It's Not Your Father's Republican Party Anymore
I went out
into the rain on Tuesday to vote in the special primary election for the
candidates who will oppose one another in November to be New Jersey’s next U.S.
Senator. The election was occasioned by the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg,
surely one of the most liberal senators to have ever represented the state.
I was the
only one voting in the polling station around midday so it can be said that
turnout was low to invisible. I had a nice chat with the election workers who
found the idea of a Republican actually living in town something akin to
discovering some rare species here.
In New
Jersey I think it is safe to say that Gov. Christie will romp to reelection in
November. The Democratic Party has put up a sacrificial candidate, Barbara
Buono, who virtually no one knows is even running against him. New Jersey is a
Democratic state, but the Governor has shown a capacity to attract votes from
them. After superstorm Sandy hit, he welcomed President Obama just before the
2012 elections and many Republicans were aghast at how cordial he was. They
still are, blaming him in part for Obama’s reelection.
A recent
Pew Research Center national survey, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults,
including 497 Republican and Republican-leaning voters, asked who they saw as
the party’s emerging leadership. While Rep. Paul Ryan who ran for Vice
President in the last election had “the most positive image (65%) among GOP
voters, Sen. Rand Paul (55%) and Sen. Marco Rubio (50%) ran a close second with
Sen. Ted Cruz, most identified with the Tea Party, also did well.
By
contrast, Chris Christie, drew “a more mixed reaction among the roughly
three-quarters of Republicans who offered an opinion”; 47% viewed him favorably
while 30% expressed an unfavorable impression. While Christie’s positions on
gun control and the environment may earn Democrat votes should he run for
President in 2016, they will cause many Republicans to just stay home if he is
the party’s candidate. This happened to Mitt Romney as well.
Based on
the Pew Center’s findings, it would appear that the Republican Party is rather
sharply divided between its moderates and conservatives. It is fair to say that
unless the party can come up with strong leaders with conservative views and
programs to offer a way out of the nation’s current economic stagnation and
related problems, it is going to have an uphill struggle to get its candidates
elected in 2014 and beyond.
So far the
party has lost two presidential elections by offering two very squishy
candidates, McCain and Romney, who did not ignite strong support among
Republicans. Republicans are depressed, but they are also angry and the
angriest among them are its Tea Party faction.
“By 54% to
40% Republican and Republican-leaning voters want the party’s leaders to move
further to the right,” said the findings of the Pew Center survey. Tea Party
Republicans “overwhelmingly favor moving in a more conservative direction,
while moderates and liberals would like to see the party take more centrist
positions.”
The moderates
are a minority within the party and will make up an even smaller share of the
likely primary electorate. Republicans who are paying any attention to the 2014
midterm elections want candidates who will take on the Obama administration and
Democratic candidates in a vigorous way.
Two
issues, immigration and government spending, were top concerns among the
Republicans surveyed with most saying the party is not conservative enough by
roughly a two-to-one margin. When it comes to government spending, the margin
is four-to-one. On gun policy, the majority said the party’s position was about
right.
Both
Republicans and Democrats have internal tensions. A third of those surveyed
from either party thought there was too much compromise with the other, while
another third thought they had not compromised enough.
The power
of the Tea Party movement is often over-stated by political observers. The Pew
survey found that “Tea Party Republicans have influence in the GOP partly
because of their high level of political engagement. Overall, they make up a
minority (37%) of all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
nationally.” The survey noted that “27% of all GOP voters are non-Tea Party
conservatives, while 29% are moderates who do not agree with the Tea Party.”
This is,
of course, an extrapolation from the survey’s results and is subject to change
depending on events and issues in the future.
At the end
of the August recess the members of Congress will return and Republican
Senators and Representatives will have heard from those who attended their town
hall meetings. They are not happy no matter whether they favor Tea Party
viewpoints or not, but they are focused on bread-and-butter issues as opposed
to conservative views on abortion, gay marriage, and other social issues. That
should come as no surprise.
Republicans
have been trying to recover from the last two elections that demonstrated the
party was doing something wrong. They want its leaders in Congress and in the
Party to address the machinations of President Obama, but are frustrated by the
fact that the nation’s mainstream press is largely part of the Democratic Party
machine. This poses a very big problem for Republicans and independents.
An even
bigger problem, however, appears to be the divisions that exist within the
Republican Party itself. If the economy does not improve—and it gives little
real evidence of doing so—and unemployment remains high, those divisions may
narrow in the months ahead that lead up to the midterm elections. If so, the
odds will favor Republican candidates.
One thing
is sure. The Republican Party today is not your father’s GOP that elected
Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Those halcyon years are over.
© Alan
Caruba, 2013
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