Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin in Politico today:
Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction. There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense. “There is a sense of rebellion brewing,” said Katon Dawson, the outgoing South Carolina Republican Party chairman, who cited unexpectedly high attendance at anti-tax “tea parties” last week.
That’s for sure right. We are a very angry party these days: I hear that whenever I talk to Republican groups.
The problem is that we are also a very small party these days. The WashingtonPost/ABC News poll released this weekend contains some very ominous news for those who imagine that anti-Obama anger will float conservatives back into political power.
It’s not just the 69% approval rating for the president or the 50% “right track” number (the highest since the liberation of Baghdad in April 2003). It’s the other side of the ledger.
Only 18% of Americans “strongly disapprove” of the policies of the Obama administration. Another 8% “disapprove somewhat.”
A political strategy aimed at riling up the angriest 18% can certainly bring hundreds of thousands into the streets. But such a strategy carries an attendant risk of alienating people conservatives need to woo.
Notice deeper in the poll that Republican party identification has dropped to 21% – about the lowest figure since Watergate, if I remember right. There’s some comfort that 35% of Americans still identify as “conservatives.” But that bigger number implies that at least half of American conservatives do not “strongly disapprove” of the Obama administration!
Maybe the point of events like the tea parties is to mobilize 100% of conservative America against President Obama. If Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Mark Levin keep insisting that Obama is a pro-pirate fascist Marxist, perhaps they can push that “strongly disapprove” number up to 30% or 35%. But that strategy does seem to concede the president all of moderate and independent America – and a clear path to re-election in 2012.
Here’s a question to consider. Think of the past 5 or 10 election cycles: Obama v McCain, Bush v Kerry, Bush v Gore, Clinton v Dole and all the way back to World War II. Except for Harry Truman in 1948, can you name a single one where the angrier candidate won? Could there possibly be a lesson in that record?
24 responses so far
1 joemarier // Apr 27, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Well, there’s a bit of hindsight bias there. The loser seems a bit angrier in retrospect; if GHW Bush lost in 1988, he would have been perceived as the angrier candidate then, I think. Perot was the angriest candidate in 1992 by far, but 1992 was weird. 1994 was portrayed as the triumph of “angry white men”; was that unfair?
2 joemarier // Apr 27, 2009 at 12:24 pm
One further point: anger seems to work pretty well in midterm elections! 2006, 1994, 1966, 1958, 1946.
3 oldwhig // Apr 27, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Gore was the angrier candidate in 2000 (in my view) and he won the popular vote.
4 Brutus1776 // Apr 27, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Mr. Frum,
Interestingly enough. I remember this same argument being made by Mr. Limbaugh (el Rushbo) during the 2004 election cycle. I am slightly more inclined to be angry with (at?) the current liberal tidal wave and their absurd policies, than with my fellow conservatives. I feel like you are asking for some sort of sensitivity toward the liberals (while they derail our Constitutional right to filibuster, and prosecute prior Administration officials), while you are not being as sensitive to the anguish of some of our fellow conservatives.
5 Bulldoglover100 // Apr 27, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Gosh David….ever look at the facts? The small size of the party these days is because the MAJORITY of the “party” os NOT the uneducated, angry tea baggers. They are people like me who live in middle America and are just fed up with the lies and the nut jobs on the right running our party. You talk about conservatives like only the religious right is conservative but they are just a small part of this party. Those of us who deal in the reality of the world today have more couth than to go screaming down the street shouting about taxes when we KNOW 95% of us got a tax break this year.
Thats the problem that people in this party making decisions are missing. The majority of us? are not coming home as long as the right wing nut jobs are making the decisions. Period.
We ARE the invisable majority of the GOP and without us? The screamers are doomed to be important to no one and can never win another National election.
6 Bulldoglover100 // Apr 27, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Brutus1776…the “Right” to fillibuster was down the toilet when Bush/Cheney used it 12 times during the last 8 years to pass what they wanted to pass. The libs are only now following suit.
Our party MUST deal in facts or we are as bad as the Left.
7 Brutus1776 // Apr 27, 2009 at 1:46 pm
[Bulldoglover100] I would respectfully point out that the filibuster is a Senatorial technique. I am not quite sure what you are referring to ie. President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Furthermore, the 60 vote cloture rule is a very important check and balance against a tyrannical majority (Madison in the Federalist Papers broaches this topic nicely). I assure you, that I am dealing in facts, and facts tend to be “stubborn things.”
Also, 95% of “us” did not get tax breaks, 95% of “working class” Americans, a term that President Obama never did a good job fully defining, received tax breaks.
I would like to point out that the people I came across at my Tea Party were good, down to earth Marylanders. No one was screaming, people had signs and flags and there was maybe 3 of the entire hoi polloi that yelled comments during speeches. In the end, I think you are being slightly pretentious in your denunciation of these people for yelling and ranting, while I have noticed slightly similar techniques being employed by yourself on these comment sections. Not a sermon, just a thought
8 ModerateGal // Apr 27, 2009 at 3:16 pm
So, Brutus, is it wrong for Republicans to ever use reconciliation, or is it just wrong for Democrats to use it? Or is it wrong for it ever to be used by anyone? I am not arguing with you. I am just trying to understand your point.
9 ModerateGal // Apr 27, 2009 at 3:29 pm
And David is right, no moderates are going to be wooed by the far right with their current behavior. And I can testify to this as a moderate.
10 Mike K // Apr 27, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I would say that Gore (who won the popular vote as noted below) and Carter were both angrier candidates. On the matter of the angry small party, have any of you moderates who deplore the conservatives sticking to principles considered the possibility that Obama is wrong ? That his policies are fundamentally and dangerously wrong ? I don’t see how his budget numbers can lead to anything but catastrophic inflation and sky high interest rates (If we expect anybody to buy t-bills). In foreign policy, he is inviting a catastrophe in Pakistan and a possible second successful attack in the US.
I think there is something to be said for telling the truth and sticking with some basic principles. I am pro-choice and I would be willing to go along with gay marriage except for a nagging fear that there is an agenda that is profoundly anti-religious. On financial matters and national defense, I will stay with the people who don’t think every question is a matter to settle with politics.
I think Obama is leading the country off the cliff. I have been voting since 1960 and was badly frightened by Neville Shute’s novel “On the Beach” when it came out in the 50s. We survived the cold war with steady, wise leadership from both parties. Nothing in our history has looked as risky as the course Obama is taking. The Democrats are choosing to avoid any compromise. They will ram these things through and ignore Republicans. The same sort of thing happened in the California legislature ten years ago and Republicans did not stand their ground. California is nearly bankrupt and will be soon. The California Republican party has absolutely no credibility except for a few like Tom McClintock.
Of course, I don’t do politics for a living. I can wait it out until Obama’s plans are seen to be as empty as they are. It might not take that long:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042501870.html
11 danbmil99 // Apr 27, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Worth a read — the Oklahoma GOP platform for 2009:
http://www.tulsagop.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009_platform_tulsa1.pdf
Obviously Oklahoma is not the national platform. However, if the GOP retracts to the point where a few states in the south like OK represent their views, this is what the national platform will look like in 2012. They’ll hold their nose and nominate a moderate like Palin.
It’s just insane. There’s no place for me in a party that prints this kind of nonsense, even in one wingnut state.
12 danbmil99 // Apr 27, 2009 at 6:25 pm
a bit more about the OK GOP platform:
“The equality of all people before the Law that individuals should be judged without regard to race, gender, creed, disability or
age;”
Obviously, sexual preference ain’t on that list. Okay, fair enough. But here’s the rub: how many decades did it take for the GOP to get to the point where they (perhaps begrudgingly) admit that race, gender, and creed should not be a basis for discrimination? Certainly it wasn’t that way when I was born (1959).
It just seems like they’ve been on a rearguard action for most of my lifetime — attempting to appease a core base that frankly doesn’t like difference, doesn’t like cultural diversity, doesn’t like anything about how society has changed in the last 100 years.
Now that the chips are down, their true colors come out yet again. It’s not a good thing.
13 Mike K // Apr 27, 2009 at 8:45 pm
“how many decades did it take for the GOP to get to the point where they (perhaps begrudgingly) admit that race, gender, and creed should not be a basis for discrimination? “
I’ suggest you start with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. See who actually voted for it and who voted against it. Then, once you get that down, look at the history of anti-lynching legislation in the Senate, especially. See who was filibustering. I suppose, as a graduate exercise, you could look into the formation of the Republican party but that might be too much work.
I don’t believe you’re a Republican.
14 danbmil99 // Apr 28, 2009 at 1:35 am
MikeK: I am not nor have I ever claimed to be a Republican. As a party with an ever-dwindling base of support, I would think you might want to encourage independents such as myself to join the party, especially in a supposedly moderate blog such as this. Instead, there is an air of hostility to anyone who isn’t already both a member of the party, and a strong adherent to the opinions of its most rightward wing (the only wing worth keeping, apparently).
While it is true that the southern Democrats were the main opponents to the Civil Rights Act of ‘64, I’m sure you know the history well enough to understand what the GOP did to encourage the “southern realignment” in the 60’s and later. The GOP platform has consistently drifted away from support for the rights of minorities since then. They stopped supporting equal rights for women in 1980. They have never supported gay rights.
I stand by my assertion that the core of the party is resistant to the cultural changes taking place in society. Perhaps historically they have supported certain specific minorities in principle, but in practice they are constantly arguing against anything they see as “activist”, and often use this language as code to court their base, which remains hostile to gay rights as well as true gender equality.
15 ottovbvs // Apr 28, 2009 at 5:20 am
The numbers in all these polls all basically tell the same story. There unanimity is uncanny. And yet the most common responses I see from Republican bloggers are the polls are fixed, the Wapo’s in the tank for Obama, Rasmussen’s more accurate when it’s clear he’s the outlier, this is still a conservative country. In short the total denial of reality that has enveloped the right on almost every issue. As you work through the anatomy of that ABC/WAPO poll it’s very ominous for Republicans but what are you going to do when they reject info scientifically arrived at. It’s basically the same as their penchant for denying the science on global warming, stem cell research, evolution and all the other stuff. It’s basically become the party that rejects education, professional expertise, managerial skill, empirical evidence, commonsense, etc in favor of some vague and angry populism. As I frequently say here this is probably a process that has to be gone through. There have clearly got to be a lot more NY 20’s before the Republican party gets the message.
16 ottovbvs // Apr 28, 2009 at 5:36 am
danbmil99
6:20 PM
Actually if you read the GOP national platform for 2008 it wasn’t that different from the OK one although some of the more extreme stuff was sugar coated.
Mike K
8:45 PM
All this harking back to political alignments pre civil rights are largely facile. The Southern Democrats were just as conservative in the main as Taft Republicans in the North and they were in many ways a single issue party. Segregation. The only reason they called themselves democrats was because of historical events during the civil war and reconstruction. Once civil right s was out of the way the Southern democrats became what they were all along…ultra conservative Republicans. In fact the major brake on progressive policies by FDR, Truman and Eisenhower were alliances between Taft Republicans and Southern Democrats where things like union rights were traded for blocking desegregation.
Underlying what’s happening at the moment and which Obama has alluded to are tectonic demographic and attitudinal shifts that I just don’t think the GOP comprehends or even if it does comprehend them it can’t respond to because it’s become a prisoner of its movement conservatives. This has imposed a doctrinal rigidity on the party which deeply shapes its strategy and tactics and which I really don’t see how it breaks out of. It would requre a pivot similar to other historic realignments and there’s no sign the GOP is prepared for this at present.
17 Brutus1776 // Apr 28, 2009 at 5:38 am
Danbmil: Obviously the intricacies of history as it pertains to situations such as the Civil Rights movement and party platforms transcends the justice we could do for it on this small comment section. I cannot believe that it took this lengthy amount of time for you to understand that the Conservative foundation stands against change, by refusing to be bulldozed by unquestioned change, conservatism serves a purpose in forcing the people to question that change and amend it in a way that best serves society. (Remember Buckley? “Standing athwart history yelling “stop!”)
I personally do not see a problem with the Oklahoma platform. I see that you take issue with the aspect of discrimination:
“Obviously, sexual preference ain’t on that list. Okay, fair enough”
I fun snipe at those “backward conservatives”. But let’s be intellectually honest with each other. Race, gender, CREED, disability, or age encompasses the gestalt of the individual as is. By throwing in “sexual preference”, you have myopically narrowed down the field. Creed is important, because marriage is primarily a religious issue (Civil Unions are supported by many Republicans and is a government issue). How about the right of a religious orthodoxy that prefers to preserve their matrimonial tradition of one man and one woman?
I digress, a tome could be written (and has been) about these topics. I cannot understand why people come to NewMajority only to be condescending to Republicans and Conservatives. If you are more liberal, why force the Republicans left? Vote for a democrat then. We already have one leftist party, right Mr. danbmil99
I am sure you will respond with “I am Independent!” Which is the adult version of High Schoolers wearing Abercrombie and Lacoste to school to fit with their concept of ‘what’s cool’.
ModerateGal: Please don’t get me wrong, I never asked for all refusal to reconcile. The is the job of elected Republicans. However, the filibuster is their to be exercised in severe cases where we may feel it is necessary to stop a bill at all costs. Praising the filibuster rule does not make me inconsiderate of all change (I want retroactive change, I tend to be Reactionary in thought). Republicans are here to work with democrats and meet in the middle regarding policy. That is fine and dandy and I understand that’s how it works. CONSERVATIVES exist to keep the Republicans from drifting leftwards, not just to meet in the middle but to occupy it. We (those of us who actually are Conservatives) aren’t going to surrender our principles, but the Republicans will use those principles and amend them into workable policy. We have an interesting melding of multiple parties into two large ones. Two party system isn’t all that bad eh
18 sinz54 // Apr 28, 2009 at 7:11 am
In 2004, observing the anger emanating from the Howard Dean campaign (culminating in the infamous “Dean Scream”), Rush Limbaugh correctly observed: “Anger doesn’t win elections.”
His fans, and the rest of the GOP, chortled at the Angry Left–”Hey, we’re not like those Angry Lefties.”
But this year, they became the Angry Right, at least as bitter and resentful as Dean’s Angry Left had been. They forgot Limbaugh’s accurate observation about anger. In fact, so did Limbaugh.
If everyone in politics followed the Golden Rule and did unto others only what they would accept to be done unto them, the rest of us could get some peace and quiet for a change.
19 sinz54 // Apr 28, 2009 at 7:14 am
Brutus1776: I believe you’ll find that the Reagan
Administration used reconcilation to get its game-changing economic program through Congress.
20 sinz54 // Apr 28, 2009 at 7:21 am
ottovbvs sez: “Underlying what’s happening at the moment and which Obama has alluded to are tectonic demographic and attitudinal shifts that I just don’t think the GOP comprehends”
The GOP base, at least, understands one “tectonic demographic shift” very well. They were staunchly opposed to the Bush-McCain immigration bill, precisely because they feared that a flood of newly enfranchised Hispanics would vote Democrat, and give the Southwest to the Democratic party forever.
And on Townhall.com, I’ve seen numerous posts by the GOP base arguing that it was a disastrous mistake for Nixon to have given 18 year olds the right to vote, because young voters skew liberal.
The problem is that the GOP base has no idea what to about these demographic shifts, now that they have occurred. And so they’re left fuming.
21 sinz54 // Apr 28, 2009 at 7:27 am
joemarier: In each of those congressional election years you cite, there was a major hot issue that deeply concerned not just the partisans in the opposition party, but most of the general public as well.
1966: Vietnam quagmire
1994: Collapse of HillaryCare
2006: Iraq quagmire
So far, no issue that hits Americans in their guts has emerged to create the kind of sweeping wave it would take to repeat a performance like those in 2010.
Of course, at this point in the Clinton Administration, we didn’t know that HillaryCare would collapse either. And at this point in the LBJ administration, we didn’t know that Vietnam would become such a quagmire. A lot can happen in 18 months.
The GOP should be quiet and be PATIENT. Obama’s honeymoon will wear off, and perhaps some One Big Issue will emerge that they can use to ride to victory. In the meantime, all this anger and Tea Parties and frothing at the mouth at Obama is getting them nowhere–except turning off even more young and college-educated voters into believing that the GOP is extremist. I know a lot of science-educated folks who think the GOP has become totally irrational.
22 Brutus1776 // Apr 28, 2009 at 8:36 am
Sinz54: I am aware of the reconciliation tactics used by President Reagan’s administration… How else would the country have done anything with Tip O’Neill at the helms of the House?
I hope not more people misunderstood what I was driving at in my previous comment. Reconciliation is an inevitability, and can be beneficial. Ironic that this post was entitled “Failure to Communicate”
23 sinz54 // Apr 28, 2009 at 9:10 am
BREAKING NEWS: Citing multiple sources, CNN says that Senator Arlen Specter will switch from the GOP to the Democratic Party.
If Tedisco’s loss isn’t confirmation that the GOP is losing everything north of the Mason-Dixon Line, maybe Specter’s party switch (after having been a loyal Republican for decades) will do it.
Nah, even that won’t do it.
24 dragonlady // Apr 28, 2009 at 11:43 am
It’s true optimism is vital to political success. This certainly helped Obama get elected–he wasn’t screaming Dean. Until the GOP has some grown ups that can lead /channel the dissatisifaction in a positive direction, we’ll stay at rock bottom. I say this as a life long conservative. I have little faith the current party apparatus will really get us anywhere. But perhaps, we need to be here to rebuild ourselves back into a party of relevance. I love Reagan as much as the next conservative, but times have changed–we need to make our policies relevant to the current political situation. We can do that and still stay consistent with a conservative philosophy.
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