Conservatives are divided, even in President Bush's home state.
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
Four years ago Tom Craddick, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, made national news by redrawing his state's congressional districts, which in 2004 handed Republicans six more seats in Congress. His efforts, spurred on by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, stirred up controversy when Democratic lawmakers fled the state, twice, and later filed suit in an attempt to stop the new map from being put into place. Yesterday, Mr. Craddick nearly completed his political arc when he faced a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats trying to oust him from power and install as speaker Republican Jim Pitts, a state representative who promised a kinder, gentler governing style.
Even deep in the heart of Texas, these days the Republican Party is finding itself divided and on the defensive. Mr. Craddick survived the attempted coup after a protracted fight that dragged into the early evening. But last month seven-term Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla wasn't as fortunate. He was unseated by Democrat Ciro Rodriguez in a special election that grew out of a Supreme Court decision amending the Craddick-DeLay redistricting map. And in November Democrat Nick Lampson defeated a Republican write-in candidate for Mr. DeLay's old seat in the Houston suburbs. Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, was re-elected, but only after running the gantlet in a four-way competitive race in which he received a 39% plurality. It's no wonder that for nearly two months liberal politicos have been celebrating the end of conservatism.
Liberal commentator Jacob Weisberg, writing in Slate in November, went a step further. Positing the end of the "conservative era," he wondered "what will replace it?" He's not alone. Commentators on the right are also wondering what the future holds--it's what happens when a party loses its principles and splits along sectarian lines.
In The Atlantic last year, Ryan Sager, author of the book "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party," noted that Republicans were suddenly finding themselves losing elections in the Rocky Mountain states. Today Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming all have Democratic governors. Mr. Sager attributes the sudden Democratic surge in the "Purple Mountains" to religious conservatives gaining control of the policy debate within the Republican Party. In Mr. Sager's view, the GOP has lost the libertarian-leaning conservative voters whose politics tend to mirror the rugged individualism of those he suspects inhabit the region.
Mr. Sager might be observing the outcome of an influx of former Californians who have found that the virtual economy allows them to telecommute from Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Bozeman, Mont., or who have found work in Denver's thriving city center and suburbs. But if he's right and religious conservatives are costing the GOP mountain conservatives, then it's hard to see how the Republican Party avoids a pitched battle for its soul. Values voters lay claim to the last electoral victory for the party--President Bush's re-election in 2004--and Christian conservatives have long had a strong hand in judicial politics on the right. Economic conservatives lay claim to the victories of Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan.
The two sides will almost certainly clash in the party's 2008 presidential primaries. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is clearly courting the party's Christian right. As a Mormon he was thought to face a quiet religious bigotry among Christian voters. But as governor he made opposition to same-sex marriage a signature issue and won a surprising victory earlier this month, when the Massachusetts Legislature allowed the first of two required votes to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would reverse the Supreme Judicial Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage. The Legislature had adjourned in November hoping to dodge the vote, but came back into session Jan. 2 to vote on the amendment after Mr. Romney spent his last two months in office building public pressure on the issue. He's also now road testing answers about his faith, saying that he accepts Jesus as his "Savior."
On the other side of the divide stands Sen. John McCain, who has long had a rocky relationship with Christian conservatives, which is one reason his 2000 presidential campaign ran aground in South Carolina. Rudy Giuliani also faces an uphill climb with the voters to whom George W. Bush appealed when he said in a debate that his favorite "political philosopher" was Jesus. Mr. Giuliani is pro-choice, supports gay marriage and went through a very messy, public divorce while in office. Both Messrs. McCain and Giuliani are therefore expected to run on their credentials as defense and budget hawks.
The last president from Texas who found himself mired in an unpopular war--Lyndon B. Johnson--also presided over a divided party. He left Democrats incapable of capturing the voting public's imagination in national elections, which allowed the GOP to win control of the White House for five of six elections beginning in 1968.
Tonight President Bush will attempt to avoid LBJ's fate by presenting a new strategy for winning the war in Iraq. He has spent the past four years arguing that spreading democracy is the moral issue of our times and that doing so will bolster our national security. The response? Onetime supporters of the war have abandoned the president in droves, Democrats won control of Congress, and Sen. Ted Kennedy filed legislation yesterday that would force the president to receive congressional approval before sending additional troops to secure Baghdad. Winning the war is now a divisive issue.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
opinionjournal.com |
