[Vision2020] ‘Suicide Conservatives’

[Art Deco]

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

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February 8, 2013
‘Suicide Conservatives’ By CHARLES M. BLOW

There used to be a political truism: Democrats fall in love, while
Republicans fall in line.

That’s no longer true. Not in this moment. Democrats have learned to fall
in love* and* fall in line. Republicans are just falling apart.

Last week, the opening salvos were launched in a very public and very nasty
civil war between establishment Republicans and Tea Party supporters when it
was reported<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/us/politics/top-gop-donors-seek-greater-say-in-senate-races.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=politics>that
Karl Rove was backing a new group, the Conservative Victory Project,
to counter the Tea Party’s selection of loopy congressional candidates who
lose in general elections.

The Tea Party was having none of it. It sees Rove’s group as a brazen
attack on the Tea Party movement, which it is. Rove sees winning as a
practical matter. The Tea Party counts victory in layers of philosophical
purity.

Politico reported this week that an unnamed “senior Republican operative”
said that one of the party’s biggest problems was “ ‘suicide conservatives,
who would rather lose elections than win seats with moderates.’ ”

Democrats could be the ultimate beneficiaries of this tiff. Of the 33
Senate seats up for election in 2014, 20 are held by Democrats. Seven of
those 20 are in states that President Obama lost in the last presidential
election. Republicans would have to pick up only a handful of seats to take
control of the chamber.

But some in the Tea Party are threatening that if their candidate is
defeated in the primaries by a candidate backed by Rove’s group, they might
still run the Tea Party candidate in the general election. That would
virtually guarantee a Democratic victory.

Sal Russo, a Tea Party strategist, told
Politico<http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/rove-vs-tea-party-for-gops-future-87296_Page3.html>:
“We discourage our people from supporting third-party candidates by saying
‘that’s a big mistake. We shouldn’t do that.’ ” He added: “But if the
position [Rove’s allies] take is rule or ruin — well, two can play that
game. And if we get pushed, we’re not going to be able to keep the lid on
that.”

The skirmish speaks to a broader problem: a party that has lost its way and
can’t rally around a unified, coherent vision of what it wants to be when
it grows up.

The traditional Republican message doesn’t work. Rhetorically, the G.O.P.
is the party of calamity. The sky is always falling. Everything is broken.
Freedoms are eroding. Tomorrow is dimmer than today.

In Republicans’ world, we must tighten our belts until we crush our spines.
We must take a road to prosperity that runs through the desert of
austerity. We must cut to grow. Republicans are the last guardians against
bad governance.

But how can they sell this message to a public that has rejected it in the
last two presidential elections?

Some say keep the terms but soften the tone.

A raft of Republicans, many of them possible contenders in 2016, have been
trying this approach.

Louisiana’s governor, Bobby Jindal,
speaking<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zozK0ZJ_das>at a Republican
National Committee meeting last month, chastised his party
for being “the stupid party” that’s “in love with zeros,” even as he
insisted, “I am not one of those who believe we should moderate,
equivocate, or otherwise abandon our principles.”

Jindal’s plan, like that of many other Republicans, boils down to two
words: talk differently.

Other Republicans, like Marco Rubio, seem to want to go further. They
understand that the party must behave differently. He is among a group of
senators who recently put forward a comprehensive immigration proposal that
would offer a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented
immigrants in this country.

This is a position Democrats have advocated, and it’s a position that
Republicans have to accept if they want Hispanic support — and a chance of
winning a presidential election.

The Tea Party crowd did not seem pleased with that plan. Glenn Beck, the
self-described “rodeo clown” of the right,
said<http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/01/30/ugh-gop-pushing-%E2%80%98comprehensive%E2%80%99-immigration-reform-bill/>:


“You’ve got John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and now Marco Rubio joining them
because Marco Rubio just has to win elections. I’m done. I’m done. Learn
the Constitution. Somebody has to keep a remnant of the Constitution
alive.”

For Beck’s wing of the party, moderation is surrender, and surrender is
death. It seems to want to go further out on a limb that’s getting ever
more narrow. For that crowd, being a Tea Party supporter is more a religion
than a political philosophy. They believe so deeply and fervently in it
that they see no need for either message massage or actual compromise.

While most Democrats and Independents want politicians to compromise,
Republicans don’t, according to a January
report<http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/more-americans-prefer-elected-officials-who-compromise/>by
the Pew Research Center. The zealots have a chokehold on that party,
and
they’re sucking the life — and common sense — out of it.

For this brand of Republican, there is victory in self-righteous defeat.

•

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.




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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