“What happened to the Republicans in the Republican party?” A knowledgeable concerned American citizen asked this astute question recently. That very question is permeating many American political circles these days, particularly after a Sunday New York Times Magazine article on this issue appeared last weekend.
Ron Suskind, who also co-authored the cutting edge book on the Bush II administration with former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, “The Price of Loyalty”, wrote a definitive piece that presented strong questions as to where the Republican Party is going with George W. at the helm.
Suskind started his article with a quote from a traditional Republican operative, Bruce Bartlett, who was a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush. Bartlett said, “If Bush wins, there will a civil war in the Republican Party starting Nov. 3.”
Why did Bartlett see it that way?
He told Suskind that he saw the nature of this Republican Party conflict “as the same as the one raging across much of the world: A battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.”
Let’s take a quick look at the presidential politics of the United States and the political parties of the last ten US presidents. America is basically very conservative when it comes to selecting a president. Since Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964, Republicans have won seven of the ten presidential contests when one counts the Nixon and Reagan two-term victories and of the last ten presidents starting with Eisenhower, six of our presidents have been Republican. And some might up that number to nine when you consider the fact that, of the last four Democratic presidents of the United States, three have been Southern Democrats and considered much more conservative than either President Kennedy or candidate Kerry. The three Southern Democratic Presidents are even referred to by more liberal Democrats as Republican “Lite”. Americans tend to vote toward the center of both major political parties.
When George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency in 2000, he presented himself as the “compassionate conservative.” He seemed to be a centrist in his own party and many expected a presidency similar to that of his father. However, even during his last campaign, George W. often played to the “religious right” and utilized a number of neoconservatives as his foreign policy advisers. His new brand of “Republicanism” became much clearer after Sept.11. Bush and his advisers, particularly Karl Rove, put together a new coalition of interest groups that tried to redefine Republican politics and had success in winning Republican majorities of the 2002 mid-term Congressional elections.
Essentially, the Bush team built a coalition of four groups: The religious right, many of whom were Christian Zionists; the neoconservatives, who were originally Democrats; the hard-line Zionists, who also had traditionally voted Democrat; and the unilateralists, represented by the Cheney/Rumsfeld branch. They did this while still maintaining the support of the traditional Republicans.
Who are the “traditional Republicans” in the Republican Party? Let’s look at a few recent quotes by some life-long Republicans. In his current book,” Where the Right Went Wrong”, columnist and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan writes, “Historically, Republicans have been the party of the conservative virtue — of balanced budgets, of a healthy skepticism toward foreign wars, of a commitment to traditional values and fierce resistance to the growth of government power and world empire. No more. To win and hold high office, many have sold their souls to the very devil they were baptized to do battle with.”
Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon and now writes extensively on her experiences states in a recent article: “...Republicans today, whether due to part loyalty or really low collective self-esteem, seem afraid to stand up and call out federal sins of greed, gluttony and sloth.” She goes on, “I was raised in an average Republican home where we didn’t study political history. We identified with the GOP as the antidote to FDR and LBJ excess, the promoter of entrepreneurs and independent producers, the party of fiscal conservatism and small government.” She finishes, “Is it even possible for a real Republican to vote for Bush in 2004?”
With Republican Party policy and control now dominated by neocons, unilateralists, Christian Zionists and traditional Zionists and with big spending and budget deficits running rampant, is there still a place for traditional Republicans inside the party? So far, according to the polls at least, there seems to be. Most traditional Republicans claim to pollsters that they plan on voting for George W. Bush. Many say they will hold their noses while they cast their vote for W. but will for vote for their party candidate. Whether Bush is re-elected or not, however, watch for a stiff battle within the party after the election. And if John Kerry is able to pull an estimated 3-5 percentage points he needs to win an extremely close presidential election from the Republican ranks, watch out for a real war amongst Republicans. As columnist Michael Cudahy said in a recent article, “We will find out in a few short weeks whether Republican moderates can be bought off by the occasional bone and a seat at the children’s table, or whether they will regain their voice and become major players in the party’s agenda for future generations.”
And to paraphrase the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone from Minnesota, maybe someone from the Republican wing of the Republican Party will step forward to save the day for traditional Republican values.
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
