2012 election is likely to be nothing like that for the GOP.
While it’s true that a number of Democrats will be open to voting GOP if Obama becomes the nominee, without the first condition (a base committed to voting the party line), we’re still in extremely dicey territory. And the only situation where the base of the GOP will be committed to voting Republican, regardless of what McCain does, is a situation where we’re going to prevail without any ideological pivoting; i.e, where Obama has been turned into such a radical figure, that pretty much everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders will turn out to stop him from becoming president. In other words, it’s not a good time to go about repudiating any major elements of the coalition, because they’ll take you at your word, and vamoose. Ultimately, if the GOP tries to repudiate social conservatism, in the dire straits we now find ourselves in, it’ll find that the social conservatives leave easily enough, but nothing immediately rises up to take their place. To close, I’ll leave you with a thought. Think of 1968, and all that’s happened since then. Think of the segregation era Democratic party. It’s taken, arguably, 4 decades for the Democratic party to recover from the post-Johnson diaspora of the segregationists. If you feel modern social conservatism is equivalent to segregation, then you might well be justified in promoting such a purge. If not, you probably ought to leave well enough alone.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
If social conservatism were taken off the table, everyone would just vote based on class. If you’re poor or middle class, you would vote Democratic and if you were rich you’d vote Republican. Since poor people outnumber rich people, Democrats would win every election, just as they did when FDR and Truman were running.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I should add, this is exactly how Rick Santorum lost. People say Santorum was a horrible candidate, but what actually happened was that Casey was pro-life, so that negated that issue. As a result, it became just about class. All the poor people voted for Casey and the rich people voted for Santorum. Since Pennsylvania is a lower income state, Santorum lost in a landslide. Socially conservative voters of low income who supported Santorum in previous elections went for Casey this time.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Clarence,
I think that’s certainly pretty close to the mark. I actually don’t buy the idea that fiscal and conservatism, divorced from social conservatism, could EVER find a majority in this country. But, even if you assume that there are 25 million blue dogs just raring to jump on the social security privatization bandwagon, but refuse to do so because Mike Huckabee won’t stop talking about creationism, it’s sheer nonsense to suggest that it’s going to be easy to rope them in, without suffering greater losses among evangelicals.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
fiscal and defense*
May 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Thing about blue dogs is they tend to be moderates on social issues and economic issues.
The Republican Party isn’t roping in these voters unless it moves left on economic and social issues.
There just aren’t that many economically conservative voters outside the GOP. That’s why Democrats in the House and Senate divide on social issues but not often on economic ones.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Matthew,
Who is the party of the middle class and the poor now?
How do you figure that the loss of GOP voters would be quicker than the gain? I imagine it takes 1 strong national candidate to turn the tide completely.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I am middle class and I would still lean Republican if it were not for social issues. Social issue just make me ignore the Democrats. If the Democrats were Conservative (on social issues) and the GOP were liberal, I’d probably hold my nose and Democrat, but if both parties had similar positions on social issues, I’d probably vote GOP as either the lesser of two evils or the better of two goods.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Matthew, I want to let you know what this opinion says to financial conservatives;
Guys,
In order to get the economic policy that you want, you need to keep tricking poor people into voting for you with guns gays and god.
I’d just as soon take my chances trying to convince educated white-collar liberals about the economy.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
eric,
Read the article. Millions of people still think Mike Huckabee is a flaming conservative, despite the fact that he promotes socialism, attacked business and wall street, etc. They think he’s a crazy conservative partly because he’s a social conservative, but mostly because, outside of a particular segment of the GOP, nobody really paid enough attention to Huckabee to realize he was a different kind of Republican on those issues. So all he managed to do was tick off many Republicans, without gaining anything on the left. That’s precisely the point. It takes an awful lot to even get the other side to pay attention to you. And if they’re not paying attention, you just bleed support from your base, without making any gains. As far as the specifics of your questions, I simply don’t think that the majority of the “poor” refuse to vote Republican because of social conservatism. I think it’s precisely the opposite. I think the only thing keeping Middle America from embracing socialism is the cultural disconnect of the Democratic Party. Exhibit A, Barack Obama. Gets pastored by anti-American racist demagogues. Pals around with unrepentant terrorists. Bye, bye middle America.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I was asked the other day whether I actually typed in my article that so-cons are pushed around by other wings of the party. You bet your life I typed it. There are all these groups like Republicans for Choice and It’s My Party Too. Do we have any groups of fiscal liberals trying to make the Republican party fiscally liberal? Do we have a group called Republicans for Really High Taxes or Republicans for Increased Spending or Big Government Republicans?
May 9th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Eric, white collar liberals usually don’t mind high taxes because they have enough money to pay them anyway. They are also social liberals, so the Democrats are a perfect party for them.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
eric,
I don’t think it’s “tricking people”, as I happen to be a social conservative, who cares a good deal about those issues. Even if I wasn’t a social conservative, I wouldn’t view it as “tricking people”, because I would think those issues important, and worth factoring into voting decisions, even if I came down on the other side of them.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Should we divorce the Religous Right from the SoCons? I fear that there are many sane socially conservative individuals who are willing to reside in a big political tent but there are the Religious Righties who want to burn the gays.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Besides which white collar liberals want to save polar bears from evil oil companies. White collar liberals like having a government that butts into people’s lives (as long as it doesn’t involve their sexual lives).
May 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Ray,
I think the Religious Right will probably divorce itself soon enough. I actually lean right on a lot of social issues, but on a few I think they (we?) are out to lunch and cost ourselves credibility with literally millions of voters.
Doug,
These white-collar liberals already accept some compromises. They want strong unions here and economic fairness with foreign countries. They want lower gas prices but they want us to produce less gas. It won’t be a huge reach for these people to accept different compromises.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
” I think the only thing keeping Middle America from embracing socialism is the cultural disconnect of the Democratic Party. ”
Hogwash. That statement is condescending and elitist and sounds like something a geek from the NE with no clue about “middle America” would say.
Every American, be they from the middle or otherwise, knows that the foundation of our great country is freedom. That includes economic freedom. Even liberals who favor more regulation or a larger welfare state necessarily concede that our great economic engine is fueled by free enterprise. I personally know of no one who actually favors “socialism” and I don’t live in Kansas but in the heart of liberalism.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I actually agree with Matthew Miller to this extent. I don’t think that a Republican Party that is far right on economics and foreign policy and far left on social issues is a majority party. Most people are somewhere in the middle on every set of issues. If a party’s only goal was to win the most voters, that would be a fairly simple task: take centrist positions on fiscal, social, and defense issues across the board. The Bill Clinton school of politics, basically. Given the current composition of the GOP, its best path to victory is probably to embrace a forward-thinking center-right brand of politics that addresses the concerns of a 21st Century American populace.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
“They want strong unions here and economic fairness with foreign countries. They want lower gas prices but they want us to produce less gas.”
These are compromises? Anyone who votes on the basis of strengthening unions, in the 21st century, can’t be convinced of conservative ideals. “Economic fairness with foreign countries” is just code for protectionism. And I don’t have the foggiest idea what the last part is on about.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’d be shocked if more than 5% of Democrats were further right on economics than me. I’m not an economic conservative by the way.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Eric,
I agree with you in #15. As I, too, hold many center right positions socially, I fear that a small, but very vocal portion of our party (the Religious Right) makes the GOP very unwelcoming.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Doug - it is well established you are very far from economic conservatism but thanks for reminding us all.
Why do you support liberal economic policies when it should be your church that fills all of these needs? Did Christ not command His Church to care for the poor and widowed among them? Christ’s only teachings on the government is that it does not weild it’s sword in vain. I have a hard time recalling from my 4 years in Seminary training where Christ taught the Church to rely on the government to cure the social ills. Doesn’t this run contrary to salt and light teachings?
May 9th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
18,
They still ultimately will come around to economic freedom. They will see that protecting our fading blue-collar workforce harms the poor in poor countries and is in fact not fair. In the future, socialist economics and legislating religion will be the new American Left.
re: The last part
Libs get giddy when they can splash news about gas company profits on the news and suggest impropriety or gouging, and yet refuse to allow for expanded production.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
“Every American, be they from the middle or otherwise, knows that the foundation of our great country is freedom. That includes economic freedom. Even liberals who favor more regulation or a larger welfare state necessarily concede that our great economic engine is fueled by free enterprise. I personally know of no one who actually favors “socialism” and I don’t live in Kansas but in the heart of liberalism.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used such a strong word, but what would one call the policies of the modern Democratic Party? The majority of the public is gaga for “windfall profits” taxes on the oil industry. They seem to have no problem, at the least, with the idea of capping CEO salaries. They’re in favor of universal health care. They’ve accepted as doctrine that, when the economy is stumbling, government must “manage” it. They’re about 80% of the way to embracing the whole social welfare state of Europe. Sure, they’re rhetorically and instinctively hostile to anything that overtly smacks of socialism. But, smuggle it in the back-door, and they find themselves nodding their heads in agreement. This is why in both 2000 and 2004 George Bush lost every exit poll question on domestic issues, other then the tax issue. Because, the public favors the Democratic party on health care, on education, on spending, on regulation of business, etc, etc, etc.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I think that a winning GOP platform for the 21st Century would look something like this:
Fiscal: Focus on growth. Use government to remove barriers for individuals to take care of themselves. That may mean cutting taxes and regs one day and investing more in education the next.
Cultural: Stand firm on American exceptionalism. Keep an eye on large numbers of immigrants coming from the same culture who may be coming at too fast a pace to assimilate properly. Don’t be tricked into thinking that a culture that practices female genital mutilation is equal to one that gives women the right to vote. Help families using pragmatic means, such as making sure women don’t have their careers ruined simply for choosing to have a child.
Defense: Realize that this is a Hobbesian world and keep America strong through military prowess, which often requires something more complex than simply engaging every other nation militarily. Walk softly, but carry a big stick.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Ray, I’m don’t support liberal economic policies.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I actually think that there’s something else that keeps Americans from overtly embracing socialism, as much of the West has done; our Cold War experience. Americans were far more intimately bound up in the fight against the Soviets then any other Western European nation, other then perhaps Britain. You can’t fight the reds and the commies for decades, and then easily embrace socialism. But, it’s an incredibly alluring philosophy, and even if our politicians and the public won’t overtly embrace it, due to our unique history, we’re beginning to see that the actual ideas that it promotes are finding a way into the political landscape nonetheless.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Didn’t even see this thread, and now I have to run. Back later.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
24,
That probably sounds great to many of us. However, just as exist on the left, there is a large block that has an abortion and maybe a gay marriage qualifier for any candidate. Despite the fact that it almost never comes up, and despite the fact that the president in this case spends virtually zero time on these issues (outside of pandering to them on the trail of course).
May 9th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I think we could get quite a few minority voters with a simple proposal Milton Friedman pushed in the 70’s. Eliminate welfare and all assistance programs and replace them with a negative income tax.
Lower class voters don’t like being serfs to the government. Often they’re penalized by the government for attempts to climb out of poverty even now after welfare reform. Often they don’t have the savings or education to reach higher without help. I’d prefer if that help was in their hands and controlled by them instead of a bureaucrat in DC.
I can remember the hassles my mom faced getting assistance when she made ~15,000 as the only income for a family of 6.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I should add, this is exactly how Rick Santorum lost. People say Santorum was a horrible candidate,
He was: in 2006, during a debate on one of those morning shows with Bob Casey, he said that he thought George W. Bush was an “amazing” president.
Durh!
May 9th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
#17 DaveG: Such a party is inexorable, because America has moved steadily rightward on economics over the last few decades, and steadily leftward on social issues.
The only question is when.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
The GOP SHOULD NOT dump social issues - you lose the south, and any chance of a majority in Congress, or, for that matter, the electoral college. Why? Because if the GOP goes left socially, that is the one thing that could create a viable third party. Even half a dozen Senate seats would held by a new party would kill off the GOP, and there are probably enough votes for a socially conservative, fiscally centrist party to take a state or two from the south.
But I think what Republicans need to do is actually start pushing our social positions, rather than just campaigning on them. We need to be dedicating the off-seasons to explaining why abortion is destroying the country, why marraige must be kept in its traditional form, why government money shouldn’t be used to destroy human embryos in labs, etc.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
act-blog, after you figure out how to do that without the typical voter thinking you are a Neanderthal bigot. Maybe you should give THAT some thought.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
ACT - That’s what Mitt could have done so wonderfully well over a period of years, help to change the hearts and minds of the people on some of these enormously important social issues. And of course provide the economic leadership to get us at least part way out of this mess we’re in, and provide the understanding and intelligence it would take to tackle the world wide issues. We missed a great chance; that’s why I keep hoping and praying McCain will at least bring this man on as VP so he can help us save our nation, and world for that matter, from a continual decline in moral fabric and avoid economic mahem.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Act, we certainly haven’t shown courage in our convictions. I care enough about America to save it from the destruction liberalism is causing.
The socially liberal Republicans are just doing terrorists the favor of weakening our society until it collapses from within. Just like in Europe where few people have babies except Muslims. Metro’s types are slow motion Neville Chamberlains giving America over to Muslims by destroying American morals and society.
I think the socially liberal Republicans don’t care they’re killing America, they just want their money today.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
“Neanderthal bigot.”
Ever occur to you that maybe I don’t give a #$@& what morraly devoid, self-centered liberals think?
——-
So I’m a neanderthal bigot because I recognize that children are essential to the further development and prosperity of the U.S.? And because I realize that balanced, two-parent homes are the only kind that produce strong families? Or maybe its because I don’t think we should throw traditional values to the wind and let the country go to hell in a handbasket?
Anyway, moral decline leads to national decline - not that you seem to care about that.