The Perils of Punditry

Thinking about recent posts on the Republican party's problems prompted this mildly disconcerting thought:

So, isn't it just a little too convenient that the Republican party might be able to solve some of its problems if only it were inclined to view matters in much the same way you do? That is if it were, shall we say, more "relaxed" about gay marriage and more open to some kind of comprehensive immigration settlement? That's an audacious claim, ain't it? The problem with the party is that it panders to all these other people rather than to people like you. What gives you - a foreigner to boot - the right to be quite so presumptious?

It's a fair question, guv. No doubt about that. And one that I'd suggest all commentators (on any political subject) ought to ask themselves from time to time. Clearly, there's no guarantee that a more centrist, sensitive, nuanced conservatism would prevail even though I do think the GOP needs to rethink its approach as well as some of its policies.

However, you can also make a case for arguing that the GOP has not, despite being in the ascendancy, been quite as successful as is often imagined. True the party has held the White House for 20 of the past 28 years, but it's also the case that since 1988 the Republican nominee has only once (and even then narrowly) prevailed in the popular vote. 

Perhaps, you might say, that's cherry-picking a stat and you might well be correct. Nonetheless, the only GOP victory (in the popular vote) in the last 20 years came in a) a quasi-khaki election and against b) a hapless doofus of a Democratic candidate. Beating John Kerry doesn't prove much. The United States may well be a centre-right nation in relation to other countries, but recently it hasn't been voting as a centre-right nation in American terms. And of course for most of the past half century, the Democrats have also controlled the House of Representatives. Sure, Bush scored a draw with Gore in 2000, but he did so by outperforming expectations and, absent Lewinsky and Gore's own foolishness*, would surely have been defeated.

Just as the purest liberalism is a minority taste, so too is whiter than white conservatism. And at the moment the longer-term demographic trends offer scant encouragement to a party that is increasingly perceived, not altogether inaccurately, as being white, male, elderly and religious. Of course, you need to look after your base but you also need to realise that the base is not enough. Unless it can improve its performance amongst "minority" voters then the GOP will need to do better and better amongst white voters even as those voters constitute an ever shrinking percentage of the electorate. In the long run that seems an unsustainable position. Yes, there may be some victories along the way but, as matters stand (they could change!), they're unlikely to be much more than exceptions to a general trend...

Obviously the GOP doesn't need to build a policy platform just to please me (that might also be electoral suicide!) but, again as matters stand, it's running against the grain not with it. That's a tough and dangerous spot for any political party.

*Another peril of punditry: assuming that the vanquished party was, and was always going to be, useless. Still, the list of defeated Democrats in recent years (Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry) is hardly impressive. In fact, the defeated Republicans (Bush Sr, Dole, McCain) is, I'd hazard, more impressive than the list of losing Democrats. This might suggest that Democrats can't win when they choose a poor candidate but that even a decent, more or less aceeptable Republican can't be guaranteed victory. Or it might suggest something else. Or nothing!

Comments

[ndm]

In writing

Still, the list of defeated Democrats in recent years (Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry) is hardly impressive. In fact, the defeated Republicans (Bush Sr, Dole, McCain) is, I'd hazard, more impressive than the list of losing Democrats.

Alex Massie forgets Jonathan Rauch's seemingly iron-fisted rule for selecting the US President.

With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

George W. Bush took six years. Bill Clinton, 14. George H.W. Bush, 14 (to the vice presidency). Ronald Reagan, 14. Jimmy Carter, six. Richard Nixon, six (to vice president). John Kennedy, 14. Dwight Eisenhower, zero. Harry Truman, 10 (to vice president). Franklin Roosevelt, four. Herbert Hoover, zero. Calvin Coolidge, four. Warren Harding, six. Woodrow Wilson, two. William Howard Taft, zero. Theodore Roosevelt, two (to vice president). The one exception: Lyndon Johnson's 23 years from his first House victory to the vice presidency.

[Mark Thompson]

I think what the conservative movement ultimately needs to do is simply recognize that it consists of a number of different variations of conservatism and that there is no one master conservatism. If the GOP is to re-emerge as a "conservative" party, it will need to do so in a way that accommodates all the various forms of conservatism and libertarianism. If they can do so, they will be able to present themselves in a more coherent fashion that is based on issues that the various forms of conservatism truly share in common. Unfortunately, I don't know what those issues really are right now - the only one that immediately comes to mind is earmark reform, but that is hardly an issue that is going stir up the passions of the electorate. It may be that the GOP coalition will have to shrink some more and permanently cast aside one or more of its constituent philosophies in order to again build around something that those philosophies share in common.
I guess the way to think of it is that the GOP needs to find a way to brand itself as a party that includes religious conservatives rather than as the party OF religious conservatives; and a party that includes libertarians rather than as the party OF libertarianism.....and so forth.

[JimB]

Here's a plausible (and thoroughly unpleasant) scenario for a Republican revival that doesn't take your advice: Sarah Palin figures out how to appeal to Hispanics (OK, it probably wouldn't be her, but you get the idea.) The resulting party is isolationist and aggressively populist: anti-bank, anti-intellectual, anti-wall street, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-latte-sipping-bicoastal-snob. With demographics on its side, this party could whip the snot out of the Democrats for years to come.

[ben]

Again, one wonders what the *goal* is. Is there something about the name "Republican" or any set of ideas calling themselves "conservative" that are worthy of merit just because those names and labels are involved?

There are close to zero policies of the current Republican party platform and the current soi-disant conservative movement which are appealing. This is a pro-deficit, pro-war, anti-choice, anti-freedom, theocratic, pro-stupidity movement that loudly and aggressively trumpets all of these qualities. Why would anyone who favors freedom, fiscal rectitude, and reason want the Republican party to succeed? Why would anyone want to call himself a conservative when conservatism has come to mean forced Jesus lessons, wiretapping, torture, runaway government spending, and invading everyone?