"Conservatism, New York’s 23rd and the lessons for the Republican Party in 2010"

"Over the past two decades American electoral politics has been transformed by the rise of a newly energized conservative movement. The result has been not only a radical shift in the program and politics of the Republican Party, but a decisive change in the nature of public discourse. Demagoguery is increasingly supplanting responsible dialogue, self-righteousness is replacing conscientiousness, and the victim is democracy" - John W. Dean III, former White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon 1970-1973

In 2006, George W. Bush was mid way through his second term as President and already looking like a lame duck chief executive. In November of that year, Bush, as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, suffered his first major defeat in his six years in office. The American people, disgusted by a combination of political corruption, unprecedented secrecy in government, the dismantling of the United States Constitution and not to mention the war in Iraq, swept the Democrats back into the majority in the United States congress. Two years later the Republicans were decimated at the polls, Democrats significantly increased their majority, and America elected its first black president. Along the way, the tone of the political discourse in the United States would drop to a new low. Republican candidates, bitter after losing the congressional majority they had held for 12 long years and staring likely defeat in the face in the 2008 presoidential election, decided to join forces with a combination of rabid right wing talk radio fanatics, cable TV show hosts, conservative authors and editorial writers, retired (and sometimes discredited) military commanders and lobbyists, political hacks and racists of every shape and size to attempt to once again hijack the national mood for change in America through fear, intimidation, orchestrated confrontation and outright lies.

When John Dean wrote his book "Conservatives without Conscience" in 2006 he accurately captured the radical shift that had taken place in the Republican Party over the period of the previosu 25 years and repercussions of what this meant, and still means today, to the American body politic. There was a time when the conservative movement and the Republican Party was essentially one and the same thing. The universally acknowledged founders of the modern conservative movement, people like William F. Buckley Jr. and Barry Goldwater, were lifelong, and passionate Republicans. Buckley founded "The National Review", the bastion of conservative writing and thinking now for over forty years; Goldwater was a long time senator from Arizona and former Republican candidate for President (he lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson in 1964). While both men's brand of conservatism was defined by their belief in small government, strong military defense, states' rights, fiscal responsibility and the deregulation of the economic marketplace, they were also viewed as men with a conscience, open to rational debate and whose motives and actions were not driven merely by pure ideology or prejudice. The Republican Party, and therefore the conservative movement, has become hijacked to a new ideology in the last 25 years. It began with Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1980's and was laid bare in all its viciousness and hypocrisy during the co presidency of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Bush ran on a plank of "compassionate conservatism" against Al Gore in 2000, but clearly his definition conservatism was radically different from that of Buckley, Goldwater or even Richard Nixon.

Since the election of Barack Obama, the Republican Party has been engaged in a civil war. The more ideologically driven half of the party (those that believe for example that John McCain wasn't conservative enough to be its nominee in 2008) is represented by a motley crew of racists and morally and ideologically bankrupt individuals that includes Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter to name but a few. The influence that these individuals have within the broader Republican movement is steadily increasing, so much so that the existing party leadership and infrastructure may become irreparably damaged as it looks ahead to the midterm elections of 2010. The recent events surrounding a congressional election this month in upstate New York provides a fascinating window into the political infighting that is currently going on within the Republican Party. In a part of the country where the Democrats have long been politically dominant, New York's 23rd district has been one of the few safe Republican seats going back over a hundred years. Earlier this summer the Republican Party in New York (and backed by the Republican National Committee and party leaders in the House and Senate) endorsed Ms. Deded Scozzafava as its nominee for the open congressional seat this November. In a district where Republicans have held the seat since 1871, the result seemed a formality. The problem for some national Republican figures however was that Ms. Scozzafava was not conservative enough in her leanings.

Enter Doug Hoffman. Hoffman is a carpet bagger (meaning he is running for a seat in a district that he has never lived in) who entered the race in September, proudly boasting his supposed conservative credentials and running as a "conservative" and not as a "republican". His star rose quickly when he was endorsed by none other than Sarah Palin. What half term governor and now part time blogger Palin knows about the issues of New York's 23rd district is not clear to me, however she delivered an enormous snub to the Republican establishment in New York by rejecting the party's chosen nominee and instead endorsing an unknown candidate, Hoffman, on the grounds that she, Ms. Scozzafava, the party nominee, wasn't conservative enough. In the weeks following the endorsement, a clutch of prominent Republicans from the four corners of the country have followed suit and endorsed Hoffman. The pressure on Scozzafava was such that on October 31st, 3 days before the election, she withdrew her candidacy. This issue this debacle has created for the Republican Party is that the constituents that had planned to vote for Ms. Scozzafava (viewed as a moderate Republican) may well now vote for the Democratic candidate, rather than the conservative Hoffman. Such an eventuality could swing the seat to the Democrats for the first time in multiple generations, an outcome made even more potentially likely when Scozzfava turned around and endorsed the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, on November 1st! By the time you read this, the results will be in and we will know for sure. Be sure to do a Google on it.

This brand of red meat political conservatism that was played out in New York's 23rd district is a microcosm of the broader dilemma the Republican Party faces as it seeks to improve its image with the national electorate coming into a new election year. A recent country wide poll showed that only 20% of voters identify themselves as traditional Republicans. If the party is to increase this percentage and make gains in the 2010 midterm elections it knows it must broaden it's appeal to moderate Republicans (Republicans that abandoned the party in 2008), independents and even border line and conservative Democrats (like those Democrats who voted for Reagan in the 1980's). Should the party of Buckley, Goldwater and Reagan continue to give way to the influence of Cheney, Palin and Limbaugh, and should President Obama's legislative changes begin to improve the lives of everyday Americans in 2010, it is not inconceivable that the GOP will shrink to be an almost exclusively white, Southern and ideologically bankrupt party.