The factional infighting in the Republican Party certainly shows no signs of abating. That's the only clear message the party's electorate sent last night, on what was supposed to be the biggest primary night of the year. This fight began a few years back, when the ultra-purists in the party (the radical wing) began calling their faction the "Tea Party," and then began making lots of noise out in the street. After the 2010 elections, Tea Partiers gained an actual foothold in the House of Representatives and have flummoxed John Boehner ever since. This tug-of-war for party control continued apace last night, and such internecine struggles will continue into the foreseeable future. Neither the radicals nor the establishmentarians in the Republican Party have truly gained full control of the party itself. The voters are divided, and the divisions are on full display in Washington, as well.
Rather than micro-examine Super Tuesday's results or predict what will happen in any of the upcoming primary contests this month (you're probably already maxed out on such analysis by now, right?), instead I'd like to take a longer view and contemplate where the Republican Party will be headed after the 2012 election. There are three major scenarios as to how this could play out, if you'll join with me in what is admittedly some way-way-too-early speculation.
Republicans Win Back the White House
In the first of these scenarios, either Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum wins the Republican nomination and then goes on to beat Barack Obama in November. Assumedly, the Republicans would keep their majority in the House and might even take the Senate -- guaranteeing them the driver's seat on Capitol Hill as well as in the Oval Office for at least the next two years.
In this scenario, no matter who wins the presidency (Santorum or Romney), the divisions within the Republican Party would burst out into the open, in a big way. There would be epic battles between the Tea Partiers and the establishmentarians in Congress -- much like the "progressives-vs.-Blue-Dogs" squabbles Democrats had to deal with during Obama's first two years in office.
Either Santorum or Romney would be leading one faction from the White House, which might tip the scales in that faction's favor (even if that faction didn't have overwhelming numbers within the Republican caucus in Congress). Romney would likely preside over a fairly mainstream Republican Party, which would concentrate more on economic issues than social hot buttons. Santorum would likely do the opposite. How successful either would be is an open question, depending on how the factional chips fell within Congress.
Either way, the factionalism battle within the party would be brutal, hard-fought, and front-and-center in the public's eye. The struggle for ultimate party control would likely go on for years.
Santorum Nominated, Loses to Obama
The "loses-to-Obama" scenarios are a lot more interesting to examine (perhaps I'm biased, because that's a fairly subjective thing to say). If the Republican nominee loses to Barack Obama, the party is going to have to do some serious self-examination, and the big question will be, "What lesson was learned in 2012?"
The answer will depend on who the nominee actually turns out to be. There are really only two viable contenders (at this point): Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. Say Mitt stumbles badly out on the campaign trail -- says something so monumentally out of touch that it crosses the line of being downright offensive to Republican base voters. Trashing Ronald Reagan in public, say. Santorum would swoop in and start winning every state, until he grabbed enough delegates to secure the nomination.
The purists in the party would rejoice. Finally -- finally! -- they would have nominated a true-blue (true-red?), staunch social conservative who is not afraid (and actually enjoys) fighting the culture wars. Instead of picking a moderate like John McCain (remember, he was the "moderate" in his race) who could not adequately (or "believably") defend the conservative cause, finally the hard right and Christian right would have one of their own as the standard-bearer of the Republican Party.
Of course, in this scenario, Santorum would be absolutely crushed in the general election. The landslide would be so enormous that it would be impossible to state the magnitude of the Republican loss without a mandatory comparison to Barry Goldwater. Turns out all those moderate suburbanites and independent voters out there are really not into moving American society a half-century or more backwards in time.
The Republican Party would, at this point, either split into two splinter parties (Tea Party Republicans and Grand Old Republicans, one assumes) or go through a period of backlash. This backlash would be the establishmentarians screaming "We told you so!" at the tops of their lungs to the Tea Party faction. "You can't get anything done in Washington unless you get elected, and the only way to get elected is to present a moderate face to the voters," would be the longer version.
The Republican Party would learn the lesson that purists aren't electable on a national scale, and it would likely emerge as a much more cautious entity as a result. The Tea Party would shrink into obscurity, until the next paroxysm of hard-right indulgence, years down the road.
Romney Nominated, Loses to Obama
This is the likelier scenario, at least looking at the current state of the delegate count. Mitt Romney limps across the finish line in a few months' time and secures the Republican Party nomination. Republicans will fall in line behind him once this happens, motivated by their seething hatred for the current occupant of the Oval Office. There will be no "PUMAs" at the Republican Party convention, except for a lonely crowd of Ron Paul followers, protesting vainly.
Romney then goes on to lose to Barack Obama in November (all three of these scenarios leave out the possibility that a third party makes a meaningful run, I should point out, which would complicate matters beyond such simple analysis as this column). Whatever the reason for Mitt's loss (perhaps unemployment drops to 6.9 percent, right before the election), the Republican Party again will take stock of itself, after two presidential disappointments in a row.
But the lesson they learn may be exactly the wrong one. Romney, after all, is the moderate in the race (no, really!). The purists in the party are going to scream, "This is what happens when you don't back a true conservative!" Two "moderate" candidates losing two elections in a row -- elections that Republicans were convinced were theirs for the taking -- is going to further enrage an already angry base. After all, the Tea Partiers didn't rise until after McCain lost, and the party took a very sharp turn to the right. If history repeats itself, this time the Tea Party could demand the reins of power in the Republican Party, and the establishment Republicans would be so demoralized that they might just go along with such a radical idea.
How effective this gambit would be would depend heavily on the makeup of Congress after the election. If Republicans lose the House, their voice will be a lot quieter, for instance. But the real consequence of such a purist turn wouldn't be evident until the next presidential election.
Remember, Republicans almost always nominate the guy who is "next in line" from the previous contest. If Romney wins the nomination this time around (but not the White House), in 2016 the next Republican in line is going to be none other than Rick Santorum. Which would indeed be an interesting turn of events.
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 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Your funny response got taken down.
I Reiterate: The problem with your nice analysis is that the Republican party is not ideological. For nearly a century it has led a counter-revolution against the 20th century, pushing the economic interests of reactionary billionaires. It is a pragmatic party, draped in opportunistic dogma. After the Nixon loss to Cook County cadavers it went "purist" and got clobbered by a master politician. The upheavals of the late 60's gave Nixon the White House but he had craftily swung to the left of the current party, making Romney look like a Tea Bagger.
Nixon's flaws cost him the presidency, but Governor Reagan was ready. Carter's inability to manage the turbulent 70's opened the door to supply side economics, rewarding their paymasters with tax cuts (financed with boosted payroll taxes). The denouement is 30 years of wealth transfer to the one percenters while the base became bizarre factions of crypto-racists, gun-toters, Bible-thumpers, pro-lifers, tenthers, birthers and libertarian fellow travelers.
In short, it is a tool of the super-rich. Whatever ideology matters little. The apparatchiki will outlast bizarre candidates and stay on task. What Romney epitomizes is that they have the money and a single focus, grabbing more of it. High voter turnouts of affluent voters reinforce the fact that they are the party of the affluent. In the meanwhile they will continue quashing Democratic infra-structure and push voter suppression. Animal Farm meet 1984.
1) Do you think Establishment GOP has already picked a favorite and is working to get him elected?
2) Do you think Establishment GOP will take inappropriate actions to get him elected?
3) Have you read or seen any videos documenting some of the strange happenings by GOP officials at the voting sites?
4)Is it possible that 10-15% of Disaffected Republicans and Democrats along with a large majority of Independents will create a "Legitimate 3rd party"?
One would think that even those who advocate for low taxes and deregulation would want to see something more for themselves and their families, a plan, goals that would move us out of this recession..........but perhaps that is the very reason why only a minority of Americans are now republicans........people want more than a vision of minimum wage jobs and no future for their children, which is all republicans can offer.
Some will say "never say never", but a republican POTUS would do no more than hang drag chains on our future........democrats must do a better job of getting this message across.
OK, just for fun, lets flip Scenario One and look at it from the Democratic perspective. I'm assuming Romney is the nominee.
What lessons would Dems carry away, besides the obvious one of Raise More Money, stat! Frankly, the Dems can't do all that much about the money asymmetry.
So, taking a cue from the comments of Kache, would the surviving Democrats see GOP obstructionism as the proven parliamentary wave of the future? There is a strong human tendency for losers to ape winners. Sometimes they do it badly, but sometimes they improve the formula. Would Dems become the party of "people principled" NO, NO and Double NO? Rouse the base with populist nostrums AND do what they can to keep the economy teetering, so the Republicans can't create the next economic bubble, and go down in a wave of Democratic engineered buyer's remorse in 2016.
Sure, obstructionism isn't as easy when you don't control WH, senate or house of reps, but that didn't stop the Republicans in 2008, and congressional races tend to be very unkind to new presidents.
Bottom line, literally, US politics could enter a prolonged spiral to the bottom, failure by one party breeding failure of the other.
I take back my fun comment. God help the 99%, God help the USA.
I've noticed that the power pendulum seems to be swinging faster and faster, myself. 2006, big Dem sweep. 2008, big Dem sweep. 2010, big GOP sweep. 2012 ?
If it's a big Dem sweep, and then right back again in 2014, we could be in a very strange place where it will become almost impossible to get much of anything done. Or maybe we're already there, it's hard to tell these days...
-CW
A Santorum victory (presumably coupled with an even bigger Republican victoroy in Congress) would be the end of the United States as we know it. Rising from the rubble would be a theocratic authoritarian state. Think Old Confederacy run by the Pope.
Someone with 100 million dollars in a IRA, not to mention all his other money, he should be donating to worthy charities. If he is keeping it all for himself we sure don't need him to be our next president. If he was to be elected it would be nice if he declined his salary as President to help get this country out of the red.
I don't see how you go back to being a moderate party after embracing an extreme form of religious/political ideology. The GOP has banked on this for years now and trying to unravel religion from the politics is messy. Rick Santorum is the logical conclusion of that pairing so even if the moderates were to take back the GOP I think the damage may already be done. Howard Fineman called it. The GOP is now America's First Theocrat party.
Nixon's flaws cost him the presidency, but Governor Reagan was ready. Carter's inability to manage the turbulent end of the 70's opened the door to the supply side agenda, rewarding their paymasters with tax cuts (financed with boosted payroll taxes). The denouement is 30 years of wealth transfer to the one percenters while the base fragmented into bizarre factions of crypto-racists, gun-toters, Bible-thumpers, pro-lifers, tenthers, birthers and libertarian fellow travelers.
In short, the party is a tool of the super-rich. Whatever ideology du jour matters little. The top level apparatchiki will survive the bizarre candidates and stay on task. What Romney epitomizes is that they have the money and a single focus, grabbing more of it. High voter turnouts of affluent voters reinforce the fact that they are the party of the affluent. In the meanwhile they will continue quashing Democratic infra-structure and push voter suppression. Animal Farm meet 1984.
I do have one disagreement:
"The Republican Party would learn the lesson that purists aren't electable on a national scale, and it would likely emerge as a much more cautious entity as a result. The Tea Party would shrink into obscurity, until the next paroxysm of hard-right indulgence, years down the road."
The Tea Party as a 'national brand' would diminish, but would also refocus at the local and state level - driving changes to the House with more and more angry rhetoric. They won't push again (too soon) for a Presidential candidate with TP bona fides, but instead look for an 'acceptable' one. Look at where Santorum has/is winning - the Red States. Flyover country will get deeper and deeper Red - and the swing states will become some serious culture-war battleground. Based on demographics, the next decade is going to be touch and go (after that the Dem swing ought to shift the swing states towards blue).
And if they explode, they can hurt the rest of us, along with them.