“If the Republican Party cannot win in this environment,” declared conservative luminary George Will in September, “it has to get out of politics and find another business.” Fox News host and Tea Party darling Laura Ingraham agreed, telling Republicans, “if you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party.”
Tuesday’s election results have not yet caused the Republican Party to vanish into thin air. They did, however, sow the seeds for a reckoning between the Republican Party’s radical wing and its more moderate establishment.
Two competing narratives for the Republicans’ defeat, which are already quietly emerging within the party, will come to the fore over the coming days. The first, championed by members of the Tea Party, will hold that President Obama’s victory was a consequence of Mitt Romney’s lack of ideological purity. According to this line of argument, Republicans might have won if only they had nominated an authentic conservative as their standard-bearer instead of a flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate. The implications of this argument are clear: Republicans must continue to purge moderate elements from their party and stonewall any and all of Barack Obama’s policy proposals.
The second (much more accurate) narrative will contend that the Tea Party’s ideological rigidity is the cause of the party’s weakness, not the answer to it. In other words, Romney was seriously damaged by the extreme positions he was forced to take in the primary campaign — on everything from tax cuts to reproductive rights. Some in the Republican establishment might also argue that the party’s radical wing devastated Republicans’ chances of taking back the Senate by ousting moderate candidates in favor of unelectable hard-liners like Richard Mourdock and Todd “legitimate rape” Akin. This explanation for the party’s defeat suggests that if the party is to survive, it must offer more to minorities, women and the middle class — and, yes, maybe even try to work with President Obama.
Republicans hate losing. They hate losing so much that for the past several weeks some have insisted that the polls were skewed rather than admit that their candidate was behind. But now the party will be forced to accept that it lost fair and square (conspiracy theories about voter fraud aside) and design a single path forward. The relationship between the establishment and the Tea Party is already strained, however, and reconciling their conflicting impulses in the wake of a bitter election defeat will be no easy task.
If the Democrats and President Obama aggressively take advantage of Republican disunity, they might be able to push their agenda more effectively than they did for the last two years. The Republican Party’s tight discipline and ability to act as a single voting block have always been powerful weapons against the Democrats — such as during the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, when House Republicans forced a Democratic Senate and President to capitulate to their demands. Heading into the fiscal cliff negotiations, however, the Republican Party will be internally divided and Democrats will be in a much stronger position to poach Republican moderates.
So even though this election gave us the exact same government as before — a Democratic Senate, a Republican House, and, of course, a Democratic president — it might not give us the same level of gridlock and paralysis we have suffered through for the past two years.
Finally, I will say this: if the radical wing of the party emerges victorious from the Republican civil war, then George Will is right. The party will need to get out of politics altogether.
Contact Jason Willick at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter: @jawillick.
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reconciling their conflicting impulses win the wake of a bitter election defeat will be no easy task.
That should be “in the wake of a bitter election defeat.” Where have The Daily Cal editors gone?
let’s set up camp in front of berkeley college republicans on sproul and laugh at them
We’ll be laughing even harder when you come by our businesses looking for jobs after graduation.
you’re no job creator, you’re a bloviator
Hey, you’re that Occupy loser. You ever had a real job? Breaking windows and shitting on police cars doesn’t count.
BJ…get a life
Oh, but apparently posting on the Daily Cal website does.
ya communication is key
You should talk, given that you’re a prolific poster here as well.
True enough, Stan, but I’m not the one posting comments which amount to “GIT A JAWB HIPPIE”.
This really isn’t about the positions held by the various Republicans. It is really a reflection on the candidates that they are running. McCain and Romney were not appropriate presidential candidates. Voters had shown in the past that they didn’t like either candidate, but since candidates that Republicans really would want would not run, the Republicans didn’t vote. If Christie would have run, he would be the president elect right now.
McCain & Romney were the Republican equivalents of Gore & Kerry. Charmless and dull.
Obama won on personal charm, just like Reagan and Clinton did.
I agree. It is a weakness in our democratic/representative form of election. Our elected officials are now too often chosen because of their personalities instead of their actual abilities. I believe it is why our congress, legislature, presidents, and governors have not been able to keep the country and California as strong as they were in the past. It is too bad that in our day and age, people with the abilities are not interested in running. However, I don’t expect a person with ability to subject themselves to the crazy media drama that now goes along with being a public figure.
Obama is the poster boy for coolness and flash and dash.
Now he has to work on his legacy. Blaming Bush won’t cut it anymore.
@google-109544d3a0d14c94673c2ca8558e6118:disqus What he’s trying to say is that in this environment, with such high disapproval ratings for Obama, a Republican candidate should have easily ousted Obama from office. The fact that Romney lost, even by that margin, doesn’t bear favorably on the GOP.
Yes, and the Tea Party (and its shadowy backers) aren’t helping. The same thing would have happened if the Democrats had run carbon copies of George McGovern for the last 25 years–they would all have lost, too.
Compare Obama with Nixon sometime. Nixon was to the left of Obama on a number of issues, yet he was the conservatives’ darling in the late 60s-early 70s (before Watergate, of course). The GOP has slid steadily rightward over the years, and the Democrats have followed out of necessity. Obama is no leftist; he is solidly moderate. He only seems “socialist” when you put him next to Randian ideologues like Ryan and troglodytes like Akin.
“Yes, and the Tea Party (and its shadowy backers) aren’t helping.”
Get over your fixation with the Tea Party bogeyman. It only makes you look like some ignorant drone parroting the same crap you heard over and over on MSNBC.
You think modern Democrats have moved to the left? Have you seen the tax rates under FDR? The whole political spectrum has shifted right under Reagan, including the Democratic party.
Thank god
“You think modern Democrats have moved to the left?”
Is the Pope Catholic?
The political landscape represented by the two major parties has moved to the right in the last 40 years. The Democrats learned, after McGovern’s spectacular failure in 1972, that winning the election is all about finding a candidate who appeals to swing voters, and the Republicans have pursued the same strategy. You Tea Party advocates are going to have to stop being the Boys Who Cry “Socialism!” if you want anyone to take you seriously 4 years from now.
“The second (much more accurate) narrative will contend that the Tea
Party’s ideological rigidity is the cause of the party’s weakness, not
the answer to it. In other words, Romney was seriously damaged by the
extreme positions he was forced to take in the primary campaign — on
everything from tax cuts to reproductive rights.”
Romney got 49% of the popular vote, hardly the percentage expected if he was an “extremist”. Fact of the matter is that the country is split politically down the middle. Save your junior political analysis for when you grow up and get a real job.
NO, Skippy, better save YOUR analysis for when you understand the whole American election thing. The popular vote does NOT count but the electoral vote DOES and Obama beat the livin’ snot out of Mormon Boy, winning 50% more votes – 303 to 202.
You and your ilk can spin this any way you want …Fox News can pout and throw tantrums … but the fact is that Obama ran this race to win electoral votes and so did Romney… And Romney got slaughtered. Game over Winger. You lose.
Now go away. You are loathsome and irksome and we are tired of your ignorance.
Have fun blaming Bush for another 4 years, because that’s exactly what you will STILL be doing up to Obama’s last day in office. He wasn’t able to improve the economy even when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress, but you want your progressive world view to work so badly that you re-elected him. You’re the sucker, and I will be here to remind you at regular intervals. Live with it.
“Mormon boy”
Enjoy your progressive bigotry.
These silly students will sneer at Mormons and fundamentalist Christians all day but don’t dare say anything critical about Mohammedans, because they know the worst think that would ever happen to them is that some kid wearing a shirt and tie riding a bicycle will knock on their door. The muzzies would as soon kill them.
Ok, fuck Moham. Prepare to rampage Muzzies.