[Vision2020] Republicans: Blinded by Self-Righteousness

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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July 31, 2013
Republicans: Blinded by Self-Righteousness By CHARLES M.
BLOW<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/charles_m_blow/index.html>

Two-thirds of Republicans recognize that the party needs to change in order
to do better in future presidential elections, but they’re torn over what
that change should be.

That’s the conclusion of a Pew Research Center
poll<http://www.people-press.org/2013/07/31/whither-the-gop-republicans-want-change-but-split-over-partys-direction/>released
Wednesday.

And it’s encouraging, right?

Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans believe that they need to reconsider some
positions, while just over a third believe that the party mainly needs to
make a stronger case for its current positions.

Still good.

But that’s where things get tricky. Fifty-four percent believe that party
leaders need to move in a more conservative direction, while only 40
percent believe that they need to move in a more moderate direction.

There’s the deflator. I knew this was too good to be true.

The poll specifically asked Republicans whether the party’s position was
too conservative, not conservative enough or about right on five issues:
gay marriage, immigration, abortion, government spending and gun policy.

In all cases except one a plurality thought that the party’s position was
about right. The lone exception was government spending, on which a
plurality thought that the party was not conservative enough. In fact, “not
conservative enough” beat “too conservative” on every issue but gay
marriage.

Pointing to the true split in the party — between the moderate and the
extreme — Tea Party supporters were significantly more likely than
Republicans who don’t support the Tea Party to say that the party was not
conservative enough on these issues.

These Tea Party supporters were twice as likely to say that Congressional
Republicans compromised too much when dealing with their Democratic
counterparts, notwithstanding the fact that, as it stands, any level of
compromise is incredibly hard to come by in this Congress, which is
essentially broken because of Republican intransigence.

And the problem the Republicans still have but many don’t seem to recognize
is that the extreme arm of the party has an outsize role in selecting a
nominee, and they don’t like anyone who smells of moderation.

Of the Republicans who say that they always vote in primaries, 42 percent
say that Congressional Republicans compromise too much, as opposed to 28
percent of those who say they vote in primaries “less often.”

And while large majorities of Tea Party supporters have favorable opinions
of possible Republican presidential candidates like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul
and to a lesser degree Marco Rubio, most don’t have a favorable opinion of
Chris Christie. In fact, among Tea Party supporters Christie had the
highest unfavorable rating of the seven Republican leaders mentioned in the
poll.

But among Republicans who don’t support the Tea Party, Chris Christie is
second only to Paul Ryan in favorability.

This is the perpetual Republican Party conundrum: moderate, or go harder
right. And many still seem to believe that going harder right is the best
way to go. They have learned nothing. They can see no other way. They are
so convinced that their way is the right way, but it’s just misunderstood,
not clearly explained, not persuasively advocated.

That’s what can happen in political echo chambers — faltering positions are
reinforced rather than rightfully abandoned. Voices for moderation are
maligned as agents of moral erosion. Giving a little feels like giving up.

It is in this environment that 15 Kentucky Tea Party groups released a
letter <http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/TeaPartyLetter.pdf>last
week blasting two national Tea Party groups for endorsing Senator
Mitch McConnell, complaining of McConnell’s “Progressive Liberal voting
record” and his “willingness to roll over and cede power to President Obama
and the Liberals in Washington.”

In what twisted, right-is-left, up-is-down world do these people live?

In this world few leaders, particularly ones that could win a national
election — which would require the winning of moderates and possibly the
sloughing off of some conservative Democrats — would ever be sufficiently
conservative to pass the purity test.

Instead of acknowledging that they have put up weak presidential nominees
and had them front for extreme platforms, many Republicans believe that
their problem is simply that their recent candidates have not been
conservative enough.

Rick Perry<http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/14/rick-perry-jabs-mccain-romney-for-not-being-conservative-enough/>,
the Texas governor and failed presidential candidate, said in March:

“The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from
conservative ideals as evidenced by the last two presidential elections.”

He continued: “That’s what they think, that’s what say. That might be true
if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and
2012.”

Rush Limbaugh, during an hourlong interview with Fox News’ Greta Van
Susteren<http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/video/video-rush-limbaugh-on-the-internal-battle-within-the-republican-party/>this
week, went even further, saying: “The Republican leadership isn’t
conservative. They’re not particularly crazy about conservatives.”

And lamenting what he viewed as too much compromise by Republicans, he
continued: “So much of it on the surface, intellectually, doesn’t make any
sense. There has to be a reason. These Republicans are not stupid. They
have to know that agreeing with the Democrats on issue after issue after
issue is going to equal Democrat victory after victory after victory after
victory. So why are they doing it?”

So long as these voices — those of the most conservative Republicans — warp
nominees who emerge from primaries on the right, they are doomed to an
uphill climb toward the White House.

•

I invite you to join me on Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow>and follow me on
Twitter <http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow>, or e-mail me at
chblow at nytimes.com.

 More in Opinion (3 of 23 articles)Op-Ed Columnist: Politics of a
Screeching Halt<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/opinion/collins-politics-of-a-screeching-halt.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp>



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