Club For Growth Harms Gop Growth

January 23rd, 2009 at 12:03 pm by Bradley Smith | 10 Comments |

I’m embarrassed by the party’s decline among college educated and suburban voters. But consider this paradox: The Club for Growth, with whom I generally agree on substance, draws its primary support from the party’s college-educated, suburban, more libertarian wing. Yet few have done more to run northeastern moderates out of the party or worked harder to shrink the party’s base by cleansing it of “RINOs.” The implicit assumption in the Club’s strategy was that if more fiscally conservative candidates defeated incumbent moderates in GOP primaries, those conservative candidates would go on to win the general election, aided by gerrymandered districts. Too little attention was given to the possibility that some moderate voters might leave the party, or that the finer one gerrymanders districts, the more even a slight change in voter preference can lead to disaster.

10 responses so far

1 artigiano // Jan 23, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Do you people on the right ever stop to “war game” different options before you do anything? No wonder the right is infected by magical thinking. “Obama will soon screw up so bad voters will flock back to us. There is no problem. We don’t have anything to fix.” Before you make any move ask, “What’s the worse that could happen if this doesn’t play out the way we hope?” That one simple question, that was never asked, could h
2 artigiano // Jan 23, 2009 at 4:18 pm

could have saved the McCain campaign and the Bush presidency.
3 tarazeigler // Jan 23, 2009 at 5:03 pm

The whole concept of the RINO is bizarre to me. Is it impossible for a party to have members with different points of view? Seems to me that competition of ideas (as long as some core values are shared) strengthens a party. Republicans should do all they can to eliminate RINO from their collective vocabulary.
4 DL_Marble // Jan 23, 2009 at 9:03 pm

The Republican Party as it stands now is like Democrat Lite, So there is not really any room in a party that is suppose to stand for a Small Federal Government, With people in control of the government, and not Government in control of the people. Low Taxes, NO Bail Outs, Free market Capitalism, A party founded on the principals that our founders (Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Madison) stood for. So no there is no room for Democrat Lites or socialist types in the party. There is plenty of room in the open boarder, big tent, no fences, weak, liberal, Socialist Democratic Party of Dear Leader Obama. ** Remember A government big enough to give you everything, is big enough to take it all away-Barry Goldwater**
5 sinz54 // Jan 23, 2009 at 9:09 pm

Tarazeigler: The GOP has turned inward. Unable to turn on their own standard bearer, President Bush, for having dragged down the GOP’s election chances, many Republicans started to scapegoat each other instead. The GOP seems to have stopped reaching out to attract new members. Instead, existing members who are deemed insufficiently ideologically pure are now at risk of expulsion from the party. Note that this wasn’t the case in the Age of Reagan–because back then, Republicans were more concerned with bringing new members into the party than expelling existing ones. In 1980, George H.W. Bush, who had called Reagan’s economic proposals “voodoo economics,” was selected by Reagan as his running mate.
6 sinz54 // Jan 23, 2009 at 9:13 pm

DL_Marble: A political party that spends all its time expelling members due to “lack of room” for their beliefs, rather than bringing new blood into the party, is a shrinking party in its death throes. Remember: New blood will come with new ideas.
7 JackinMichigan // Jan 23, 2009 at 9:29 pm

Nah, I’m not buying it. Adding a few seats from NE districts isn’t worth the destruction a party’s “brand” that comes with their tax-hiking, big-spending, welfare-state loving elitist ways.

Besides, run a fiscally conservative candidate in those districts who represents the correct side of the People vs. the Political Class divide that’s the most important attribute of someone like Palin, and the GOP could win – without having to elect a “dead rat head in the Coke bottle” brand-destroyer, to use Grover’s charming analogy.
Jack in Michigan
8 ronin72 // Jan 24, 2009 at 4:13 pm

So, what does that make you, sinz? I have no problem laying blame at the feet of President Bush. He was the de-facto head of the party, and his refusal to push back on the fallacies and lies being spread about his party hamstrung us in the court of public opinion. But just because these lies have reached mantra status due to repetition, doesn’t mean we have to go along with the false narrative. The NE republican parties only have themselves to blame for their decline. They stuck to untenable positions and lost to the democrats, who embraced the minority populations of their states. The stuffy country club caricature of the Rockefeller Republican is the fault of these elites and their old, crusty ideas. The State GOP leaderships that have no vision and no voice have nothing to add at a national level.
9 DL_Marble // Jan 25, 2009 at 11:21 am

New Blood not afraid to stand for the Old Idea of Freedom is what is needed.
10 MSheridan // Jan 26, 2009 at 6:59 pm

As I (an outsider) see it, the problem the Republican Party currently has is that although the libertarians and the fiscal conservatives branches agree on the low tax part of the platform, the social conservatives mostly don’t care (unless they’re ALSO libertarian or fiscal conservatives). Moreover, libertarians want significantly smaller government, but the fiscal and social conservatives generally do not (some fiscal conservatives are still convinced lowering taxes will always raise revenue to pay for expensive stuff). Sure, the small government line gets used a lot, but who in Washington or elsewhere has shown themselves willing to take the heat to really swing that budget ax? I haven’t seen it. Sure, there are Republicans happy to reduce some social programs…at the same exact time they increase the budget in other areas. You guys are going to have to give up trying to be all things to all Republicans and pick positions that aren’t so contradictory. I’m not saying there aren’t politically consistent Republicans out there; I’m just saying you’re not consistent with each other, even though you kept up the pretense for a very long time.