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By Martin A. Knight Posted in Archived | GOP | moderates — Comments (252) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

So, you've all had your fun. You've gotten to vent about moderates. I hope you feel better. Now we have to work together to, you know, try to build a coalition to win. Unless you are happy being in the minority. If so, go on about your business. But as for me and RedState, we aim to win. And that takes more than a merry few. So be happy soldiers in the fight, but just remember the fight is with the left.

Comments are now closed. --- Erick

This is sort of a belated response to BigGator5's diary protesting the "anti-moderate" sentiment simmering just below the surface of most RedState regulars - I'm one of them.

To be honest, I've not exactly made it a secret that I am not exactly enamored of the "moderate" wing of the Republican Party - I should think the quotation marks are a big giveaway - so I'm probably part of the problem from BigGator5's perspective. So let me put it out there once and for all, and let's hash it out here now before the Democrats have a nominee so we can concentrate all our fire on them when they do.

Anyway, KLo posted this rather hagiographical recounting of Bobby Jindal's recent appearance before the National Press Club yesterday morning. Like most RedStaters, I'm a major Jindal fan so of course I read it, and for some reason, this sentence in the last paragraph struck home with me;

Talk to conservatives — Washington insiders and National Review Online readers alike — and you'll almost universally hear an enthusiasm for Jindal: a conservative Republican who knows what he's about and is confident it's a winning philosophy.

This is, I think, a major part of what lies at the root of the rift between the moderate and conservative wings of the GOP - "moderate" Republicans routinely exhibit behaviors that indicate a pronounced lack of confidence in the core animating principles of the Republican Party.

I cannot remember any major legislative battle since I first jumped into the pool of political-junkiehood in which Republicans were not understandably nervous about how many (it's never a question of if) of our "weak sisters" would defect and vote against what is clearly good policy because of Bipartisanship™ or some other reason that just coincidentally makes them look good in newspaper articles.

Quite frankly, on my part, my beef is that Republican "moderates" have repeatedly shown that they cannot be counted on ... on anything when the going gets tough - even on the fiscal issues where they're supposed to be strong, they're quite frankly just as likely to fold as they are on every other issue.

Believe it or not, the fact that Republican "moderates" are generally socially liberal does not bother me that much. Social mores vary from place to place and let's be honest; a Jeff Sessions (a Bobby Jindal may be a different story) would find it rather difficult to win races in New Jersey as opposed to South Carolina. What really bothers me about Republican "moderates" is they are always the first to collapse, the first to throw away any high ground we have in a bid to compromise with people who would not even consider returning the favor if the roles were reversed.

And with the new "moderate" poster-children of Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee, even the all important vote for the Majority Leader (the only reason why anyone would lift a finger to help a squish² Chafee) may soon become a question-mark. I continue to say that the probability is greater than 50% that the poltroon from Rhode Island would have either voted "present" during the Leadership vote, for Howard Baker (since he voted for George H. W. Bush in 2004), or (most likely) for Harry Reid had it been he had won in 2006.

So BigGator5's rather generous description of "moderates" as tending, "to be, to varying degrees, fiscally conservative and socially liberal ...", is really only half-right - about the "socially liberal" part. By and large, Republican "moderates'" collective record on fiscal conservatism is about as mediocre as can be - the roaring fiscally conservative socially liberal Republican in reality is actually a rare creature - Rudy Giuliani, Bill Weld and Gary Johnson (of New Mexico) come to mind but not much of anyone else.

The fact is that almost all of the so-called "moderates" that count themselves as members of the Republican Main Street Partnership have far less or, at best, no more pristine a record on fiscal conservatism than their full-spectrum conservative brethren in the party.

It may not be fair, (and this doesn't mean I want "moderates" out of the Tent) but the first thing that popped into my mind when I read BigGator5's statement that moderate Republicans "... share core Republican ideals and that is why [they] we are Republicans, not Democrats ..." was "Yeah? Which ones?"

BigGator5 describes himself as "having a conservative view on Law & Government (less taxes and less government), a libertarian view on Economics (government should keep their bloody hands off businesses and economics altogether), and a moderate view of Social Issues." As far as I'm concerned, that's excellent - he sounds like Rudy Giuliani or Gary Johnson. If only our elected "moderates" were close to this in actual practice, rather than being capitulating weathervanes, there would be a lot less of a split between the wings.

What we get instead is something like this;

A & B are having an argument.
A says 2 + 2 = 4.
B says 2 + 2 = 5.

Mr. Conservative walks by and they ask him to settle it. Mr. Conservative flatly says A is correct, B is incorrect, and he walks on.

Ms. Liberal walks by and they ask her to settle it. Ms. Liberal quickly calculates the VQ (Victim Quotient) of both and declares correct the party with the higher score, calls the other party a racist and walks on.

Mr. Moderate walks by and A & B ask him to settle it. Mr. Moderate (as expected) suggests a compromise; 2 + 2 is 4 on Mondays, Tuesdays, half of Thurday and all of Friday and 5 at all other times ...

If anything, the only thing I've seen "moderate" Republicans place a premium on as a matter of principle is Bipartisanship™. It's as predictable as the sun rising in the East - stick the word "Bipartisan" in front of the name of any bill and "moderates" virtually stampede to be counted amongst its supporters. This usually ends up as a net negative to Conservatives given that MSM math has it that 45 Republicans and 6 Democrats passing a bill is a vote "along partisan lines," but 49 Democrats and two Republicans comprises a "Grand Bipartisan™ Coalition."

Don't get me wrong; Bipartisanship™ is all very nice and sweet, but it really is not suited to be a governing principle. Though it may come as a shock to a lot of people (mike_volpe - grab the smelling salts), the word "Bipartisan™" is not synonymous with "good" - a bad bill that passes with a bipartisan majority is still a bad bill while a good bill that passes a 100% along partisan lines is still a good bill. The negative consequences of the former would not be any less because it was passed by a "Grand Bipartisan™ Coalition."

To be frank, I have very little patience with all the wailing and moaning in the partisan (Democratic) media about the atmosphere in Washington DC turning off voters because of the partisan rancor and hardball ideological politics (of Republicans, of course). I don't really believe the story that what Americans want most from their politicians are images of Republicans and Democrats sitting around the camp fire singing Kumbayah ...

And that's not just because I'm more inclined towards a hardball, confrontational, take no prisoners approach style to politics - i.e. "... first you win the argument, then you win the vote." It's because the entirety of the period from 2001 till today is proof that it simply isn't true. Quite frankly, Americans really don't spend any time bemoaning the atmosphere in Washington or weeping desperately for Bipartisanship™ in Capitol Hill.

Kate O'Beirne notes in this article on NRD, just about a month after the disaster of 2006;

Although Washington lore faults congressional Republicans for ushering in an era of poisonous partisanship, Pelosi's plan to recapture the House meant a ban on any bipartisanship. She enforced a party loyalty that had House Democrats deliver "the most unified voting record in 50 years," according to the Washington Post. In 2005, her caucus voted along strict party lines 88 percent of the time. In 1997, 51 House Democrats supported a Republican budget that significantly reduced domestic spending. Last year, there wasn't a single Democratic vote for a five-year GOP budget plan with far more modest reductions.

Far from being punished by the voters for not putting Bipartisanship™ first, Pelosi got rewarded with the Speaker's chair.

Another example is Bush.

If indeed, being unfailingly solicitous toward your opponents, dodging fights, using the mildest possible criticisms of your opponents even when campaigning against them, refusing to defend yourself against plain falsehoods and smears to your name and members of your administration ... and even joining the other side in attacking your party (Bush at the Democratic House members' retreat) is really something that appeals to voters, Bush and his "New Tone" should be flying high in the polls. But he's not.

The real issue here is the rift between conservatives and "moderates" and why this rift exists. My position is that "moderates" have repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted to stand strong when strength is needed on any issue - it's as if there exists within our "moderate" contingent a congenital inability to tell when compromise crosses the threshold into abject capitulation. This doesn't happen with Democrats - their "moderates" may talk with a drawl, say a few nice things about tax cuts and the Second Amendment, but ultimately when it's time to vote, they stand with their folks on their side of the aisle.

Our "moderates" have us nervously chewing our nails down to the bone on every tough vote, wondering whether their strange fixation on "Bipartisanship™" would raise its ugly head before it's their turn to yell 'aye' or 'nay.'

As Kate O'Beirne pointed out in the same article, when Democrats demand "Bipartisanship" on the part of Republicans, they mean " ... the 'bipartisanship' of the 'good' old days, when nice Bob Michel — the longtime GOP House minority leader — led an impotent caucus that got along by going along ..."

This is the Bipartisanship™ of moderate Republican "heroes" like Jacob Javits, Clifford Case, Hamilton Fish, etc - the type of pale pastel Republicanism that left the GOP in the wilderness for forty years until Reagan and Gingrich came along. We don't want to go back to offering echoes, not choices.

Endpoint; conservatives in the GOP have their own issues to contend with. But if the average "moderate" Republican in the House, in the Senate, or in the Governor's offices, were more like Rudy Giuliani, rather than Lincoln Chafee, I really don't think they'd be much of a problem.

All that said, and off my chest - let's get to electing John McCain.