GOP, R.I.P.?
The Reagan coalition is down, but not out.
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Friday, January 4, 2008 12:01 a.m. EST
Iowa Republicans went to the polls yesterday, and pity those who thought they were merely choosing a presidential nominee. Turns out they were taking a mallet to the modern frame of the Grand Old Party.
Or so goes the thinking of certain pundits and political gurus, who've taken the fractured state of today's Republican race as evidence the Reagan coalition is dead. The party is shrinking, its groups flying off in all directions, they say. "It's gone," says Ed Rollins, the former Reagan adviser and current Mike-Huckabee muse. "The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition--social conservatives, defense conservatives, anti-tax conservatives--it doesn't mean a whole lot to people anymore." It's time for something new, these people say. Though don't ask them what.
Or don't even bother, argue New Republic editor John B. Judis and think-tanker Ruy Teixeira, who claim it is simply too late for Republicans: The country is plodding toward a new era of Democratic rule. "Political, ideological, demographic and economic trends are all leading toward durable Democratic majorities in Congress, control of most statehouses and, very possibly, the end of the decades-old GOP hammerlock on the electoral college," they wrote recently.
True, the GOP is flailing. Congressional Republicans were tossed out for loss of principles. The nation is uncertain about President Bush's aggressive foreign policy and its mixed results in Iraq. Demographics hold big challenges. Tensions have flared among the party's wings. And, while the nomination race has churned up capable folk, none have so far demonstrated the force to calm the waters.
Yet the reports of the Reagan-coalition death are exceedingly premature.
Put aside last year's bum election, and you're left with two recent successful presidential victories. By next year, the GOP will have held the White House for 20 of the past 28 years; Republicans only recently capped 12 years of uninterrupted House rule. A coalition that strong, with that many successes, built on deeply felt ideals, doesn't just fizzle in a few years.
Last year's election certainly didn't offer proof. Democrats didn't win on the strength of their own ideology; they won by making the race a referendum on Republican corruption and competence. The spendthrift GOP was punished for abandoning its Reagan ideals of limited government. The 15 or so seats that provided Democrats their margin of victory in the House were won mostly by candidates who offered some appeal to traditional conservative voters. The district won in eastern Pennsylvania by pro-military veteran Admiral Joe Sestak, or in North Carolina by pro-life, anti-gun control Heath Shuler, are examples.
Demographics? Under the Judis-Teixeira theory, Democrats hold all the changing-landscape cards. They'll benefit from the rise of "post industrial metropolitan areas"--combos of city and suburb--full of professionals and minorities who are turned off by Republican cultural stances, are more open to big government, and unhappy with the war. They'll also scoop up a flood of Hispanic immigrants, who've found no welcome from the GOP.
Republicans have a Hispanic problem, although this isn't preordained. As President Bush showed in 2004, the right kind of GOP leader has a real opportunity to bring Hispanics into a party that is arguably more in tune with their cultural and economic ambitions. As for the rest: For every "ideopolis" of professional voters there is an exurb--a fast-growing, often Republican-dominated space on the fringe of a metropolitan area. These are places like Hudson, Wis., or the area north of Minneapolis to St. Cloud, which didn't used to be competitive for Republicans, but where young GOP families have helped elect Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman.
Every coalition has its tensions--just ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That party's liberal wing sits uneasily with culturally conservative unions. Blue-collar Big Labor tussles with environmentalists. Blue Dogs take issue with big spenders. The party's more conservative defense wing does battle with doves. The fights between these groups helped ensure Congress's record of zero achievements this year. If this is the basis of an enduring Democratic majority, bring it on.
The Republican coalition has also had its long share of stress between its cultural and more libertarian factions. That tension flared most brightly under Pat Buchanan, with his fiery call to abandon globalization and revert to a blend of cultural conservatism and economic populism. Yet the coalition endured. Mike Huckabee is the latest (if subtler) incarnation of this, and Mr. Rollins has every reason to offer a premature Reagan-coalition surrender, since his guy doesn't fit the mold. Then again, Mr. Huckabee's dipping poll numbers in recent weeks suggest that as Republican voters learn about him, they may not like what they see.
The real question for those Republicans arguing for revolution is this: Which leg of the stool do they kick out, and how do they then keep standing? Taxes, trade, the free market? These are perhaps the greatest defining differences between the parties. To tell the average corporate or middle-class voter that Republicans are now no different than Democrats is to commit political suicide. And where exactly are all those Americans clamoring for the government to take more of their paycheck? Among the many reasons grand plans to create new government-run health-care programs are failing at the state level is because nobody can figure out how to pay for them.
Cultural issues? Despite internal arguments over how hard to push the question, many in the GOP would now agree abortion has been a net plus for the party. Ditto the Republicans' positions on marriage, which have resonated in recent elections. Meanwhile, for all of the insecurity about the Iraq War, national security is still the Republicans' strongest suit.
The Reagan coalition allowed Republicans to draw even with Democrats nationally, and nobody has yet presented a viable alternative. The coalition faces challenges, and could face its biggest test in a nominee like Rudy Giuliani, with his pitch that cultural conservatives should trust to his promises of conservative judges and greater states rights. But given its durability, the party of Reagan would seem to deserve at least this next election, if not a few more, before anyone writes its obituary.
>i>Ms. Strassel is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, based in Washington. Her column appears Fridays.
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