Identity Crisis

As the Republican Party moves to engineer itself for a post-Bush era, many Americans are reconsidering the definition of conservatism. The sad death of my former colleague Jesse Helms and today's New York Times editorials on Nelson Rockefeller and Dwight Eisenhower offer an opportunity to consider the current state of the GOP. How did the party of Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator, become a party so strong in the South? Much of the transformation began in 1964.

As a lifelong Republican now disaffiliated and supporting Barack Obama for president, I still recall that year's GOP convention in San Francisco's Cow Palace. At age 11, I was there with my father, a Rockefeller delegate, when the Republican Party overwhelming nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater. In retrospect, it's hard to believe that our party selected a candidate who had voted against the Civil Rights Act in the Senate. In the end, the Arizonan won only six states besides his own: Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina! Goldwater lost the election, but his candidacy sowed the seeds of the new Republican Party of which Jesse Helms would someday be a part.

Helms' legacy is one of strong opposition to women's reproductive freedom, gay rights, foreign aid for diplomacy, public funding for the arts. The priorities Helms pioneered run strong in today's GOP. But I believe the policies Rockefeller and Eisenhower championed represent a truer conservatism.

The new Republican Party, which controlled the executive and legislative branches for much of my time in the Senate, has squandered a surplus, neglected our planet, desecrated our First and Fourth Amendment freedoms, mired us in a costly quagmire in the greater Middle East and augmented the tragic disparity of wealth in America. Who would call these policies conservative?

Eisenhower-Rockefeller conservatism supported a robust middle class and sound environmental stewardship. It also championed personal freedoms and valued investing in educational opportunity for all. But these policies have all but disappeared from Republican politics. Can anyone imagine a modern Republican president warning America of a dangerous "military-industrial complex"?

Since the 1964 election, the definition of conservatism has grown murky and the Republican Party has changed dramatically.

Comments

[xoogman]

I was sad to see you lose your senate seat in 2006 - though it was for a good cause - democratic majority in the senate . You were an excellent senator - and represent the best of politics .

Eisenhower was a great president . I believe the current downfall was caused by the "Saint" Ronald Reagan and the adoption of super-military spending while raising the debt via supply-side economics .

A recent book has come out , no doubt authored by some neo-con, that rates Reagan the third greatest president is U.S. history . The use of propoganda and marketing techniques, telling the lie over and over until the unwashed masses can recite poems to the dear leader, have been adopted from the far east, as it would seem torture techniques and rationales to justify torture as well .

Please keep up the cause Lincoln . Your support of Obama is MOST WELCOME . I truly hope someday the Republican party can return to sane principles of caution in foreign affairs, and fiscal discipline in economic affairs . A party that stands for resisting over-taxation and over-regulation but understands that good regulation and sufficient taxation are essential .

Hopefully this year will be a Democratic landslide of landslides -- and Republicans will rethink and moderate and liberal republicans will have a re-ascendancy - and perhaps your star too will be on the rise .

As far as I am concerned you are Presedential material !!

Thanks again for

[SEQUOIABISON]

Chaffee represents the old school of politics like his father, when all republicans did not march in lock step with their extremely conservative fanatical leaders, hard to imagine today but there were some republicans in the olde days that were not greedy avaricious warmongers.

[liberalgirl31]

Mr. Chafee is right. The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower. It is now the party of toxic kooks like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Rush Limbaugh who divide us and coarsen our political dialogue. It has been taken over by neocon nuts who are a threat to our democracy.

Thanks, Mr. Chafee, for voting against the Iraq debacle.

[ScottCandage]

I don't believe that the degradation of the Republican Party began with Barry Goldwater. I think that Goldwater's failure caused the Republican Party to choose new tactics based on racial division, as exemplified by Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" in 1968. In 1964, Goldwater tried to appeal to the brains of Republicans and failed. In 1968, Nixon appealed to the prejudices of Americans and succeeded. The Republican Party, in national races, on the whole, have learned the lesson of 1968 and have used it effectively ever since.

[walk0nwalls]

...and yet the democrats still insist that they need to appropriate a middle ground between sane and insane to lead the country.

[scottarino]

Hey, let's never speak of Helms again. beginning now.

[ljmck]

Wow, Chafee, you ignored the essence of Jesse Helms

He was a bigot and a racist.

He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and never modified his position.

He opposed honoring Dr. Martin Luther King with a holiday.

He supported apartheid in South Africa.

He opposed Affirmative Action.

He never shrank from making a racist statement.

My only thought on hearing of his death was that the sooner his kind die off, the better.

It's disgusting that you and your Republican buddies want to "whitewash" this.

Shame on you.

[walk0nwalls]

did. you even. read. the post?

[poorwriter]

I think Chaffee's post is good, but actually misses the point. I think the Republican Party died a long time ago. The "neocons," as they like to call themselves, merely hijacked the brand.

They're no more Republican than I am -- a registered independent voter. The Republican Party was very vulnerable after the Watergate scandal in the early '70s. You'll see that's when the right-wing reactionaries really came out of the woodwork, aided and abetted by the souless, win-at-all-costs activities of Lee Atwater and his all-too-willing acolyte Karl Rove. They were desperate to revive the brand.

As Baden's post noted: Be careful what you wish for.

[silvertongue]

One part of Helms' legacy Mr. Chafee left out was racism. I know; I'm from NC.

[max]

why are you a republican? you seem bright.

[Paxhope]

Max,

Note that he says he's "disaffiliated." From Encarta: "cease to be affiliated: to withdraw from affiliation or association with a larger group or organization"

"Seems bright?" IS bright.

Note, too, the title of his book: "Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President"

Pax

[OverIt]

I have a quarrel with only one word in this entire post: sad --- as used in the 2nd sentence.

[HumeSkeptic]

Shhhhhh!

[springsm]

That was my thought too. He was old and not in good health. He lived his life and he stuck to his very biased ideals. Sad? Probably to his family and closest friends...but to many...I don't think so. Death at the end of a long life is fairly natural, don't you think?

[Dave01]

Yep, and it only goes to prove that "only the good die young".

[Mojane]

Conservative or Reactionary? Love or Lust? Need or want? The distinctions are blurred so often that they eventually become one in the same. But they're not. Or shouldn't be. Lincoln Chafee is one of a dying breed -- the true Conservative -- one who conserves the very best -- a conservationist. I hope more true conservatives want to run for office, not the Young Republican Nationalists or the Goldwater kids. We need the old time conservatives back for balance. And we also need more true progressives in office. Mediocrity seems to run to the middle majority in everything.

[mccabe49]

Bush is that you?

[walk0nwalls]

we no longer have political parties running this country. We have flavors of "give business more power?" or "give business a whole bunch more power?"

[BADEN]

Yes.

My dad was a "Good Goldwater Republican" and I thought that was the epitome of fascist wishful thinking at the time.

That was a scary time. Right after McCarthy and on down the slope of political assassinations geared to eliminate any kind of middle road in the ideology of the political parties.

This is a scary time also. We are seeing the "fruits" of that fruitcake labor. Literally.

"Watch what you wish for, you just might get it".

"You broke it, you own it".

and this one for you, sir (and I believe you've seen that "light")...

"You enable it, you own it."

[jubo]

(Argh and many consonants... forgot to add 'today' in the previous post)

[BillZBubb]

"Helms' legacy is one of strong opposition to women's reproductive freedom, gay rights, foreign aid for diplomacy, public funding for the arts. The priorities Helms pioneered run strong in today's GOP."

I appreciate that you are trying to be polite, but this list isn't complete without including first an foremost Helm's (and most southern Repubs) sub rosa racism.

[marignymitch]

Not very sub.