A Running Commentary

What can be said about the Republicans?  After all, this is the party that ran Bob Dole in 1996.  Practicality is perhaps expecting too much.  But still, how did this happen?  How did a Bass-playing boob from Arkansas cost the GOP a conservative candidate in November?  The answer is that Republicans failed to rationally balance and integrate the core values of their party in one candidate. Certainly this is due in part to the lack of a perfect candidate (translation: Ronald Reagan).

Reagan embodied, and was able to harness, the three pillars of modern Republicanism: fiscal and social conservatism with a strong national defense. Clearly no candidate on par with Reagan emerged but, even if he did, unifying these three pillars has grown immeasurably more difficult since the 1980’s. Reagan had to face far less science and answer far fewer questions on abortion, for example, than those that exist 25 years later. Inclusion of the gay marriage issue, largely a non-factor in Reagan’s day, on the Ohio ballot in 1994 was enough to hand George W. Bush the state and with it reelection.

While Republicans have remained largely unified on defense, merging social and fiscal platforms has proved divisive. Most recently the so-called “religious-right” (chose your own code word: “evangelicals”, “church-goers”) and fiscal conservatives split votes between Mitt Romney (the free-trading, fiscal conservative) and Mike Huckabee (the Bible-quoting, social conservative), paving the way for a candidate in John McCain who is far less appealing to both groups. If Huckabee never causes that split, Romney wins Iowa, gains momentum, perhaps South Carolina, and rolls from there. In short, Romney is the hands-down nominee.

What’s startling is not that this rift exists but how oblivious to other issues some Republicans are willing to be because of it. Huckabee is the prime example of this. Anything but a free trader, he regularly spouts off protectionist babble that even John Edwards can admire. More shocking, on a number of occasions Huckabee has demonstrated a lack of knowledge in foreign affairs, most ironically his confusion about the location of Afghanistan. That significant numbers of Republicans are willing to overlook a candidate’s unfamiliarity with a country in which the U.S. CURRENTLY HAS TROOPS IN ACTIVE COMBAT is saying something.

Huckabee overcame this by playing to existing prejudices of the religious right. Thinly veiled jabs at Romney’s Mormonism directed voters’ attention to a concern that, apparently, surmounts all others: the American Evangelical brand of social conservatism. Despite Romney’s conservative positions on virtually all social matters, his more open-minded past and questionable religious affiliation made him suspect.

The bad news for Republicans is that this election, barring a significant event of terrorism, will be about economics. It will be about what the Federal government should look like and what it should be doing for its people at home. Should it be providing universal health care? Should it be intervening to protect domestic jobs and industries from foreign competition? These are EXACTLY the kind of questions on which conservatives have the right answers and majority support of Americans. And yet the general election will feature a debate between a liberal Democrat and a moderate Republican whose record many a moderate Democratic would hold with pride.

The economy also the main issue in 1992. The incumbent Republicans overlooked it and paid the price. Now they’re doing it again. John McCain is preparing to run a campaign focused on national security. But whatever successes we’re having now in Iraq (and we are), and however much of it falls in line with Mr. McCain’s positions (he did urge for the troop surge long before its conception or success), it can’t possibly compare to the victories over Communism and in Desert Storm enjoyed by the first President Bush going into 1992. Yet, despite all those successes, what the American people cared about in 1992 was ECONOMICS. Americans are people and people are selfish. Quoting the eloquent James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Granted, 1992 was thrown by Ross Perot, with Bill Clinton garnering a paltry 43% of the vote. But last time I checked this country isn’t exactly excited about military matters; even those who support the ongoing deployments hardly find it a warm and fuzzy topic for discussion. McCain doesn’t need a third candidate to hamstring him when he’s willing to do it to himself by focusing on national defense and sounding oblivious and reluctant on economics.

McCain’s best prospect lies in Hillary Clinton’s nomination. Perhaps that vitriolic hated of Hillary would be enough to quell the arbitrary capriciousness of all Republican sects. Perhaps. But Hillary’s star is beginning to pale beside that of Mr. Obama. I wonder if Mike Huckabee and his bass can play the blues?