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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Shooting an Elephant - Why Republicans are screwed
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Party
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Apr 27, 2006 08:03pm |
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| Category | Commentary |
| News Date | Friday, April 28, 2006 02:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It isn't easy being a Republican these days, either. Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low, gas prices are near an all-time high, and Iraq continues to burn. Voters have an even lower opinion of the GOP-controlled Congress. Ideological disputes within the party make it hard for believers to pick sides, and incompetence at the top makes it difficult to follow through on the agenda items Republicans do agree on, like reducing the deficit. Bad news from Iraq and any number of scandals tied to the GOP erupt regularly. A month ago, the Republican political class was merely worried. Now its members are talking about "avoiding catastrophic losses." Conversations about the state of the party used to have two parts: all the bad news followed by signs of hope. I'm just hearing a one-act play now.
Diehard conservatives are upset over record spending levels and timidity by their leaders, who they think should have responded to high gas prices with renewed calls for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and streamlined regulation. More moderate and realist-minded Republicans have been turned off by Bush's aggressive, interventionist foreign policy. Military families may still support the war but are fed up enough with lengthy deployments—particularly of the National Guard and reserves—that it's possible they won't turn out. Party inroads with Hispanic voters may have been squandered by vocal members of the GOP who want to seal the border and lock up illegal immigrants. All this has some arguing that the Republicans can't whittle their coalition down much more. "We're in a white cul-de-sac," says John Weaver, strategist for John McCain.
If Republicans manage to hold on to their majorities, it will be because they have perfected the ability to use gerrymandering, pork-barreling, and other toll-keeping powers to maintain themselves in office, much like the Democrats they turned out of office in 1994. Retaining control by a narrow margin will do nothing to solve the struggle at the heart of the party between moderates and social conservatives, neoconservatives, and realists, and between fiscal conservatives and big spenders or fanatical tax cutters. In some sense, if the GOP wins ugly and keeps control, they'll be worse off, retaining undivided responsibility, without much actual ability to do anything, heading into the 2008 election. |
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