October 14, 2010

Greatness is Incompatible with Moderation

As the gulf between GOP and Democrats widens, the center is lost

By David S. Broder

Thursday, October 14, 2010
Dipping back into conversation in the capital on a brief break from the campaign trail, I heard


I like dipping back into articles that start with subject reference errors. It sets a real tone of incompetence I can sink my teeth into. Unless Broder is implying that he was the one dipping back into conversation—which he clearly isn’t—this is embarrassing for a professional writer.


members of Congress, lobbyists and political operatives


…What are political hacks with the most to lose from sweeping reform, Alex. (That’s a Jeopardy reference, for those of you who don’t have the TV viewing schedule of a 76 year old hobbyist with Angina.)



stewing about one topic above all others: What happens if this election blows up the center of American politics?


This is Washington in a nutshell: the numbskulls (apparently my vocabulary today is that of a 76 year old hobbyist with Angina too) are more focused on the retention of power and influence than which candidates are right about their vision for the country. Forgive me for not sharing the fears of the worst people in the country.


On both sides, they seem to accept the inevitability of significant Democratic losses,


Any particular reason why, David?


although one former party chairman,


Nope. Too much to ask for.


enjoying a holiday on the Nile,


Am I supposed to be impressed by how worldly this shadowy ex-pol is?


told me by phone that he thinks the Democrats might retain their majorities in the House and Senate.


And the power of multicultural love might convince Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. That doesn’t make it a good premise to plan around.


But he was no less worried


Could he possibly have sounded any less worried? I wonder if this is the apathy of the source or the shoddy writing of the author. I’ll settle for a combination of the two.


about the prospects for President Obama's government


INSULATE THE CHOSEN ONE!


than any of the others I interviewed. The common fear is that the swing to the right that everyone expects on Nov. 2 will include such wild gyrations


David, pay attention. What’s been going on the last two years…that was the wild gyration. Obama’s policies have been so extreme that it took a mere 18 months for unprecedented support of the President to morph into what could be a 70 seat swing in the House. This is what politicians should recognize as a return to normalcy.


and produce such untried novices that the partisan warfare of the past two years will seem mild by comparison.


By “partisan warfare,” he means “Democrats getting less than everything they want.”


Bill Galston, the


[Liberal]


Brookings Institution's resident political philosopher, was the first of the day to point out that, statistically speaking, the center had already disappeared.


And good riddance!


He was referring to the congressional voting studies, which I have previously cited, showing that, apparently for the first time, there is no overlap between the most liberal Republican in the House and the most conservative Democrat when it comes to roll-call votes.


Unless Broder is leveling the claim that the Republican party radicalized during the Bush years--a preposterous claim given Bush’s centrist (at best) domestic policy and the GOP’s selection of John McCain in 2008-then any evidence of ideological kurtosis indicates that Democrats initiated the ideological purging by selecting wildly out-of-the-mainstream candidates like President Obama (the most liberal Senator) and Vice President Biden (the third most liberal Senator).


Historically, there have always been a few Republicans who voted often with the Democrats


Read: Cowards


and a few more Democrats who lined up regularly with the Republicans.


Read: Conservatives too dumb to see the Democrat Party for what it was.


But now the ideological lines are more sharply drawn, and the distance between the parties is greater.


And as the distinction has crystallized, conservatives have won the battle of ideas.

What I found on my return from a reporting trip to the Midwest was a widespread expectation that the gulf will be expanded by the election results.

When the President threatens “hand to hand combat” in response to a massive electoral mandate rejecting his agenda, political conflict is a pretty fair bet.

Obviously, we don't know who will emerge as winners.

Hint: it isn’t Obama.

But there has been so much focus on some of the Republican primaries, where solid conservatives

Provide examples, please. Nevermind; I’ll do it for you.
  • Bill Bennett in Utah is a fairly reliable conservative. While that’s respectable, he’s also representing Utah, arguably the most conservative state in the union.
  • Charlie Crist has shown himself to be anything other than a conservative. “Electability” is not a qualifying criterion for conservatism.
  • Lisa Murkowski, from solidly red Alaska, was rated the 35th most conservative Senator. Not good enough.
  • Mike Castle, of the oft maligned Delaware primary win of Christine O’Donnell, was the given a Conservative ranking of 53.7 in 2007, worse than no fewer than two Democrats.
have been upset by men and women even further to the right, that the stereotype

The only people you’re allowed to stereotype anymore are Republicans.

of a party of Sarah Palins is understandable.

Sigh. If only.


The notion may be misguided. Surely some of the challengers whose credentials look most questionable will be stopped short of victory. And others whose opening comments seemed inflammatory may be doused with practicality along the way.


Kind of like when the Republicans offered moderate candidates to support the McCain ticket in 2008? After all, look at all the stunning success that conservative moderation can point to!


Nonetheless, what has dawned on official Washington is that one of our great political parties -- Republican –


Thanks for clarifying, Champ. The context was dizzyingly complex.


has undergone much more than the normal between-elections transition. And the other -- Democratic -- is having a helluva struggle adjusting to the change.


Does this guy still think that the problem with the Democratic Party is the message? Of course, Democrats have been scattered and myopic this entire election cycle, but that’s because they have nothing of substance to run on other than personal smears and fear-mongering. The only candidate I know of that’s running on the Obama Administration’s record is Alexi Giannoulious, who has turned the solid-blue electoral monolith of Illinois into a race where the Republican Kirk—who is both distinctly moderate (having voted in favor of Cap and Trade in the House) and vastly flawed (having misrepresented his military service)—will win (depending on the cemetery vote in Chicago).


The Democrats oscillate between depicting their Republican opponents as know-nothing radicals, with barely a fragmentary libertarian view of government,


Fragmentary doesn’t feel like the right word there. Just like modernist architecture isn’t incomplete, the Libertarian view simply opposes the corruption of excess.


or as pawns of a sophisticated Wall Street financial combine.


Even Broder is mocking this one.


They are happiest when the opponent permits them to dress him in Nazi garb.


I’ll take this one more in-depth later. Suffice it to say that I have absolutely no problem with war reenactment. I have no problem with playing the villain in a re-enactment. Think back to when you played Cowboys and Indians as a kid. Remember the kid who always insisted on being the Cowboy because he got to be the hero and could fire the cool toy gun? That’s Broder.


The Republican leaders have to take the question of who these people are much more seriously,


The voters already took them seriously. That’s why we have primary elections.


because these freshmen will soon be sitting in and calling signals for their caucuses.


Yes. As Barack Obama constantly reminded conservatives, elections have consequences.


The fact that so many of them are being financed in their races by new, non-party, interest-group political operations makes the options for wild political swings even greater.


And makes the position of the entrenched power structure of the Republican Party all the more precarious. This strikes me as a good thing.


I don't foresee a challenge to Mitch McConnell or John Boehner for the GOP leadership in the Senate or House when the new classes gather in Washington. But I see a clear test ahead for those leaders.


This is not ultimately a radical nation,


The President found that out. It took less than 18 months for the nation to collectively recoil in horror over his policies.


and those Republicans who are in love with radical notions of remaking the society to fit their own philosophy


I still don’t see any evidence of radicalism. With the entire leadership structure of a Political Party (Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, and Dean) as stauch leftists, the idea of moving too far right seems laughably absurd.


will have to be brought back in touch with reality.


Will they? Who’s going to have to do it, and is that a threat?


When a party fails to do that,


You mean, police itself to oust ideological outliers (As in: O’Donnell over Castle, Miller over Murkowski, Rubio over Crist, …)


it can find the seeds of its own destruction in the victory banquet. Republicans, and the country, deserve better.


This is precisely the opposite of what’s going on.

I didn’t vote in 2008; I couldn’t bring myself to support a party that thought John McCain was capable of representing my views, although the senator has pivoted right quite well in the last few months. I knew that by withholding my vote, I was, in effect, voting for Barack Obama, a man who I recognized as a full-blown socialist. When the New York Republican Party selected liberal  Dede Scozzafava—without a primary—to run in a winnable, conservative-friendly race, I was one more bad experience away from writing off the Republican Party.

Then things turned. Scozzafava ended up pulling out of the race in favor of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. And he almost won. Then Bob McDonnell won in Virginia and Chris Christie won in New Jersey. The Tea Party kicked in, and threw their weight behind the Republican Party. And all of a sudden, mere weeks after the debacle in New York 23, there was hope again.

But I have not been blinded by that hope, and I know that I am not alone. The people of this country are lining up, giving their energy, their support, and their money to conservative candidates across the country who have been trusted with the last hope for the Republican Party:

Either the Republican Party stands firm in its conservative principles, or I’ll find another party that will.

Precisely the opposite of Broder’s delusions, the survival of the Republican party is derived from its refusal to pander to pundits pining for the mythical “moderates” of the old Republic. Make no mistake, this is the Republican Party’s last chance to resist the masochistic urge to moderate and truly stand for something great. 

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