The GOP: A Comedy of Errors

Even before everyone's favorite Governor of Alaska decided to abruptly call it quits yesterday I was wanting to write on the current state of the GOP. I am a big believer that this country needs a unified, articulate, successful opposition to help the party in power govern. That President Clinton's most successful years came while working with a Republican controlled House is not a fluke, in my opinion. But here we are, well into the first year of the Obama Presidency, and the Democrats are being forced to have a dialogue with themselves. The Republicans are running out Cheney, Gingrich, McCain and Romney to spit out talking points, which is an awful lot like the San Diego Chargers running Johnny Unitas out in the 1973 season: past success doesn't change the fact that they are washed up and, generally speaking, useless. But to fully understand how we got here, and then to appreciate the awful situation which the GOP finds itself in, we need to take into consideration the past nine years. Only then can one begin to truly grasp how badly the Republicans screwed themselves, and how lacking they are in national political talent.

Think back to early 2001. Following the divided election of George W. Bush the country was split, and the GOP had seemingly won little to nothing; while they held the Presidency they also were on uneven ground. Bush and his team worked to pick off a conservative Democrat here and there in an attempt to move forward a pretty uninspiring domestic agenda. His team still came out firing, primarily on education. The Democrats, on the whole, seemed willing to work with Bush on issues which were mutually beneficial, while being more than willing to hold their ground and wait four years to take back the White House.

September 11, 2001 changed everything. It unified the country behind Bush, and it gave his Presidency a sense of purpose it had been lacking up to that point. The Democrats could no longer afford to stone wall Bush on issues they disagreed with him on (not that many of them wanted to any longer) for fear of being branded as "unpatriotic." The President's approval ratings shot to record highs, and he ended up with the political capital he was left without following his controversial election victory. Everyone fell in line behind him, and an entire legislative agenda was pushed through with little to no opposition.

By the midterm elections of 2002 the country was still more or less behind the President, and, by extension, his agenda. His approval rating, while down considerably from the 90% average he enjoyed following 9-11, still sat in the 60% range. Bush ... ok, Karl Rove ... used this popularity to do two things. First, he singled out those Democrats who had not fallen in line (and even some who had), those who were from more conservative districts, and began to paint a picture of them as "weak on terror" and, yes, "unpatriotic" for not supporting our troops. Second, Bush began canvassing the nation to campaign for any and every Republican candidate for office. I saw this in person when, in 2002, Bush came to South Bend Regional Airport to stump for Chris Chocola, an exceptionally weak candidate who's credentials were 1) being rich, and 2) being conservative. Running in a moderate to moderate liberal district, Chocola was given the upper hand by a lack of a viable Democratic candidate (Jill Long Thompson, the same joke the Democrats ran against Mitch Daniels in 2008), and by the President's popularity in Indiana. Bush pulled in $650,000 in one fundraiser alone for Chocola, and Chocola ended up winning the race.

George Washington University, in their 2002 midterm election review, noted that the President had "put his political capital on the line ... to an unprecedented degree." Historically, midterm elections are a bad time for the party of the sitting president, as they almost always lose seats (see Gingrich, Newt and "Contract With America," circa 1994 midterm election). Bush and his team bucked this trend in 2002, gaining seats in the House, taking back the senate, and even making gains in Governor's races and state legislatures across the country. Going forward having consolidated power and influence in the House and the Senate, Bush pushed onward with his biggest 1st term blunder: the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (Although I am admittedly biased, I will always maintain that his response to Hurricane Katrina was his biggest sin ... but that's another post for another day).

By 2004 Bush had seen his approval rating drop below 50%, and the war in Iraq had gone from an initial hit to a succubus which would eventually drain his Presidency of its capability to accomplish ... well, anything. Still, the Democrats were more than happy to help Bush out, nominating John F. Kerry, the unimpressive Junior Senator from Massachusetts, to run against him. In 2000 Bush had feasted on Al Gore's mind-numbing droning on during debates. In 2004 he got all the dryness of Gore with the unique Kerry style of not really standing for anything. That Bush would win re-election, given the circumstances, was not shocking; he was a wartime President running against a bland candidate who could not really be described as a better option. What was shocking on election night 2004 (and also a tribute to Rove's Machiavellian approach to elections) was that the GOP gained again in the House and the Senate.

With an unpopular President and an unpopular war, how was it that the Republicans continued to consolidate their power? Rove's political strategies, detailed well in many places, basically came down to one thing: polarize the electorate. For team Bush this meant using as many red herrings as possible. Rove believed that if they made the election about the right issues they could mobilize the Religious Right, boosting the number of guaranteed Republican voters. To that end, Rove used any issue the Right would fall in behind, most successfully gay marriage and abortion. The 2004 election showed the success of this strategy, as eleven states passed amendments codifying marriage as being between a man and a woman. The conservative turn out in these states helped Bush out, particularly in Ohio, a state thought to be 2004's version of Florida.

To Rove, and to much of the GOP, it seemed that team Bush had walked into an unbeatable electoral strategy: polarize everyone, excite the base, make the election about issues which you know you'll never be able follow through on, and, above all else, make sure the Democrats can be blamed when you fail to follow through. The GOP had gone from winning the Presidency on the shakiest of grounds in 2000, to unlikely midterm gains in 2002, and finally even more gains in 2004. Darrell M. West, a Professor at Brown University, articulated what many GOP strategists felt following the 2004 election. The election, West noted, offered "tantalizing hints how cultural and security issues are reshaping the national political landscape." On the whole, it did seem that the 2004 election was the validation for Rove's cut throat strategies.

Professor West, among many other political minds, correctly identified the biggest risk facing the Republican party: misinterpreting what their electoral triumph really meant, and being overconfident in their governing. "The risk for any party in control of government is that it misunderstands its mandate and over-reaches its own political support" West said. Bush came out talking about his increased political capital, about a mandate for all his policies. He chose to ignore the fact that his victory was, relatively speaking, razor thin (of course, compared to 2000, it probably felt huge to him). West's prophetic claim that there was "a distinct possibility that Republicans" would actually "misinterpret their party victory as a policy victory" ended up playing out exactly that way, and his warning that "Republicans should not conclude Americans have endorsed their agenda" went largely unheeded by the party leadership. Out of their unlikely string of political victories, the GOP comedy of errors began.

If you follow Bush's approval ratings from 2004 through 2008 the story really tells itself: the briefest of brief honeymoon bumps got him back into the 50% range, from which point he trended downward to under 30% for much of his last year in office. The Republicans went back to the well one too many times in 2006, and suffered an epic, if much more historically consistent, midterm defeat, as the Democrats gained 32 seats in the House and seven in the Senate. Rove's Republican Era was over before it truly began, and in 2008, while the nation was captivated with the Hillary - Barack showdown, the Republican's quietly tried to find a candidate who would have a prayer of making things interesting. The front runners, including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, made a series of huge mistakes, none more so than Giuliani's decision not to even give it a try until Florida. Honestly, look at the following chart of top Republican Contenders, courtesy of Pollster.com:

Giuliani, the purple line, totally screwed himself out of this one. Romney (green), considered to be a contender due to his personal wealth, made a small run at it, but was eclipsed even by MIKE HUCKABEE!!! (brown), who really came out of nowhere. Much has been made about the McCain (orange) campaign's death and subsequent rebirth, but when you look at the competition he had is it really that shocking? At the end of the day the Republicans made the most logical choice, and supported the candidate they should have supported in 2000. Unfortunately for them, this was not 2000, it was 2008, and McCain was stuck between a rock and a hard place. McCain may not have fully been in Unitas circa San Diego 1973 mode, but he was at the very least in Brett Favre in a Jets uniform mode: he could carry the team for an all too brief moment which only served to remind you of what he once was, and make you wonder why he was still putting the pads on. It was McCain's dream to be Commander in Chief, and in his prime he might have even made a good one. Still, one can't help but wonder why he was willing to take the blows for a party which was clearly a sinking ship.

The GOP didn't help McCain at all, of course. He is a smart enough politician to realize he was running against the tide, and that he needed a game changer. He sought that game changer in the form of the Independent Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman (who, everyone should be aware, looks eerily similar to the Dark Lord of the Sith, Chancellor Palpatine ... seriously, look at those two and tell me they are not the same person.) Lieberman, who was Gore's VP pick in 2000, had been challenged in a Democratic Primary over his support for the War in Iraq. The Democrats stupidly pushed the issue, and he lost the primary, leading to the inevitable outcome of Lieberman running as an independent and winning. Lieberman, by all accounts, would have gladly run with his old friend John McCain. He would have been a moderating force, which would have increased the appeal of the McCain campaign to the large percentage of voters in this country who are independent or moderate Democrat. Playing from behind the 8-ball at the start of the campaign, this was the game changer McCain needed to be competitive with Obama. The Republican party heads vetoed the idea, outwardly because of "legal issues" in a handful of states. In addition to these legal hurdles, the reality was that many influential members of the Republican National Convention promised a floor fight over Lieberman should McCain choose him.

Left with a ton of bland candidates with little to no chance of making a difference, McCain did what "Mavericks" do: he gambled. Rather than sticking with the status-quo and picking someone uninspiring (see Pawlenty, Tim), or choosing someone who could bring some money but would be a guaranteed bad fit with McCain (see Romney, Mitt), McCain dug into the batters box and swung for the fences ...

... and America let out with a unified "who's she?" Sarah Palin, the 1st term Governor of the State of Alaska was certainly an unconventional pick, but she also had the potential to help McCain in a number of areas. First, she was a woman, so the GOP believed that she had a chance to skim away some Hillary supporters who were still jaded that the primary was "stolen" from her (check out this site for a good example of the junk people were saying at the time). Second, she was so far out of left field that she couldn't be tied to Bush, Cheney, Rove, or Iraq, enabling the McCain campaign to play up its "Maverick" credentials while claiming to be the real reformist option. Finally, Palin gave McCain someone from another generation who could be used to attempt to steal back some of the youth vote which had so solidly shifted to Obama.

Palin gave McCain a bump, and she electrified the party at its national convention. It seemed quite possible that she would actually help to make the race close, and for a moment it appearedthat McCain's gamble had paid off. But, like a high fly ball fighting to leave the park when the wind is blowing in, the Palin pick ended up not even having warning track power, let alone enough juice to leave the yard. Culminating with her epic train wreck of an interview with Katie Couric, as well as her uninspiring debate performance (she would have made W. look like an intellectual) Palin sputtered out and all McCain had left to show for his gamble was a fresh feeling that if he made this poor of a choice for his second in command then all bets were off regarding his ability to make good choices for the country.

Obama's resounding election night victory was hardly a surprise given the circumstances; even a conservative gambling man could have seen the signs and made some money on it. Obama won by an astounding 192 electoral college votes, and the Democrats ended up netting 9 additional Senate seats and another 24 seats in the House. The decimation of the Roveian GOP era was complete, and the country seemed poised to allow the Democrats to run the ship for quite some time.

But if the GOP's meteoric rise and fall have taught us anything, it is that political capital is much easier to lose than to gain. The fear among some Democrats is that as the House pushes Obama's policies further and further to the left, the electorate will respond in the same way it did to Bush and the Republicans in 2006: a stinging rebuke of their overstepping their means. I feel that there is a chance you'll see some of this play out in 2010; in fact, as mentioned before, history almost assures us that the Republicans will see some gains in the midterm elections. But, to bring this full circle, what about 2012? Who will the Republicans run that could have even a shot of taking down Obama? All we've seen thus far on the national circuit are retread options almost assured of failing, or with no shot of actually being considered. Gingrich, Cheney, Romney ... the Republicans have no voice. And in the time since Obama was sworn in three Republicans considered to be legitimate contenders have hit major road blocks:

- The Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, who was viewed in some circles as the "Republican Obama," bombed in his response to President Obama's address to Congress February 24th.
- The Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, went AWOL, then later admitted to an affair with a woman from Argentina. He had been the chair of the Republican Governor's Association.
- And the heart throb of the far right, Alaska Governor and 2008 GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin abruptly quit mid-term this week, causing as much confusion and division within the party ranks as her selection in the first place.

It is foolish to predict who will be a party's candidate this far out; in 2005 very few people truly had Barack Obama even on the radar, and even as late as December 2007 Hillary Clinton was the forgone conclusion in most circles. Still, when you look at the GOP, take into account the epic collapse the party has found itself in since 2004, and consider how rapidly the "leading candidates" are falling off the ledge, one can't help but wonder who they will find to challenge Obama. If the economy improves even a little in the next year it is even more likely that Obama will be close to bulletproof heading into 2012. Perhaps the signals are in actions of another hopeful, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has announced he will not run for re-election in 2010. There are certainly plenty of Republicans positioning themselves for a run, but the real question is who would want to run when a defeat is, at this point, a near certainty.

The best strategy for the GOP is one of unifying and moderating themselves. The party needs people like Colin Powell more now than ever, and they need blowhards like Rush Limbaugh even less. They need Dick Cheney to just go away. They need someone with Gingrich's charisma, but they don't need Gingrich, a man with too much bagage and history to do much good. They need someone more genuine than Romney, more intellectual than Huckabee, and with more grace under pressure than Jindal. They need someone who says "we're moving forward," rather than someone who screams "we're staying in the past." They need to be the party who actually follows through on balanced budgets, rather than saying one thing and doing another. But above all else they need to put the politics of Rove behind them, and the neocon policies of the Bush administration in the past.

I don't know where the next dynamic Republican leader is, but I'm sure that person is out there. James Carville, one of my favorite political commentators (due to his outrageous style), has proudly proclaimed that the Democrats will rule the next 40 years. James is wrong; American's love their two party system, and history indicates that his 40 year prediction might be a little long even if everything breaks the Democrat's way and this is a perfect storm of liberalism. Even the New Deal era saw a strong Republican interlude (in the form of Eisenhower) in the midst of it, and that era was the most consolidated power has probably ever been in this country's history. The Republican era we are just now leaving had a blip with Carter, as well as the more solidified Clinton era, and it was only in 1994 that the full Congress came around. A 40 year domination is highly unlikely, but, so long as Obama can control the fringes of his party who are now in control of the House, the Democrats do have a chance to do what the GOP couldn't do: embrace the trend and consolidate power for a few decades. And if they manage to do that the GOP has nobody to blame but itself, because they had a golden opportunity ... and blew it.