Specter and the Spiral

April 30th, 2009

Wow. I take an international flight and when I come back, Arlen Specter’s a Democrat.

I knew it might happen, but did not expect it to happen so soon. The Dems may now have their super-majority, some 21 months ahead of schedule. When Norm Coleman and/or Tim Pawlenty stop being asses and let Minnesotans have the senator they voted for, the Democrats will have the magic 60. Already, Democrats may now have enough to stop a filibuster, if they can get everybody on their caucus to vote for cloture on their bills.

One has to wonder why he did it now. Was he bargaining with the Dems for a powerful position and only now the deal came through? Was he negotiating with the GOP and they got far too tough with him? Or maybe both of those?

A big part of this, however, seems less about the GOP making threats to get Specter to toe the line and more about Specter realizing that he’s on a sinking ship. A new poll finds that while Democratic Party identification remains strong at 35%, only 21% of voters self-identify as Republicans, a low point for the party. “Independent” Americans now number 38%. Specter himself noted that 200,000 Republican Pennsylvanians had switched from Republicans to Democrats in the past year, a remark which has many saying that Specter is being quite open about this being more about winning an election and less about values and principles.

But Specter more clearly stated that it was about the GOP leaving moderates behind; it was about the party shifting too far to the right, making the Democrats more palatable to moderates. Whatever the strategic reasons Specter had, his point about the party leaving him behind is valid–in fact, that’s exactly why he no longer was a viable Republican candidate. Is it principled to hang on to a party which is increasingly alienating you and will likely vote you out of office in the primaries?

What has been said about the Republican Death Spiral seems to be coming true. The GOP’s solution is not to go big-tent, but to close the tent even tighter around the extremists–thus making more and more moderates leave the party, which makes the party more extremist still, which forces out more moderates. Remembering back to the 90’s, conservatives tried to make “liberal” a dirty word; today, they are trying to do the same with the “Democrat” Party. And while they have had some success, they have inadvertently made their own party’s name far more unpalatable simply by acting like enormous jerks.

The question is, is the GOP actually dying? How far does the party have to sink before it stops being viable? It might not be so bad for the GOP, because despite people not wanting to call themselves “Republican,” given only two choices, they may very well, more often than not, choose the Republican candidate. Hobson’s choice and all that. Look at McCain, how much of the vote that he got despite party identification being almost half of the percentage of actual votes he got. True, a lot of those votes were won with plain old smear tactics and the fact that there was a grizzled veteran war hero running against an inexperienced black guy. But I believe that a lot of people who voted for McCain were IINO–Independents In Name Only, Independents who used to be Republicans and simply could not bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. They may not identify as Republicans any more, but they still vote that way.

What I am waiting for is for someone to realize that there are probably now more conservatives out of the GOP than in it, and to fill that power vacuum occupying moderate Republicans and centrists. Right now there is no one because everyone still sees the GOP as monolithic, and another party leaning to the right might split the vote and get a Democrat elected. But if an “Independent Party” (better yet, an “Independence Party”) could address the voters from left-of-extremist Republicans to moderate Democrats, they might get enough of a vote that they could supplant the former Republican Party and marginalize them. In fact, such a move might be the only way that segment of the political spectrum can become credible again.

In a way, I hope they don’t–I hope the GOP continues to spiral into irrelevancy and disorder, putting more and more radical and laughable candidates up for the Democrats to shoot down. But if they do form a new party, maybe within say 2 or 3 election cycles they could become tenable enough to gain more Congressional seats than the GOP. They might even have a chance to win the presidency. I would not feel quite as bad about that relative to a present-day Republican taking office. Imagine John McCain as he was in 2000 winning. He was still conservative, but you at least felt that he would speak more truth and work across the aisle, instead of being just another GOP sock puppet, like he was this time around.

Of course, the formation of a new party might be hindered by the GOP, which, while dying, still would be a monolithic force with a massive support base, a force to be reckoned with. They will feel entitled to be the voice of the right wing, and those still inhabiting the party will not give up power so easily.

There are some who are still trying to bring the old party around. Interestingly, Olympia Snowe–one of three moderate Republicans, who, along with Specter, has come under fire from an increasingly hard-core and frightened GOP–wrote an editorial which urged the party to learn from this like they should have learned from the Jeffords defection. In short, stop moving even further to the right, and return to more moderate, Reaganesque big-tent roots that gained the party the power it squandered under Bush. The real question, however, is what Snowe is trying to say to her party. Is she hinting at and laying the groundwork for the potential that she too may defect if the GOP continues to radicalize itself and marginalize her? Or did she write the op-ed in the voice of a Reagan-era Republican in an attempt to immunize herself from the GOP panicking, lest they try to apply the thumbscrews to her even harder? Either way, one has to wonder if she really believes that the GOP is in fact capable at this point of moving back to the center; it is becoming increasingly difficult to see them doing so.

As a side note, here’s a thought: Obama may be garnering his Obama Republicans, just not the same way Reagan got his Democrats. Instead of working with the other party, pols who might otherwise have been Republicans are now joining the Democratic Party. As the GOP has shrunk to its core, the Democratic Party has expanded to include the middle (with Republicans at least claiming that they happily cede the traitorous wretches). The Democrats have Lieberman, Jeffords, and Specter now, along with a passel of “Blue Dog” Democrats. With a super-majority, Obama will be busy enough dealing with them. The GOP made it explicitly clear to Obama: “Our prime mission is to oppose you as a united front and try our best to make you fail.” No amount of bipartisanship can penetrate that; as the old saying goes, it takes two to Tango. The GOP has refused Obama’s invitation. But Obama can instead gain bipartisanship within his own party, in that there exist within it conservative Democrats who will hold Obama to a more centrist course.

Ironically, the Democrats have been criticized for taking in “anyone who looked capable of winning an election, beliefs be hanged.” First, the Republicans are the ones who abandoned their beliefs to gain power; that’s one of the main reasons they are in this fix now. Second, the Dems are not surrendering their beliefs, they are taking on the Reagan “big tent” strategy–including people in the center and dealing with them, as opposed to shutting them out. Again, another major reason Dems are gaining so much more. I have the feeling that if Republicans did this, nobody but the extremists would be accusing them of ditching their beliefs. Reagan was lauded for this; Obama is being criticized.

Of course, a lot of Democrats don’t appreciate being dragged more to the center, and protest when compromises are made to satisfy the more conservative elements of the party. But at least those compromises are being made in fact due to principles or at least voter pressure, and not because of political gamesmanship. Which means that the in-party wrangling going on is, ironically, the true bipartisanship.

  1. Tim Kane
    April 30th, 2009 at 22:48 | #1

    I don’t think the republican party will go away. It’s just the Great Depression 2.0. I think during the Great Depression the Republicans had something like only 17 Senator’s. Right now they have 40 Senators. They may drop down to 35, but they won’t go below 30 or 29 or something like that. They’ll be concentrated in the South, but not exclusively. They’ll have some Senators from out west and the Great Plains, though I think, in both cases less than they do now, and I think the state of Maine will always have at least 1 Republican. I don’t see the Republicans changing their ways anytime soon. It will take at least two more lost elections. My thinking is, if the economy some how gets better, Hillary will get elected in 2016 and she’ll serve two terms and sometime after that we’ll see a viable Republican party emerge. That’s 16 years out of power – but in the Depression the Republicans were out of power for 20 years, and if Eisenhower had joined the Democrats (as I’m sure he wish he had by the time he gave his departing speech warning of the growth of the military industrial complex) it would have been longer still. So I think they are out of power for 16 or 20 years at best – but maybe out of power permanently.

    However if the Republican party does collapse, I think the new party will not necessarily be on the right of the Dems, but on the left.

    This, of course is just E-Z chair speculation. But the premise goes something like this: The center of politics is money. Money is unprecedentedly concentrated in the United States, and especially in Wall Street. Politicians don’t know how to turn their backs on money. As the Republicans become marginalized, Wall Street will only increase their investment with Democrats. They appear to own Obama on finance issues. Their isn’t one non-Wall Streeter on his economic panels – maybe Robert Reich is the closest he has to that – and that’s from a President who values a “team of rivals” and broad competing ideas.

    If Democrats become the party of Wall Street – the Depression will never fully go away. This depression like the Great Depression is rooted in lack of purchasing power for the masses – which is a result of a lack of bargaining power for workers. If the Democrats become the party of Wall Street, they will essentially have become the Republican party.

    A new party might then appear on the left for economic issues. They will not have much money so they might not have much efficacy. But if they gain some traction and some efficacy, they will be economic dissenters (discontents). That, ironically, might attract the southerners from the Republican party, because Southerners vote on emotional basis of discontent. As the Republican party loses it’s traction, you could see southern dissenters – who hate the yankee Wall Streeters (as descendants of carpet baggers) voting with northern economic dissenters (primarily from the mid-west) in a new left of center – dissenter party aligning Southerners with Midwesterners.

    Of course, that’s all pretty far fetched. I’m just speculating. I think it would be fitting if Bush was the last Republican president. He’s ruined everything he ever set his hand to in his whole life. Destroying the Republican party would be a suitable career achievement.

  2. matthew
    April 30th, 2009 at 22:48 | #2

    I try to pay attention to US politics– as it is always great theater– but it has zero affect on me. So my opinions are merely peanut gallery-ish.

    Seems to me that the only way for a replacement to the Reps to arise would be the arrival of a highly charismatic individual for people to rally around. A top down kind of movement. But who on earth could that be? I see no one.

    FWIW—good riddance to the Reps. I hope they disappear.

  3. matthew
    April 30th, 2009 at 23:09 | #3

    Tim and I are over lapping posts but here is my response to his always insightful comments—

    One thing I think that is coming out of all of this is–perhaps–the final death of Horatio Alger.

    US people are finally waking up to the reality that 99.99 percent of them are NOT going to make it big. And so they are looking to government to provide for some of the basics needs of their lives–education, health care, retirement.

    In the past the Reps could hold out the Alger myth that too much government would crush their chances of success but now people just dont care about that. They want security and they know that gov. can provide some part of that.

    I read some conservative blogs and i am always amazed at their opposition to government doing anything to help people. In fact I had a conversation with an American just today and he said he really liked US health care. I said WTF??? Really!

    I told him my story of my ex wife having an asthma attack in the USA during xmas. Total bills came to 1000 dollars. Same event in Japan we paid 10,000yen.(about 100 us dollars) He was shocked.

    I digress,

    and have to run

  4. stevetv
    April 30th, 2009 at 23:36 | #4

    Everything is cyclical. After a few failed election cycles, the Republicans will relax their standards and they’ll be more open to the moderates again. Meanwhile, the Dems big tent will hold for only so long until the Blue Dogs and the progressives get fed up with each other. And then there will be talk about the Democrats being a failing party and people will speculate that a third party will be in ascendent.

    And then it will happen again.

    The two-party system has been so heavily institutionalized in America (thank the Electoral College for that) that it will never be anything else unless something wholly unforeseeable takes effect. But this isn’t it.

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