Got this last night from a senior Republican official…
Over the holiday Time Magazine ran an article that most either missed due to the festivities or dismissed because of its apparent similarity to numerous other articles reporting on the Republican presidential field.
However, in discussing the 2008 race, the article raises a point that merits attention because of its political significance to the future of the Republican Party.
Please understand that my use of the word “political” here refers strictly to the strategic game that is national politics. I am not discussing political issues, but rather political baseball. No one can argue that the machine of the Republican Party has been anything less than ridiculously successful in that respect.
The 2008 race is historically significant to the Republican Party because it represents a breakdown of the Republican machinery that has brought success to the Party for decades. As the article points out, this race is decidedly Un-Republican:
“Republicans prefer to find a brand-name, big-state governor, surround him with the same right-thinking brains on taxes, foreign policy and the New Testament, back him with all the cash he will need to corner TV time in New Hampshire and then run the nominee through a quick gauntlet of primaries before anyone else has a chance at the prize. The whole thing makes for more of a ritual than a race, but there’s no doubting that the formula works. In the past seven presidential elections, G.O.P. nominees have lost only twice.”
(This is a point that I made to my friends some months ago, though they refused to believe that anything other than the “right” candidate could fix everything.) As yet, no shining star has emerged to patch up this broken mess. Instead, the system itself is in disarray.
“Normally the G.O.P. comes to a decision quickly, and the Democrats stretch the process into the baseball season, bickering over delegates, platform planks, rules and speaking rights before everyone swears loyalty to the long-settled nominee. All that, and possibly more, could happen on the other side this time.”
This is not how the Republican Party wins races. The Party runs on stability. The very fact that there are almost enough players on the field to form a ball team shows that the wheels have indeed come off the wagon that successfully drove the party to years of political success.
How did it happen? The article names an interesting (if not surprising) scapegoat:
“It’s improbable that someone named George Bush, the most visible beneficiary of the G.O.P.’s longtime bias toward primogeniture, would be responsible for bringing its era to a halt. But he is chiefly to blame for leaving the party of his father and grandfather without a healthy male heir. Bush tapped Dick Cheney seven years ago to be his Veep in part because he did not want a Vice President whose loyalties were divided between the Oval Office and the Des Moines Register.”
In all fairness to the President, one must also recognize that the morale of the party and its supporters has been eroded by scandal after scandal, and has splintered ideologically. As the Bible so eloquently notes, “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter (Zech 13:7).” And scatter they have.
“…one other development in the race, something Republicans haven’t encountered since they locked arms with the Moral Majority in 1979: the party’s evangelical base has declared independence from its leaders. This fall, the Old Guard of the Christian right serially christened their preferred candidates. The Rev. Pat Robertson went for Giuliani; the National Right to Life Committee came out for Thompson; Bob Jones III and Paul Weyrich endorsed Romney. Few believed that Huckabee, the ordained Southern Baptist who actually seemed to be one of them, could win. And then, lo and behold, rank-and-file Evangelicals went off and lined up in unexpected numbers for the former Arkansas Governor. The falcons heard the falconers — and then flew off in a different direction. It’s another sign of a party whose power structure has uncoupled from the people who put it in power in the first place.”
No matter what happens in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina, the problem with the party right now is not the fault of those vying for its nomination. The Republican political machinery is broken. The party has lost the thing that made it successful–ruthless organization and unification of its factions. It’s broken so badly, no candidate may be qualified to fix it:
“….Republican self-doubt is so marked that if Jesus came back as a candidate…people would say, ‘You know, I don’t like his beard.’”
If the party wouldn’t unify around The Shepherd, do Mitt, Rudy, John, and Mike stand a chance?
posted January 3, 2008 at 11:13 am
Out of the blue and thought-provoking, Kuo. Thanks for sharing.
posted January 3, 2008 at 11:16 am
David, no offense man, but YOU have smashed the GOP shepard with the zeal of a university secualrist rabble rouser. You have not been of any benefit for the Republican party and as your book points out, you worked for the President of the United States George W. Bush, and give no indication that the GOP is of any worth at all. It is not surprising that so many decent and honest people (typical Republicans) are shaken a bit about the leadership of the party. Look at what you have done and said (written). If a nut job like Hilary Clinton gets into the White House, you cannot deny that you have provided many converts to the dark side which is the political Left.
posted January 3, 2008 at 11:41 am
Here’s a good indication of the intense enemy facing Christians in THIS country. From God-o-Meter today:
“The liberal elites have long sought to drive people of faith from the public square. . . . they loath and fear evangelicals. If a religious test is legitimate for public office, then the Democrats will drive evangelicals out of our democracy.”
>>>
I have been writing this about the enemy of Christians here for over a year. Liberal elites were called Romans when the followers of Christ were called Christians. Note the similar behaviors and practices of both haven’t changed at all in these many years.
posted January 3, 2008 at 11:48 am
It’s a good thing your whole life is oriented around your hatred of Democrats, Donny. Otherwise, you might have to take an honest look at the Republican Party someday.
posted January 3, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Of course Jesus couldn’t unite the Republicans (or the Democrats). He didn’t pander. He didn’t answer impertinent questions. He didn’t even weigh in on the most highly charged political questions of his day.
As Christ’s visible body on Earth, our churches should be emulating Jesus. Sadly, we’re too busy rendering God’s things to Caesar to carry out the witness we’re called to give to our broken world, including its political systems.
Peace.
posted January 3, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Say, Donny, wasn’t one of those Roman elites a dude named Constantine who served his fellow, ahem, Christians, by taking a page out of the Karl Rove book of electioneering and attempting to merge state and church? Was that a successful experiment? Many would argue it was an unmitigated disaster that the church has yet to recover from. How long do you think it will take the church to recover from the foolishness foisted on it by the last 7 years of one of God’s elect in the White House?
posted January 3, 2008 at 1:27 pm
And “the government” will be on whose shoulders? Another title for Jesus . . . but anyway: I am not advocating a Christian in the White House to proselytize the populace. Unlike the wave of Mormon missionaries that would be plying the LDS trade if Mitt were elected, Christians in the White House have not advocated their religion on others. It is clear why Jesus uses the parables of wheat and weeds, and the burning of the chaff, and shaking the dust against rude unbelievers. Why waste time trying to make the blind see, when their blindness is self-induced. Every Christian president including George W. Bush has not done any proselytizing of anyone. UNLIKE a Secularist and leftist that would force their indoctriantion and ideology on everyone from as early as pre-school to the mind altering B-S they force-feed their helpless captives in colleges and universities. Christians need to be as wary as they should be. These Democrat humanist-elites are out for our destruction and the way the want to do this is with the act of legislation. With a Christian in the White House every Christian knows they will have a benefactor for peace and freedom. Secularists (Democrats) have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that their religion is surface oriented at best. It is debated whether Constantine was even a Christian. Like a shrewed politician he may have used Christians to get what he wanted politically. Even David Kuo will not denounce Bush’s faith orientation. It is not strange that secularists and the usual leftie suspects say nothing when Clinton and Obama pander in Church afer Church after Church. They know that their comrades in arms are harmless to the humanist cause. Though the authentic “Christian witness” is being attacked, silenced and outlawed, ONLY by the Democrats (in America) “on the Left.” If the truth bothers anyone, they need to deal with it internally. It doesn’t bother me at all. I suffer no cognitive dissonance when someone questions my faith, unlike those on the Left that expunge my posts here and threaten me with termination for speaking my mind. God-O-Meter quotes others that hold the same alarming view of Democrats as I do, and they haven’t removed that blog yet. The best poison is mixed right in front of the intended victims. On that, most Lib/Prog Democrats are very effective.
posted January 3, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Wow. Kool-aid, please. Make it a double.
posted January 3, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Sorry, I got distracted in comments. At the end of the day the GOP coalition brought terrible government, scandal but more importantly, the GOP has been eating its principles first. You can no longer be a rule-of-law conservative and agree with the war-on-terror conservatives. You can no longer be a small-government conservative and live with the Christian conservatives. You never could be for limited regulation and free-trade and pro-business and get along with the Lou Dobbs/Tom Tancredo/John King cowardly reprobate wing of the party. The presidential race is just reflecting the disintegration of the party as a coherent alliance of related principles. As the greatest Republican said, a house divided can not stand.
And Donny, the fact that Republicans won’t take responsibility for their condition proves both their hypocrisy and that they deserve to be marginalized. It’s not anti-Christian to say as you sow, so shall you reap.
posted January 3, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I still think “Donny” is the nom de plume of the old columnist Ed Anger from the Weekly World News …