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Monday 21 May 2012

A Republican Resurgence?

Monday, 2nd November 2009

So, tomorrow's off-off-year elections looks as though they will provide encouraging news for the Republican party. The special election in upstate New York may have been chaotic - it's not often that GOP bigwigs endorse the Conservative challenger to the GOP candidate, nor that often that the Republican candidate drops out and endorses the Democratic candidate - but it looks as though Doug Hoffman, the Conservative "insurgent" in the 23rd Congressional District may well prevail. Add this to the likely GOP triumph in Virginia's gubernatorial contest and the possibility of defeating Governor Corzine in New Jersey and you can see how you could construct a pretty decent The GOP is Back Baby! narrative.

If this happens, then the official line will be that conservatives win when they remember to act and campaign as Conservatives. Furthermore, these results are a reminder that this is a centre-right nation in which conservatives heavily outnumber liberals. Maybe.

The USA may well remain a centre-right nation but it's elected only one truly conservative President in the last 75 years. That is, Ronald Reagan is about the only Republican president who hasn't been written out the movement. And yet even Reagan was impossibly liberal on some subjects - immigration for instance - for today's party. (George W Bush may have been the Conservative option in the GOP primaries in 2000, but he won the general election by running to the centre: emphasising the compassionate side of his conservatism, his proposals for a greater federal role in education and his openness to immigration reform as proof that he was a different, more modern, kinder sort of conservative.)

So, ~~tempting~~ compulsory as it is to view three good results as a trend, one should be a little wary of doing so. Better to win than lose, of course, but these races may not tell us very much. NY-23 is an unusual seat. That it elects a conservative doesn't mean conservatives can do well in the north-east. To the extent, then, that Hoffman's victory encourages the GOP to tilt still further away from nominating moderate Republicans in the north-east it may even prove a Pyrrhic triumph.

Retaking the governor's mansion in Virginia is clearly a good result and a reminder that Obama's triumph didn't necessarily come with very long coat-tails. The President continues to be more popular than his party. But the key, it seems to me, to Virginia is that the state has moved from being one in which, all things being equal, the Republican candidate was more likely to win than not, to a state in which each election is essentially a toss-up. That's a significant step forward for the Democratic party. It doesn't mean Republicans can't or won't win in Virginia, it's that the trend is for Democrats to be more competitive. (The same might be said of parts of North Carolina). Oher swing states, such as Pennsylvania for instance, have similarly moved from toss-up status to "more often Democrat than not". That doesn't mean that a Republican can't win in the Keystone state, merely that the underlying conditions in PA are more favourable to the Democrats now than was once the case. The same might be said, less importantly, of New Hampshire.

There's also some reason to suppose that this slow drift from red to blue will continue as, for the time being anyway, demographic changes continue to favour the Democratic party. White men remain a massively important part of the electorate and they are still the GOP's stronghold. But they're not quite as important a part of the electoral coalition as once they were and their relative importance will continue to decline. In other words, Republicans will have to work a little harder just to stand still.

Now current trends are always liable to change. So this is not set in stone. Nonetheless, the long-term picture looks better for Democrats than Republicans.

Unless, of course and as is certainly possible, Democrats overplay their hand. A mad rush to the left is not what the country wants either. Still, the combination of intractable and less-popular-than-they-were wars, economic uncertainty, rising unemployment and a general sense that the game is rigged against the ordinary Working Joe creates fertile land for the opposition. After all, what has the Obama administration - to say nothing of the Democratic Congress - actually achieved so far? The GOP kind of has to win back some lost ground at the mid-terms next year. Perhaps as many as 20 seats in the House.

But, again, no-one thinks it impossible for the GOP to win. The argument in conservative circles is what kind of conservatism is needed to give conservatism the best chance of winning on a regular basis. That is, what kind of conservatism is best-placed to counter some of the structural advantages that, right now and for the foreseeable future, will run in the Democratic party's favour?

It may be that the conservatism of Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity and all the rest of them is the best bet for a conservative revival. I'm unconvinced by that, to put it mildly. Republicans need to be broader, not just deeper. Conservatives will have their victories but they may also have fewer of them to celebrate than need be the case the longer they insist that the old tunes, played more loudly, are all that's needed.

Filed under: Conservatives (2295 more articles) , Elections (283 more articles) , GOP (332 more articles) , Obama (365 more articles)

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David Lindsay

November 2nd, 2009 6:28pm Report this comment

Doug Hoffman, like his party, cannot see how damaging global capitalism and its wars are to the moral and social values that he rightly holds so dear. But the withdrawal of his GOP opponent is still an astonishing development. Could the next stage be the emergence in national politics of conservatives, such as certainly do exist in America, who can see the problem with capitalism and neoconservatism, from an explicitly conservative point of view? Could it? Could it really? Dare to dream, say I. Dare to dream.

After all, how is it that the GOP is no longer in a position even to contest - not even to hold, but merely to contest - NY-23? Undoubtedly because what was once, in many ways even as late as the Clinton years, the party of trade protection, immigration controls, and a strong defence capability used only with the utmost caution, is now none of those things.

Whoever wins in NY-23, the Republican Party has been supplanted.

Conservative Cabbie

November 2nd, 2009 6:36pm Report this comment

Alex

Good post, although there are a number of points I should take issue with.

1. Conservative is the right way forward, not only ideologically but also electorally. As Gallup have noted, self-declared conservatism is on the increase (now up to 40%) and conservative values (guns, abortion, gay marriage etc) are also on the increase across the board.

2. Rasmussen today note that only 56% of conservatives are Republicans, "nearly half of all conservatives nationwide reject the republican label". moreover of all self-declared non-republicans, 31% consider themselves at least "somewhat conservative" whilst 37% consider themselves moderate. not a big difference there.

3. Arguably the most successful governor in America right now is Mitch Daniels in Indiana, a pragmatic conservative. Texas is getting a lot of plaudits for it's low taxeconomy with Rick Perry at the helm and Bob McConnell in Virginia, despite being painted as a Rick Santorum style social conservative is walking to victory on an economic message. People will tolerate social conservatism providing it is not the be all and end all of the message.

4. I saw a comment that the Democratic vote in the three big races tomorrow will be down 20-25 points on Obama's numbers. Obama's vote was soft, dependent on the black and youth vote, demographics who have never shown the energy that they did for Obama. No-one can say that in a non-Obama election that they will turn out in any where near the numbers Obama had.

5. It's a bit of a stretch to see a pattern towards Democrats based upon one election, particularly one following a very unpopular Presidency.

6. political success needs an excited base. We are witnessing that in the poll numbers in these three elections. A more ideological agenda creates the excited base.

Sorry that was a bit long, but your interesting post deserved a detailed critique.

Frank S

November 2nd, 2009 6:43pm Report this comment

I would very much like to see a Republican Party resurgence. The Obama phenomenon has moved from being a joke, through being a shock, to being a scary thing. The populating of the White House with strange, hostile, unthinking people is scary. The promotion of a bloated healthcare bill than most supporters have not read and which the Wall Street Journal has neatly characterised as the worst bill ever, is scary. The unbalanced attack on Fox News is scary. The Mao Tse Tung inspired Chum of O. in the White House is scary. The vacuity of O. is scary. His plummet in opinion polls is heartening. Perhaps 2011 will see massive GOP gains, and hopefully for a GOP better than the feeble one that contested the last elections.

ndm

November 2nd, 2009 6:55pm Report this comment

Let's not forget the great performance by Hoffmann when he visited one of the local newspapers, the Watertown Daily Times:

Douglas L. Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate for the 23rd Congressional District, showed no grasp of the bread-and-butter issues pertinent to district residents in a Thursday morning meeting with the Watertown Daily Times editorial board.
In a nearly hour-long session, Mr. Hoffman was unable to articulate clear positions on a number of matters specific to Northern New Yorkers rather than the national level campaign being waged in a three-way race for the vacant seat of now-Army Secretary John McHugh.
...
Coming to Mr. Hoffman's defense, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who accompanied the candidate on a campaign swing, dismissed regional concerns as "parochial" issues that would not determine the outcome of the election. On the contrary, it is just such parochial issues that we expect our representative to understand and be knowledgeable about, if he wants to be our voice in Washington. (my emphasis)

So much for all politics being local.

I guess Dick Armey needed a break from chaperoning teabaggers:

In August 2009 Armey was asked to step down from his lobbying position at DLA Piper, which was doing lobbying work for the pharmaceutical industry to pass health care reform legislation. Armey was simultaneously chairing the conservative group FreedomWorks which was actively working to defeat health care reform by encouraging and organizing high conservative turnouts at congressional and senatorial town hall meetings. DLA Piper was concerned about the conflict of interest particularly since their clients were spending millions in advertising and lobbying money to support the passage of health care reform and FreedomWorks was linked to demonstrations at town hall forums where health care reform was being discussed.

ndm

November 2nd, 2009 6:59pm Report this comment

conservative values (guns, abortion, gay marriage etc) are also on the increase across the board.

I don't think there is anything conservative about pandering to popular prejudice. The reality is that there are not enough fiscal conservatives in America that they are forced to make common cause with a populist and bigoted rabble.

Conservative Cabbie

November 2nd, 2009 7:48pm Report this comment

ndm

"I don't think there is anything conservative about pandering to popular prejudice."

Because Democrats never pander. Welfare, affirmative action, union bailouts, no tort reform in healthcare bills etc

But there is something very conservative in recognising one's heritage. Guns, bible and a believe in the sanctity of life are all part America's tradition, which means that they are all very much "conservative issues".

Conservative Cabbie

November 2nd, 2009 7:58pm Report this comment

Just one other race of note that has received very little attention, the house special election in CA-10. This is a very safe Democratic district (D+11) which Obama carried with 65% of the vote. Not many polls in what looked to be an easy win for the Democrats, but obe poll I saw had Democrats only up by 7, the other had the Democrat winning by 10% but with only 50% of the vote and very few undecideds. So like the other races, the Democratic vote is seriously depressed, even in dark blue California.

ndm

November 2nd, 2009 9:07pm Report this comment

Because Democrats never pander. Welfare, affirmative action, union bailouts, no tort reform in healthcare bills etc

Given that 100,000 American's die because of medical mistakes the ability to bring a civil action against a medical practitioner is an important form of regulation. The reason Republicans love tort reform is that they are not the party of the American people they are the party of American business - an American business that does not want to be regulated in any form either bureaucratically or legally.

The Republican party panders - because it has no institutional concern for the interests of any of the people it pretends to represent. Its primary concern is the transfer of the entire tax burden from wealthy Americans to poor Americans as demonstrated by its continued desire to abolish all taxation on capital income in favour of taxation of labour income.

Vulture

November 3rd, 2009 10:14am Report this comment

I like it, Mr Massie. Getting your excuses in (at inordinate length as well) for Republican/Conservative victories over your hero before they have even happened.

New Joisey, Virginia and Noo Yawk are such different places that only one explanation stands up if the Reps/Cons really do achieve a hattrick: the Blessed One is a busted flush.

We're a quarter way through the BO's entire term and are yet to see a single successful policy emerge. On every issue, from Health to Banks, from Iran to Israel; from Afghanistan to Guantanamo and from Russia to taxes he has dithered, ducked and dived, preferring to spend time on the golf course or windbagging in a TV studio than take a decision.

Face it, Mr Massie : the guy's a dud. The US is waking up to the fact that the BO is a bozo of awesome proportions.

Conservative Cabbie

November 3rd, 2009 10:14am Report this comment

ndm

"Its primary concern is the transfer of the entire tax burden from wealthy Americans to poor Americans as demonstrated by its continued desire to abolish all taxation on capital income in favour of taxation of labour income."

Thankyou for the left wing talking point, unfortunately it bears no resemblance to the truth.

"In 2006, the top 5% of U.S. taxpayers, those with gross annual incomes of at least $153,500, paid about 60% of all income tax collected. In contrast, the 50% of taxpayers with incomes under $32,000, paid less than 3% of the total taxes collected. Taxpayers in the top 1%, those with incomes of $388,800 or more, paid almost 40% of all taxes collected.

The 40% of all federal taxes paid by the wealthiest 1% of Americans represents the highest percentage of all taxes they have paid since 1986,"

As for Tort reform. A recent CBO analysis showed that tort reform would cut healthcare costs by $54 billion. Wasn't cost savings one of the intentions of healthcare reform? Tort reform just caps the silly awards handed out, it doesn't prevent the injured parties from suing. We all know why Democrats oppose tort reform. It's not out of care for the public at large, but to protect the paymasters of the Democratic party; the lawyers.

Anyway I'm glad you think the Democrats are there to help the poor in america, they've been 'doing that' since the great society in the sixties. So how are the inner city poor doing today? Detroit, Chicago, LA all bereft of poverty today are they? You never know, whils its taken them forty years to date, maybe one day they'll get it right. Or is the real truth that the Democrats need to keep people poor and dependant on government handouts because if they didn't, there would be no point to the party.

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