SP back in the house?
It can’t be easy being a Republican these days.
Not only did you soundly lose the last presidential election, but you control neither the house nor the senate. Odd feeling for a party that’s previously controlled the legislature for nearly 12 years.
Now, with the recent passing of health care reform, many of the pillars of the right (like low taxes and many of the ubiquitous “family” oriented values) are increasingly coming under siege.
Often the feeling that your values and core principles are under attack can energize people. That’s where campaigns are born and what nurtures them into movements. And no movement is totally complete without a leader.
These days, American politics increasingly seem like a pitched battle between partisans of both sides. The Democrats have Obama at their helm.
But for Republicans, there is no such icon to rally around. One of the biggest problems is the difficulty of shoring up the party’s support on the one hand, and the general electorate’s support on the other. When the base of the party is composed of voters who hold similar values, that’s not a problem. But when your base is unaligned with the general sentiment of the times, you end up with someone like Sarah Palin.
Not so big an elephant anymore.
Palin doesn’t strike most observers as presidential smart (certainly not in the league of people like Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, or even George Bush Sr). She isn’t particularly charming either. But she does possess something many other more qualified candidates do not: name recognition and strong conservative values, which have both given her a growing power within the party’s grassroots.
Is she electable in a battle against the bright and shining hope? Not likely.
So who is? Let’s be honest – plenty of people. The problem is, many of the best candidates are continually being dragged to the right, forced to say radically conservative things and kowtow to the religious power-brokers of the party. This in spite of the fact that most Americans want more help from the government, not less, particularly in tough economic times like these. Afterall, when you lose your job (or are worried about losing your job) do you really want a government that says, “you’re on your own”?
And yet, many hardcore Republican activists refuse to recognize this vulnerability and ignore the fact that the farther right they drift, the farther they move from the average voters’ sentiment. As Globe and Mail writer Konrad Yakabuski writes:
No record of accomplishment is enough to compensate for a perceived failure to adhere to the most rigid conservative values. Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, might be considered a catch for any party. But Republican stalwarts have organized a campaign to thwart her bid to become the party’s Senate candidate in California in 2010.
Popular Florida Governor Charlie Crist has similarly become suspect in the eyes of the Republican base. It was bad enough that he initially supported Mr. Obama’s $787-billion (U.S.) stimulus package and has backed legislation to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. His worst faux pas, however, was hugging the Democratic President.
The photo of that embrace has become Exhibit A in the campaign to paint Mr. Crist as an ideological heretic and prevent him from winning the primary to become the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in next year’s midterm vote.
In the end, the inevitable forces of party politics are doing the Republicans a disservice. Disqualifying some of the best candidates before they even have a chance to run. Unless this is fixed soon, they’ll end up with Sarah Palin (or some right wing carbon copy come 2012. That’s not a winning proposition.
