Mission Impossible: Putting the GOP Back Together
By M. Troiano
May 30, 2009
When W was elected, the Republican party had been under the control of the more moderate group of the elder Bush. The more extreme right wing group that made up a relatively small part of the party had very little control. What folks like Karl Rove discovered was that if the Republican party was to achieve comparable numbers to the Democratic party, it needed have a firm grip on the hardcore right wing while keeping its more moderate members in tow as well. So that became goal of the ad campaign for W. He was made to appeal to the hardcore right by emphasizing his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and his hard right views on social issues. At the same time, Bush was presented to the more moderate members as another Ronald Reagan who would basically employ the elder Bush’s former cabinet and the Gipper’s farmerboy style.
But over the horrendous 8 years of W, the hard right wing under Cheney took over more and more and proceeded to push the the Republican party and the country “right” off of a cliff. The large majority of (of moderates) in both parties were justifiably disgusted by this display of ultra-right wing, authoritarian, torture-loving, fear-mongering, corrupt rule and this majority grew increasingly disenchanted with the Republican party.
Now some Republicans are under the foolish impression that to get back on top they must make their party the party of the hard right wing, headed by Rush Limbaugh. They believe in fact that they should purge themselves or marginalize those who do not tow the hard right line. They believe this because they remember that the Rush Limbaugh folks were crucial to getting them in power 8 years ago. They seem to have fallen under the delusion that Rush Limbaugh’s point of view is shared by the majority of the country!
The extreme right wing actually only makes up a small fraction of the electorate and therefore no party with the hard right in control will ever achieve majority status. Recent polls count the number of self-identified Republicans now at about 17%. This must dismay Republicans, considering the fact that, back in 2001, the percentage was over double that.
McCain’s failed bid for the Presidency demonstrated that the Republican party can no longer hold its two main groups together. McCain tried to sound like a right wing nut at times (for example, by playing up the whole “Bill Ayers” thing) and all he succeeded in doing was to piss off the more moderate voters who knew it was a silly issue. McCain’s horrendous pick of an ultra-right wing running mate was another big F-U to the moderates. But when McCain occasionally tried to moderate his campaign (for example, when he reminded an idiotic supporter that Obama was in fact a U.S. citizen and not Arab), all he did was piss off the hardcore right wing. In short, McCain attempted to do what is today an impossible task: putting the GOP back together.