Posted on 12/14/2006 8:37:44 PM PST by neverdem
The Republicans handed libertarian votes--and the elections--over to the Democrats.
At the Democrats’ official election night party in Washington, D.C., all eyes were on Florida—for about 10 seconds. At 8 p.m. network exit polls confirmed that Rep. Katherine Harris, for this crowd the arch-villain of the 2000 election, was lopsidedly losing her bid for a Senate seat. The partygoers cheered the news. Then they turned their attention to races that carried at least a whiff of suspense.
They shouldn’t have dismissed Florida so quickly. Less than two years earlier, the Sunshine State had shown the first symptoms of the malady that would defeat the GOP in races from California to New Hampshire. Republicans had convinced themselves that socially conservative “values voters” were the key to maintaining and extending their power. It was in Florida that the strategy started to crumble, reminding any politician who cared to listen that a lot of voters just want the government to leave them alone.
The town of Pinellas Park, not far from Harris’ old House district, contains the hospice where Terri Schiavo died. The battle between the brain-damaged woman’s parents, who wanted to keep her on life support, and her husband, who wanted to remove it, had bubbled up into Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature before. But in March 2005, emboldened by the GOP’s 2004 victories, Tom DeLay’s House and Bill Frist’s Senate elbowed into the controversy. President Bush broke off a stint in Crawford, Texas, to sign emergency legislation to keep the feeding tube attached.
It was one of the worst political miscalculations of the decade. Immediately after the Schiavo push, approval numbers for Bush and his party started to plummet. Polls showed not just Democrats but Republicans and independents opposed to the Schiavo intervention. Republicans responded by assuming the polls were wrong. The country had re-elected them, hadn’t it? Of course voters were foursquare behind the idea of legislatively re-attaching a feeding tube to a brain-dead woman.
The president’s ratings reeled into the 40s, then the 30s, and never really recovered. The numbers for the GOP Congress fell even further. And on election night, voters turned out the most socially conservative Congress in decades while taking a two-by-four to socially conservative initiatives in the states. A ban on all abortions was defeated in South Dakota. Missouri legalized stem cell research. And while seven states passed gay marriage bans, Arizona became the first state ever to reject one. In most of the states where the bans did pass—South Carolina and Idaho being the exceptions—voters elected Democrats to major statewide offices anyway. The ballyhooed effect of gay marriage bans on conservative turnout, credited by some for George W. Bush’s 2004 victory in Ohio, fell utterly flat.
These defeats wouldn’t have come as a surprise if not for the consensus, minted hours after the 2004 polls closed, that Republicans were building a permanent majority on the backs of conservative evangelicals. The TV networks’ exit poll showed 22 percent of voters naming “moral values” as the key to their ballots. In the hands of a Republican caucus defined by the born-again Tom DeLay in the House and the big-government conservative Rick Santorum in the Senate, this was a mandate; it encouraged them to indulge their invasiveness on privacy and other civil liberties issues. The party didn’t just support national ID cards and warrantless wiretaps. With impunity, it campaigned against Democrats for opposing those measures.
Early in the 2006 cycle, Democrats spotted the opening they’d been given. They recruited candidates for every Republican seat in districts that had voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush, and they started to criticize the conduct, and sometimes the very fact, of the Iraq war. They got multiple adrenaline boosts from the GOP’s scandals, starting with the corruption allegations against DeLay, which the leadership took pains to overlook until he was actually indicted. They maintained leads as the incumbents cupped their hands over their eyes and ears and refused to consider any shifts in their approach to Iraq.
That strategy ended on November 7, with the defeat of many hot-button ballot measures and with heavy losses in House, Senate, and state races. The liberal Northeast was scrubbed almost clean of Republicans: From Pennsylvania through Maine, the Democrats picked up nine or 10 House seats. (At press time, one race in Connecticut was going to a recount.) And the rout continued in the Midwest and the Plains. Four years earlier Kansas had elected an ultra-conservative attorney general named Phill Kline, who used the power of his office to snoop into the medical records of patients at abortion clinics. He was crushed, 58 percent to 42 percent, by a Republican who switched parties to challenge him. And while Kline went down, Republicans lost an eastern Kansas House seat in a district that had voted for Bush over Kerry by 20 points.
There were lessons in the races the Republicans did win too. In the Mountain West, Republican candidates had their margins slashed dramatically. Idaho’s 1st District, which gave Bush 70 percent of its vote, handed only 50 percent to a doctrinaire conservative. Wyoming’s sole House seat gave its Republican incumbent a win by less than 1 percentage point. In state after state, Republican support plunged.
“The libertarian West,” Hotline Editor Chuck Todd wrote in a post-election column, “is a region that is more up for grabs than it should be. And it’s because the Republican Party has grown more religious and more pro-government, which turns off these ‘leave me alone,’ small-government libertarian Republicans.”
The decline isn’t entirely the Republicans’ fault. They just created an opening for their opponents to exploit. The Democrats in the libertarian West, tenderized by the wipeouts of the 1990s, reassessed their positions on the Second Amendment, public land, and taxes, and reintroduced themselves to voters. In the Bush years, they gave stronger support to civil liberties than most of their Republican competitors. At one Montana debate, GOP Sen. Conrad Burns lambasted Democrat Jon Tester for wanting to “weaken” the PATRIOT Act. Tester shot back that he didn’t want to weaken it: “I want to repeal it.” Tester won the election.
Of course, the PATRIOT Act isn’t a “social issue.” That’s part of the point. The Bush-Rove iteration of the Republican Party, with its tight focus on social issues and its coordination with religious groups to turn out votes, fell dramatically short with an electorate for whom other subjects had more salience. In future elections, that skeptical segment of the country will only grow larger. The libertarian states of Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada are growing as the Deep South and the Rust Belt stagnate. And young professionals in Republican killing fields like Virginia and Ohio are getting more socially liberal, not less.
Election-night spinners tried to argue that the new congressional class consists of “conservative Democrats.” But while the newly elected Democrats include several relatively libertarian supporters of the Second Amendment, even their most conservative members, such as Pennsylvania’s senator-elect Bob Casey Jr., support the morning-after pill and some stem cell research.
The GOP’s fundamentalist myopia, combined with its sorry record on spending and corruption, has made Grover Norquist’s “Leave Us Alone Coalition” a bloc that’s up for grabs. In Norquist’s formulation, the coalition includes “taxpayers who want the government to reduce the tax burden, property owners, farmers, and homeowners who want their property rights respected.” Voters like these are now willing to entertain alternatives to a Southern-dominated, religious GOP.
They proved that in Pennsylvania, where Casey felled Rick Santorum—the only senator who actually flew down to Florida to join the Pinellas Park circus—in an 18-point landslide. On Election Day, the Philadelphia Inquirer found a voter willing to explain why Santorum lost. “I don’t know what happened to him,” said Roby Lentz, a Republican. “He quit representing me when he showed up at Terri Schiavo’s bedside.”
David Weigel (dweigel@reason.com) is an assistant editor of Reason.
Limit gov't & put American interests ahead instead of globalists. Then the social issues will take care of themselves.
Luis Gonzalez wrote: "Uh...it appears to have worked rather well for the Democrats."
Agreed, but I don't agree with you (from your previous posts on other threads) that the Republicans need to sacrifice conservative goals in order to appeal to the moderates. The Republicans need to articulate why conservatism is much better for this country. I believe small government IS better, but the problem is, IMHO, many Republican leaders don't. I suspect the moderates would have voted Republican if they had something worth voting for. Saying Democrats are worse is NOT an effective way to win elections. Take just one issue, Social Security. What rational person wouldn't prefer a reform that gives you the OPTION of owning your own retirement funds, guarantees you'll never have less than what the present program pays, and promises no changes for existing recipients who don't want to participate? THAT is something that should sell very well to conservatives and moderates.
BTW, I'm not saying you are wrong for wanting to compromise on the issues. I think many conservatives would just like to see a few issues actually swing our way when we vote for people who profess to support us. It's not like a ban on partial birth abortion, for example, was all that earth shattering, or do you think we were reaching too far?
DaveyB wrote: "The worst part was how half-a$$ed the republicans acted in the Schiavo matter!"
Agreed. If any of them truly thought it was murder, they basically stood by and let it happen. Rather than take a stand, they tried to pawn it off on the judicial system, and the judges weren't interested in playing.
My point was simply that libertarians who wanted to save Terri because they thought her opinion in the matter (right to die) wasn't clearly established, effectively wanted the same result as social conservatives who wanted to save her for moral reasons. In other words, we are natural allies against the liberals, but you wouldn't know it from reading many of the posts in these threads.
I hope you aren't taking offense where none was intended. I most certainly don't consider all of those who defended her right to live a zealot or incapable of considering the constitutional questions that were raised.
arderkrag wrote: "I should know, my sister is a card carrying-Democrat."
My sympathies. It's funny how nearly every extended family has one.
Frankly, people who demand spending cuts in wartime strike me as brain dead.
You obviously don't get it. Most Libertarians do not belong to the LP or any other political party. They comprise a large swath of voters who just want the government to stay out of their lives. You know, the large swath of voters that told the GOP to take a hike.
Have fun getting elected with out us.
You need us more than we need you. Bush is perhaps the most pro-life President in modern political history and abortion is still around. Do you think by running solely on social issues the GOP can win? Look, tell the party bosses to stop putting so much emphasis on abortion and gay marriage. We know the GOP is pro-life and defenders of the family. Do they have to make it a central issue all the time?
The GOP needs to focus on the meat-and-potatoes for now. Once people have money and the economy's booming the social issues will take care of themselves.
EEE wrote: "Social issues should be fought at the state/local level."
I bet a majority of Americans, myself included, agree. It's the liberals who believe in a living Constitution (meaning, we'll interpret it to mean whatever we want).
My main point of opposition with your post lies right here:
"I don't agree with you (from your previous posts on other threads) that the Republicans need to sacrifice conservative goals in order to appeal to the moderates."
Self-described conservatives seem to believe that they own the GOP, and that everyone else who belongs needs to adhere to their ideology.
The Republican Party, in order to survive, must be a coalition, that coalition must recognize dissimilar points of view, and honor its membership by supporting their causes.
If conservatives feel that this is something that they can't tolerate, then they need to form the American Conservative Party, and advance their own ideas.
I was of a mixed oppinion on the whole Schiavo thing. On the one hand I support a persons right to end their life or refuse medical treatment and I think a spouse's say is more important than other family members in this matter. On the other hand though, her husband really seemed to be a jerk and letting someone slowly die of dehydration seems to be excessively cruel. If someone killed their dog by depriving it of water for two weeks we'd all agree that that person was a monster who belongs in jail. Personally I think it would have been far kinder to have given her an overdose of barbituates.
FReeper Southack posts s listing of the Bush administration achievements. It's quite an impressive list, even if you only examine the victories scored in the process of rolling back abortion in America.
Pretending that nothing swung in the conservative way during the Bush administration s one of the most annoying habits of so-called conservatives.
Now, I ask you, if you were the GOP, and conservatives did nothing more than complain about what they weren't getting when you knew that they had scored more victories than ever, why would you continue to court them?
EEE wrote: "Limit gov't & put American interests ahead instead of globalists. Then the social issues will take care of themselves."
I think we need both limited government and social conservatism, but I think I see your point. If we eliminate the big government safety net that reinforces irresponsible behavior, we'd get a return to morality, right? On the other hand, we are unlikely to get fiscal conservatism with a massive illegitimacy rate, because a lot of those single moms want government to be daddy. In any event, it doesn't hurt libertarians and values voters to work together for BOTH limited government and social conservatism. It's not like the libertarians have to give all that much up to put some reasonable restrictions on abortion, or is it?
The "Values Voters" were all united behind keeping Terri Schiavo alive. There are tons and tons and tons of people who are against abortion, gay marriage, & etc., but did not believe in the "Save Terri" stuff.
Those voters absolutely saw through what the Republicans were doing- passing meaningless laws that sounded tough at a surface level but didn't actually change any laws. I'm not at all convinced that is the reason Bush's ratings went down, but it did feed the cynicism.
That attitude is EXACTLY the reason why Republicans lost this last election. Military spending is only 19% of the federal budget and you're telling me it's brain dead to demand spending cuts in the other 81%? Republican socialism sucks!
Dolphy wrote: "I hope you aren't taking offense where none was intended."
No offense taken. I assume religious zealots are those who want to act on their faith. I know many people who fall into that category. When we discussed Terri Schiavo, the morality of the decision wasn't the only reason we opposed killing her. It was one of the reasons, but not the only reason.
The MSM paints a very different picture of us fundamentalists. Yes, we are guided by faith, but we aren't unthinking. The MSM image of uneducated, screaming, intolerant Bible thumpers is GREATLY exaggerated.
ndt wrote: "The defense of personal freedom in the GOP has atrophied."
If so, it hasn't atrophied any worse than the goal of social conservatism. I think you are overly pessimistic. From what I see, limited government, social conservatism, and personal liberty are still important issues to rank and file Republicans. The real threat comes from liberals who have absolutely no reservations about using government to achieve their goals. It's not like conservatives appointed the SCOTUS judges who recently voted to let your property be confiscated and handed over to another citizen.
Luis Gonzalez wrote: "The Republican Party, in order to survive, must be a coalition, that coalition must recognize dissimilar points of view, and honor its membership by supporting their causes."
I don't disagree with that. Just remember recognition goes both ways. It doesn't mean I give up everything I want so you can get what you want. And, that's the point I've been trying to make throughout this thread. I don't think it's a big deal for libertarians to let us social conservatives have a few things while they get what they want. I ask again, was it really that great a sacrifice for the libertarians or moderate Republicans when we tried to save Terri Schiavo? What was so unreasonable about trying to save the poor woman's life?????
elmer fudd wrote: "I was of a mixed oppinion (sic) on the whole Schiavo thing."
And yet, despite all of the reasons you quoted, some FReepers are offended that social conservatives said, "Whoa! Maybe we should slow down before we rush to kill her." It was a worthy cause, IMHO, and even if some Republican moderates disagreed, I don't think we conservatives were asking for much. I mean, was it really that unreasonable to try and save her life? Is THAT what moderates think? You know, it was possible to fight for Terri Schiavo AND cut government at the same time. It's not our (libertarian, moderate, and conservative) fault our leaders sold us a bill of goods.
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