I just don't know where to start. So how about I try to start with the beginning. Mike Huckabee wants to move the the "mushy middle" out of the Republican Party.
Some argue that Republicans have lost Congress and the White House because they've turned the party over to social and religious conservatives, driving away moderates and independents. Huckabee made precisely the opposite argument.
"It's when they move to the mushy middle and get squishy that they get beat," he said.
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, argued that the U.S. is a conservative country receptive to Republican ideals.
"Historically, the way we've found our way back to winning, having clear convictions that are conservative and then when elected, act like it," he said. "In every election, when Republicans have had clarity of convictions and those convictions were conservative, they win."
He warned that many Republicans have gone astray by buying into President Barack Obama's big-spending effort to stimulate the economy, a move he called "a big, colossal, utterly disastrous mistake.
"Our Republicans have culpability in that," Huckabee said. "There were some people who questioned whether I was really conservative. I don't want to hear, ever, people ever again talk about how conservative they are if they supported that."
Huckabee is right when he says conservatism is popular. But is it social conservatism that is the winner? Or economic conservatism. Well big spender social conservative Huckabee (who was rightly questioned about his conservative creds) has come down on the side of economic conservatism. Yip e. Nice try Mike. But how can we actually trust you when you didn't walk the walk?
One good thing I can say about Mike. When he puts his finger to the wind he can read its direction accurately.
When it comes to Sarah Palin I must say that her team doesn't even know if there is a wind. Kathleen Parker says the Palin team is inept in handling her scheduling. That may be so but it is not the worst thing they are doing to her. Sarah is being positioned wrong. Her libertarian governance rather than her social conservative personal life should be her image. Why is that? Well let us look at Party Politics and see if a conclusion is possible. Don't worry. I've made up my mind on this a long time ago. And to get what is wrong with the Party we must look at how the electorate is changing.
Independents hold the balance of power in the Obama era. That's the conclusion of a recent, 165-page Pew Research Center survey that shows independent voters climbed to 39% from 30% of the electorate in the five months following the 2008 election. During that same time, Democratic identification fell to 33% from 39%, while Republicans fell four points to 22% -- their lowest since post-Watergate.
This is evidence that President Obama's election does not represent a liberal ideological mandate, as House Democrats have claimed. It also shows continued rejection of the Republican brand.
On virtually every policy issue, independents are situated between increasingly polarized Democrats and Republicans. They more accurately reflect centrist national attitudes than the 11% of Americans who describe themselves as liberal Democrats or the 15% who call themselves conservative Republicans.
Independents are nonideological problem-solvers, but they do not have a split-the-difference approach to politics. They are fiscally conservative but socially progressive, with a strong libertarian streak. It's on fiscal issues that independents are putting the Obama administration on notice.
Bailout backlash is reflected in independents' attitude about the expanding social safety net. Just 43% believe that we "should help more needy people, even if it means going deeper into debt" -- down 14 points over two years. Independents' belief that "labor unions are necessary to protect the working person" has declined 23% since 2003. They are closer to the Republican view that government is usually wasteful and inefficient.
Independents are now the youngest voting block overall: 44% of Americans born after 1977 identify as independent. Republicans are the oldest voter cohort, with just 19% of those born since '77 identifying with the GOP. Demographics are destiny.
The Republican Party is obviously in free fall. I also covered this in Playing To An Ever Shrinking Base. The electorate is going independent, libertarian. Fiscally conservative, socially moderate. Which is how Sarah governs. So what are the geniuses of her team doing? Amping up her socon creds. At least Mike Huckabee is smart enough to shift with the wind and go against his past. And Sarah? Going in the other direction and also trying to hide her past. That is nuts.
And why do I think this is happening the way it is? I think Sara is going after base money and Huckabee is going after national votes.
OK enough of candidates. What does the Republican Party have to do? Get right with God. Start living up to their economic conservative principles. Religiously. What ever happened to the small government Party? Small government is another principle the Republican Party should stick to. Religiously.
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Comments
I tend to vote Republican but have never been a member of the party. I could be if they really became the small government, low-tax party they used to claim to be. The problem with the Republicans is they are dominated in the leadership positions by the inside-the-beltway Establishment Republicans, the squishy types who are likely to make deals with Democrats on taxes and spending. They should be embracing the tea party ideas. If they do, I guarantee a return to power and if they stick to those principles of the tea parties, they will stay in power a long time.
steven murray · June 10, 2009 10:44 PM
Come on now, M. she has spent most of the last 6 months fighting the brain dead equivalent Alaskan equivalents of those folk in Illinois, that saddled the party with Keyes. The one national event, she talked up the states resources and missile defense, as much as her avowed topic of the life issue.
One of the results of the efforts, that is about to bear fruit, is this pipeline deal between TransCanada and Exxon, Parker's not an authority, neither is Frum or Brooks, et al
narciso · June 10, 2009 11:53 PM
narciso,
I'm not aware of her fighting the Alan Keyes faction of the Party for the last 6 months. Although I haven't been paying as close attention as I did during the election.
You could go to Conservatives4Palin, and go through the fights with Ramras, and Hawker, the pro-stimulus, anti oil unless it's an Exxon/Conoco monopoly. Their mouthpieces in Halcro, retired, and Fagan, who's more of a Michael Savage type, without the charm.
narciso · June 11, 2009 12:39 AM
I went to C4P and couldn't find anything of interest on the branding of Palin. Do you have something specific?
"The Alan Keyes faction of the Party," in partnership with the WND faction, do not want the Republican Party to win. They are more than uncompromising; they see all compromise as a form of treason. As to why don't they form a third party (or simply join the Constitution Party), it's easy: no one pays attention to third parties. I think they prefer to portray themselves as "the Republican base," in the hope that they'll be believed, and have influence way out of proportion to numbers. Above all, they do not want the GOP to win; experience has shown them that they do better -- especially financially -- with the Republicans out of power than in power. They won't admit it, but Barack Obama really suits them just fine.
(Naturally, they claim the Tea Party movement is "theirs" -- much as the SWP and the RCP always try to claim grass roots movements on the left.)
Eric, the WMD, oops, WND faction of the Republican Party is a tiny enclave of losers headquartered in Cave Junction, Oregon.
When they admitted Michael Savage into the fold, they proclaimed their intellectual & moral bankruptcy.
Does anyone know that their boy, Savage, has all but endorsed Jerry Brown for the next governor of California? This is the same Jerry Brown who exclaimed his alleged heterosexuality by staging a fake tent scene with Linda Ronstadt, while on safari in Africa those many years ago; who never missed a retreat with the boys at the Trappist Monastery in Vina; who enjoyed the nude beaches on the upper Yuba River with friends of mine.
And now, the arch homophobe, Michael Savage, endorses him for governor, while the World Net Daily crowd gathers 'round?
Oh, the strange bedfellows they keep, for the money.
Frank · June 11, 2009 11:10 PM
Frank,
I used to like to go nude swimming on the Yuba River when ever I passed by on a hot day.
And now I find out I'm a closet homosexual? Wait until my wife hears about this. Is she ever going to be surprised.
I actually took my girlfriend (later wife - same one I have now) nude swimming on the Yuba River. Does that mean she is a lesbian? Am I ever going to be surprised.
M. Simon:
I get your point, & don't disagree with it.
It's difficult however to state openly what you know firsthand, without bringing on a slander suit.
Anyway, a politician like Brown who dared not discuss his past personal life is not unusual.
The Michael Savage connection is the most interesting. Savage has hinted at a friendship with Brown, implying he's had dinner with him, and even contributed to his election campaign. Brown regularly appears on Savage's radio show, while more cautious politicians treat Savage as a pariah. Given Savage's almost daily vitriol aimed at homosexuals, his rigid conservatism, and his Orthodox Jewish background, why would he befriend a very liberal Catholic pol whose stated policies are antithetical to everything he says he believes?
My guess is that they have something in common that transcends politics, something they had to overcome at some point in their lives so that they could live with the strictures of their religious upbringing.
Savage's striking out at gays, and Brown's caving into gay political demands, are two sides of the same coin.
Frank · June 12, 2009 10:49 AM
Frank,
That is exactly why politicizing sex is a bad thing. It just encourages deception.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
I tend to vote Republican but have never been a member of the party. I could be if they really became the small government, low-tax party they used to claim to be. The problem with the Republicans is they are dominated in the leadership positions by the inside-the-beltway Establishment Republicans, the squishy types who are likely to make deals with Democrats on taxes and spending. They should be embracing the tea party ideas. If they do, I guarantee a return to power and if they stick to those principles of the tea parties, they will stay in power a long time.