It's A Big Tent, But...

In another forum, I offered this bold pre-election speculation:

...a victory for George Bush could transform American politics. No, really. Currently, we are a divided nation, with each party locked in trench warfare trying to assemble a package of personalities and proposals that poll past 50 percent. Neither party can afford a dramatic reorientation while the other remains unified, because of the risk that their own coalition will simply lose blocs to the other side.

A key source of party unity is possession of the White House. In the last 50 years, the party controlling the White House has always nominated the sitting President or Vice President for the next election. With a likely successor in sight, and the White House as a prize, one party is generally able to preserve some facade of unity, thereby pressuring the other to do the same.

But is Dick Cheney a plausible successor to Bush in 2008? With his health problems, no. Which means that, for the first time in 50 years, neither party will be operating under the discipline of an heir apparent. (Don't say "Hillary", she frightens me).

Add in the emergence of the 527s as a new funding base, and a dramatic realignment of both parties becomes a possibility. Could Joe Lieberman be nominated by his own party? Might he and John McCain decide to form a new third party? Might they try to drag either the Democrats or the Republicans into some new centrist territory? Let's put George Bush in the White House and find out.

Commentators have noted that with the success of Karl Rove's strategy and the presumed ascendancy of evangelicals within the Republican Party, the nature of the uneasy alliance between libertarians and the Religious Right may change.

Meanwhile, the disconnect between America and the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party has been noted as a possible problem on that side of the aisle.

Time will tell.

Comments

[martin]

I see it as inevitable, I hope.

Ever watch the nether regions of the cable spectrum where the religious programming is? The crowds are amazingly big. I live in the South. Come drive through here and see the new hangar churches being built with 3,000 car parking lots. These are your buds now (really Turner).

But these folks are no longer going to be contented with sops, like when Reagan would only address anti-abortion rallies by speakerphone.

Nope-they'll be demanding action soon-and I can only hope that a schism will come and the rational types will leave the more irrational fringe elements of both parties behind. But maybe California will again show the way and a new model will have Dems and Repubs electing Repubs who don't mind sex and drugs.

Of course, I thought this would be complicated since how you can reconcile pro-big government with pro-small government views? Luckily, the Repubs have dropped any pretense of being pro-small government. So we can drop the charade.

Seriously. If Repubs really believed the rhetoric they've pushing since 1980 I don't see how the Department of Education could not be totally abolished in the next four years. Is that bet available at Tradesports?

Let's hope. I've enjoyed your blog TM, but one thing this election has taught me: fuck politics. I'm done.

See you in four years and let's hope one day everyone of us really does have to answer for his or her sins.

[steve poling]

I'm both an Evangelical, and I call myself a libertarian: power corrupts and all that. The biggest risk of driving a wedge between Evangelical and libertarian constituencies within the Republican Party is abortion.

With the president saying mushy things about "sanctity of life" it sounds like a religious issue. I'm not pro-life because I'm a Baptist. I'm pro-life because I think the fetus is a human being, not a tumor or an animal. If the business of abortion and stem-cell research is debated in religious terms, the Evangelicals deserve to lose and the Republican coalition deserves to splinter. Republicans have to frame a pro-life platform in human-rights terms. I'm not sanguine about this happening.

All those Evangelical voters who showed up last Tuesday are going to want a say in judicial appointments. Judicial activism got Evangelicals excited and the filibuster strategy has cost the Democrats in the Senate a lot more than all that blather about Max Cleland.

(Sex and Drugs? As long as sex doesn't take place in public, why should government get involved? Illegal drugs are expensive drugs and they fund political corruption. Evangelicals grumble about a lot of things in this world, but I never hear much kvetching about illegal drugs.)

[Cecil Turner]

"Nope-they'll be demanding action soon-and I can only hope that a schism will come and the rational types will leave the more irrational fringe elements of both parties behind."

IMHO, it's the embrace of the fringe elements (e.g., Moore) that cost the Dems this election. (That, and trying to form a coalition between liberal hawks and the vehemently anti-war left.) The unpersuasive Invasion of the theo-con meme is an excuse to avoid the unpleasant conclusion that once again, Democrat positions proved less attractive to voters.

"With the president saying mushy things about "sanctity of life" it sounds like a religious issue. I'm not pro-life because I'm a Baptist. I'm pro-life because I think the fetus is a human being, not a tumor or an animal. If the business of abortion and stem-cell research is debated in religious terms, the Evangelicals deserve to lose and the Republican coalition deserves to splinter. Republicans have to frame a pro-life platform in human-rights terms. I'm not sanguine about this happening."

I don't see how you can frame any moral issue without recognizing it's religious at its root. Whether you believe in Jehovah or Allah, espouse secular humanism, or a Vulcan "greatest good for the greatest number," the view of what "good" is is an article of faith. And the views of bible-thumping evangelicals are just as valid as (and no more so than) those who think a prospective Alzheimer's cure is worth a trillion aborted fetuses. And as with most issues, the pendulum will swing back and forth a bit until we find some workable middle ground.

[RandMan]

My thoughts are similar to Steve Poling's above. These moral value issues are going to wax and wane from election cycle to election cycle. That part of the Republican base may not always be there, plus many of those in the mushy middle may feel stongly about one of these issues, but not so on others. Think gay marriage vs. medical marijuana.

I disagree with the Left when they say the Religious Right wants to institute a theocracy in the USA. However, there is a trend among the religious conservatives to support/propose laws and policies that require citizens to live the "moral life". In other words, they don't want laws to force you to believe in G*d (a theocracy), but gosh darnit, you will live like a believer. Depending on the issue, this attitude can be a real non-starter for many voters.

The Religious Right needs to come to grips with this as well, and compromise accordingly. Otherwise, they will drive the middle away from the Republicans and/or the polls, thereby giving power to those that have zero respect for their values. I think many on the Right understand this, but will they be able to persuade their co-factionists? Time will tell.

In the mean time, Republicans need to govern focusing on issues such as tax reform, tort reform, healthcare reform, etc., expanding their support, while at the same time working out and selling political compromises on these values issues. These are areas that cut across these moral divides.

What might those compromises be on the values issues. As a Republitarian, here are my proposals:

1) Abortion - parental notification for minors, no partial birth abortion, restrictions on 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions, no restrictions (except perhaps waiting periods) on first trimester abortions.
2) Gays - civil unions
3) Drugs - legalize marijuana, possibly de-crim the rest
4) Sex - I'm for it... j/k.... porno for adults - yes; prostitution - legal; street walking - no; child porn - obviously no

My religious friends need to realize that government is not here to stop folks from sinning. They need to be true to their (our) faith, and realize that our sins will be judged by our creator, whether they are punished in this earthly life or not. My non-religious friends need to understand that it is premissable to set minimums of public behavior, even those based on religious beliefs, as we all have to pass through the public sphere as we go about living our lives.