Ever since last November's election ended with sweeping victories for Republicans nationwide, pundits and commentators have been transformed into political Chicken Littles. "The GOP is falling! The GOP is falling!" they chirp to anyone who will listen. This hue and cry about the inevitable crackup of the Republican Party and conservatism is hard to ignore. It's even harder to believe.
These moans and groans are nothing new. It seems that every few years, pundits trot out some incident that will be "the death of the Republican party.” The soothsayers had been predicting implosion throughout the previous decades: Watergate, Reaganomics, fighting HillaryCare, the Gingrich-led government shutdown all would lead to the marginalization of Republicans.
More recently, during the 2000 Republican primaries, pundits said that the contest between George W. Bush and John McCain would rip the party apart. Again, when Jim Jeffords left the party to become an independent (who consistently votes along the Democratic party line), this was supposedly a sign that conservatism was tearing itself apart internally. The American Conservative wrote that there was an impending collision between social conservatives and right-libertarians that would fracture the party. While today they might be seen as jumping on their bandwagon of predictions, consider that these words were written at the beginning of 2003. That same year, liberal columnist E.J. Dionne, among others, stated that the Iraq war would bring about a crackup amongst the conservative coalition and lead to further breaks within the party.
All of these commentators -- whether gleefully awaiting the downfall of their political opponents or issuing breathless warnings to their colleagues to mend their ways or lose power -- have one thing in common. They've all been wrong. And today, as the "conservative crackup" meme travels from blog to blog faster than avian flu through Hong Kong chickens, they are still wrong.
What they fail to take into account is that these disagreements are a natural outgrowth of what the Republican Party has become. Today, the right is a big tent open to many different types of politicians, while the left is becoming increasingly intolerant of anyone who dares to question its party line.
Remember the party conventions last year? Look at the keynote speakers at the Republican convention: Arnold Schwarzenegger (pro-choice, pro-gun control), Zell Miller (a Democrat) and Rudy Guiliani (noted moderate Republican). Where are the moderates in the Republican Party? Primed to run for president in 2008. This stands in direct opposition to the Democrats, who have given power to their members who swing furthest left (see: Howard Dean) and marginalized their moderate element (see: Joe Lieberman).
When you invite so many disparate viewpoints into a national party, there are guaranteed to be disagreements over policy or, at the very least, how to implement policy. Yet, instead of being the sign of doom and gloom that many on the left are wishing it was, these disagreements are merely healthy internal debate. They are signs that Republicans have the ear of an increasingly vast swath of diverse Americans. This is a strength, not a weakness.
If Democrats, falling prey to the siren call of wishful thinking, are relying on this supposedly forthcoming breakup to bring their party back to power, Republicans should be more than happy to let them rest on that strategy. They, like Chicken Little before them, are going to look awfully silly when the crackup doesn't happen and they are left with the egg of another string of lost elections on their faces.
Write to Tim at
redbaron.strikesagain@gmail.com
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