October 05, 2005

"Lyndon Baines" Bush Upsets Conservatives and Threatens Party Prospects

I have potential bad news. Conservatives and Republicans are beginning to act like liberals and Democrats. No, they're not smoking dope and fixing elections. Rather, philosophical differences could divide the Republican Party, like differences of the left divided the Democrats and cost them political influence.

Many conservative Republicans who donated their time and money to elect President Bush are not pleased at his departures from typical conservative goals. Conservatives in general like smaller government and less government spending. Conservatives tend to be pro-life and want to know that Supreme Court nominees have expressed clear support for that issue. Yet, President Bush continues to disappoint them. In addition, many compare Bush to LBJ, who turned up the treasury printing press for "guns and butter"--in his case, the Viet Nam war and the Great Society. If there is any valid comparison of the war in Iraq with Viet Nam, it may be on this point of thinking we can have it all. But, I don't want a return of inflation and increasing government debt that can result. Essentially, what we've seen is that President Bush ran on a conservative platform but only pays it lip service, and this has been causing cracks in his party since he was re-elected.

This, of course, will likely have the result of dampening enthusiasm of conservatives, who would give up on their efforts to re-elect Republicans and just go back to working, raising kids, and other things for which there are greater rewards and less frustration. The party would be divided and become the minority party again. That's a real and serious danger.

For several days I was thinking about an article in The Economist, which first addresses the Delay indictments, but goes on to explain the tensions and realignments of conservatives, which is the point of this entry. After the latest Supreme Court nomination, the divisions reported by this article become more real.

This is something that conservatives and the Republicans really need to address to avoid a similar fate of the Democrats, where those in the mainstream were replaced by the Move-On radicals. Here are some excerpts from that article, but you need to read the entire story for more explanation of each point.

Today the conservative movement is in turmoil. Different types of conservatives are at each other’s throats. Everybody is hurling opprobrium at the president. David Brooks, a conservative columnist on the New York Times, recently declared that he sometimes wonders whether Mr Bush is a Manchurian candidate—sent to discredit conservatism.

The loudest howls are coming from small-government conservatives who are furious with Mr Bush’s loose spending. But business conservatives are furious about his love-affair with the religious right and traditional conservatives are furious about his commitment of blood and treasure to the Iraq war.

These rows are particularly dangerous because they reflect long-standing tensions within the conservative movement:
• Small-government conservatives v big-government conservatives.
• Conservatives of faith v conservatives of doubt.
• Insurgent conservatives v establishment conservatives.
• Business conservatives v religious conservatives.
• Neo-conservatives v traditional conservatives.

Predictions of the demise of American conservatism are almost as old as the movement. It survived both Watergate and Bill Clinton. Emmett Tyrell, the editor of the American Spectator, published “The Conservative Crack-up” in 1992. So much of the right’s power lies outside the administration and Congress—in its domination of the intellectual agenda for instance—that it is seldom down for long.

The Democrats show few signs that they have the wind in their sails. Their handling of John Roberts’s nomination to the Supreme Court has been dismal. Neither Harry Reid, the minority leader in the Senate, nor Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, is likely to set the world on fire. Moveon.org types want to drag the party to the left; Clintonistas want to pull it to the centre. America has two dysfunctional parties.

But Mr Bush’s recent problems do raise one important possibility: that of a realignment on the right. The fact that the Bush machine is running out of steam makes it much less likely that he will be able to determine his successor. This creates opportunities for very different sorts of conservatives who are waiting in the wings.

Will Bush continue on his path of appeasing the left and ignoring his conservative base, and what effect will that have in the next election? Why is he doing this? I don't know if he lacks commitment or doesn't have the fight in him to stand up for his base. But, if something isn't done to mend the cracks within the party, look for the Democrats to regain control of Congress and, possibly, the presidency. It may not matter, though, because with the White House over-spending and increasing the size of government, there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between the parties. Who, if anyone, will step up to save the party and its movement?

Posted by GM Roper at October 5, 2005 12:20 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Will the only thing that re-unites them be the election of another Democrat (which could conceivably lead to a majority of Democrats in the House and Senate)? The conservatives built the most momentum in unifying during the early Clinton years when Democrats ruled the world. I don't want that to be the case again. They need to quit this "in-family bickering" and come together under their own banner, not simply because of a common enemy (as it were).

The Democrats have built the most momentum in the opposite manner. When surrounded with a majority of the opposing party, they fell apart like a cheap suit and rather quickly.

Sure Bush has pissed some conservatives off. He's pissed me off too in some regards. But we need to resolve these issues with common sense and dialogue and not become the other party of "no". Let's take our own advice and create solutions, not just take our chips and go home.

The Republicans in office are slow to respond, but respond they do. The illegal immigration issue is a fine example. They are finally responding. The Democrats simply keep on opposing the will of the majority on this issue for what I'll say myself are nefarious reasons.

"WE" have to save the party through elections. All the way down to the local level. We're putting all this on Bush when we have guys like Specter and McCain subverting and dilluting so much of our agenda. And there are quite a few of them.

Am I just prattling on or does this make sense?

Posted by Oyster at October 5, 2005 11:37 AM

Oyster, I fear that Bush and the Republican Party might start, or have started, treating the "right-wing" side of the party like the Democrats have blacks and labor unions. Once they could count on their votes, they quit doing anything for them.

Posted by Woody at October 5, 2005 01:08 PM

You're right in the respect that most politicians' (of any stripe) first priority is to get elected and then that top priority shifts to staying in office.

So many more people have become politically involved with the advent of blogs and news right at our fingertips that it makes it harder for them to achieve that second priority. We see more clearly when they don't deliver on their promises and are better informed to make a decision when their re-election campaigns come up.

With that said I more or less wanted to convey the idea that just voting for the president we want doesn't solve any problems unless we keep a keen eye on our legislative bodies and make sure that they are conveying our wishes to the top. Not their own wishes or those of the special interest groups that donate to their campaigns. They have the biggest influence on how a president develops policies. Even though we may support him, he is worn down by those in the offices just below the executive branch. Regardless of what the media say and what our government would have us think, we do not have the majority. We still have many who are Republicans in name only.

You know, after reading Boortz's book The Fair Tax I can't help but think that not only will our taxation system be more fair but it will also change the face of politics in this country. No more will some politicians be able to manipulate the tax laws to garner votes. Class wars spurred on by politicians' tax promises could conceivably become a thing of the past. They'd actually have to stand on their own merits and the cream will rise to the top.

Posted by Oyster at October 5, 2005 03:17 PM

Now George... Let's not be TOO hasty to throw our Dem enemies the ammunition to defeat us with.

Meirs pick may turn out to be the greatest rope a dope of all time.

Imagine if Bush had introduced her by saying she was an evangelical Christian who taught Sunday school ?

And how do you suppose a woman who has a literal interpretation of the Bible will interpret the Constitution.

I'm beginning to wonder if Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter aren't in on the game.

Posted by Mike's America at October 6, 2005 02:13 AM

Mike, don't blame George. This was my post. I am called a "Bush Apologist" on almost a daily basis, so I am not against him. But, it occured to me that he seems to have lost the fight to stand up for the values of those who elected him. This isn't specifically about the Supreme Court nomination. It is primarily about the expansion of the federal government and uncontrolled spending. If he proposes a 5% increase in a program and the Democrats want 10%, he just gives in to them. I'm not even happy with the 5%--I want programs cut. While this goes on, the Republicans cannot be united.

Posted by Woody at October 6, 2005 10:20 AM





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