Purity versus diversity
The Republican collision between ideologues and pragmatists
Purity versus diversity
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
On paper, the 23rd congressional district in upstate New York, way up near the Canadian border, is solid Republican territory - so solid, in fact, that this particular hunting and fishing region hasn't elected a Democratic congressman since the era immediately preceding the invention of the telephone. That would be circa 1869.
So one might reasonably assume that on Nov. 3, in a special election to fill the recently vacated House seat, that the Republican party's official nominee will win handily and life will go on as normal. Dede Scozzafava is a member of the state legislature with roots in the district, a seasoned pol endorsed by Republicans as disparate as moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich - therefore, case closed.
But no. Never underestimate the contemporary Republican propensity for circular firing squads.
The GOP's conservative wing, incensed that Scozzafava harbors tolerant views about abortion and gay marriage, appears determined to bring her down in the name of ideological purity. Big-name conservatives - Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Dick Armey, Michele Bachmann, and many more - have defected to a rookie third-party candidate, an accountant named Doug Hoffman, who is running on New York's Conservative Party line. With eight days left on the campaign calendar, every poll reports that this fundamental Republican fissure is splitting the non-Democratic vote and making it highly likely that the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, will capture the seat that he normally would never win.
Yeah, this is just one House seat, and the outcome of this race won't change the House power balance one way or the other. But this intramural GOP skirmish - between the purists and the pragmatists, between the grassroots and the party establishment, between the conservative ideologues and those in the party who embrace the notion of "big tent" diversity - is a harbinger of more to come.
We'll see it next summer in the Florida Senate Republican primary, which will pit moderate Charlie Crist (the current governor) against arch-conservative hero Mario Rubio; and we'll surely see it in the next presidential race, particularly if grassroots conservatives flock to a Palin candidacy while pragmatists opt for somebody who can actually win.
It's the old conundrum about going with your heart or voting with your head, and this is what we're seeing right now in upstate New York. The New York Republican establishment, and the GOP campaign committees in Washington, have this wild and crazy notion that a party can return to power only if it diversifies, only if it broadens the ideological spectrum and makes room for politicians who think differently on the issues. After all, that's how the Democrats returned to power on Capitol Hill - by recruiting anti-abortion, pro-gun, fiscally conservative candidates who fit their states and districts.
Hence, the New York GOP's choice of Scozzafava - for a congressional district that gave 52 percent of its '08 presidential vote to Barack Obama. Her formula for winning seemed commonsensical: pull in loyal Republicans, swing voters, conservative Democrats, and labor union folks (she has a good relationship with unions in the district).
But the Republican right favors purity over victory. Mary Matalin, the Republican strategist/talking head, says that Scozzafava's positions are "freedom-squashing." Anti-abortion leader Marjorie Dannenfelser calls the GOP nominee "a radical ultraleftist." (If Scozzafava is indeed a radical ultraleftist, how come the National Rifle Association has seen fit to endorse her?) Palin writes on her Facebook page that Scozzafava represents "politics as usual." The Club for Growth, a purist group that relishes attacking moderate Republicans, is peppering the district with TV ads that urge conservative voters to defect to Hoffman (who is running third in the polls).
The infighting is so bad that it has degenerated into comedic farce. A reporter for the right-wing Weekly Standard magazine has been dogging Scozzafava on the campaign trail, demanding that she explain her reluctance to embrace all manner of conservative orthodoxy - and things got so heated last week that a Scozzafava aide called the cops, claiming that the reporter was harassing the candidate. (A stupid move by the Scozzafava campaign.) Minutes later, the reporter was sitting in his car working on his laptop, when a cop rolled up, asked for his ID, and said (as the reporter later recalled), "You scared the candidate a little bit." The conservative press promptly jumped on this incident to demand last Thursday that Scozzafava quit the race (Redstate.com wrote: "She has become a liar, filing a false police report because a journalist dared ask a question she did not like").
But the bottom line is that the right-wing revolt is likely to cost the GOP an easy House seat and throw it to the Democrat. Newt Gingrich seems to understand the problem; as he wrote the other day, in a warning to conservatives, "if you seek to be a perfect minority, you'll remain a minority...There are times when you have to put together a coalition that has disagreement within it." And as ex-Bush speechwriter David Frum noted the other day, the right's intolerance for big-tent Republicanism "is not a formula for a national party. It's a formula for a more coherent, better mobilized, but perpetually minority party."
How did this House seat become vacant, anyway? Because President Obama tapped the long-serving Republican, John McHugh, to serve as Secretary of the Army. The Obama political team is undoubtedly pleased with the GOP's current intramurals - just as Republican moderates decidely are not.
And down in Florida, where ideology and pragmatism are already in collision, where Senate GOP hopeful Charlie Crist is already under severe attack from the right, state Republican chairman (and Crist booster) Jim Greer reportedly pleads, "Lord, save me from the purists."
Fat chance.
Wow, after reading these posts the one thing I noticed is no liberal seems to want to talk about their record. Obama's record. Just a bunch of Republican bashing. If this is the leadership of the Democrats when they have super majorities then I would say the are pretty much bereft of ideas and bankrupt of solutions.- I'd be happy to defend Obama's record. Of course, he has been president for a very short time, so it's hard to evaluate his policies definitively. Nevertheless, the economy has rebounded--I can now be somewhat optimistic about retirement and so can all you republicans with big holdings in the stock market. I'm not expecting you to say thanks, barack, but at least cut the nonsense about how the stimulus has done nothing. On foreign policy, Obama has reversed the negativism of the Bush people. The long-range is cloudy as it always is, but at least there is a sense of intelligence rather than ideology at work. And at least we are past the point where macho slogans are considered policy.— liberal
- ***CNN’s performance was worst in the 8 p.m. hour. Bill O’Reilly on Fox News continued his long dominance with the biggest numbers of any host, 881,000 viewers. Mr. Olbermann, with his first-run program, was second with 295,000. Close behind was the first edition of Ms. Grace’s show with 269,000. Campbell Brown on CNN trailed with only 162,000.*** http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/cnn-drops-to-last-place-among-cable-news-networks/— NEPhilly
- ***At 7 p.m. CNN’s host, Lou Dobbs was fourth, barely beaten by Jane Velez Mitchell on HLN, 166,000 to 162,000. The big winner was Shepard Smith on Fox with 465,000 viewers. Second was Chris Matthews and “Hardball” on MSNBC, with 179,000 viewers.***— NEPhilly
- ***The only CNN show from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. that did not finish last was Larry King, which was third, ahead of the new Joy Behar show on HLN. But Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News had a huge lead with 659,000 viewers in that age group. Second was Rachel Maddow on MSNBC with 242,000. Mr. King averaged 224,000 and Ms. Behar 181,000.***— NEPhilly
- tom/NEPhilly/swedesboromike: can you guys explain the sudden obsession here amongst conservatives on polling data? During the first three years or so or Iraq, when it was a complete and unmitigated disaster, I was continually told that GW Bush was "resolute in the face of public opinion" (I'd say in the face of reality, but that's neither here nor there), and he was doing "what's right, not popular", and all sorts of other similar bs. Then during the election, you guys kept saying that McCain was principled, not "governed by polls" (which was more bs), and that Democrats, and Obama in particular, "held their finger to the wind" and made decisions "based upon the latest polls". Now fast forward to 2009. Your main argument against offering a public option is not merit based, but that .... wait for it... some polls show the country evenly split. Could you guys pick a position and stick with it please? Either our elected officials should do what they feel is in the best interests of their constituents, and if need be pay the price at the next election (there's your term limits, NEPhilly) as was intended when our nation was founded as a representative democracy, or they should just run polls and vote the way a majority polls - in which case we should just have a direct democracy where everyone votes on everything. I'm fine with polling data if focused narrowly on the political aspects of pending legislation, but to use it as an argument for or against legislation is ridiculous, and actually subverts the basic premise upon which our government was based upon.— still_independent
- and I'm saying that being very ambivalent about the public option myself.— still_independent
- lib, I think the markets/economy would have rebounded without the $180 Bil the gov. has spent as stimulus and without the $600 Bil they have not spent yet. I am happy about the market. We will see how 'intelligent' the President's new foreign policy efforts of treating our enemies better than Fox News and the Chamber of Commerce will work out. I worry as Gov. Pawlenty does, ***...But the potential 2012 presidential candidate told the news organization that Obama “is projecting potential weakness, and enemies may see that and their res pect may be reduced as a result of that, or worse.” He went on to call Obama a “movement liberal,” whose policy prescriptions include the “federalization of policy, spending way beyond anything we’ve seen in terms of deficit or debt levels [and] spending the country into bankruptcy.” “What’s behind it is a philosophy that government knows best, a nanny state mentality on domestic issues that will ultimately be corrosive to the other pil lars of our country – to markets, private enterprise, individual responsibility, freedom and liberty,” Pawlenty said.*** http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28735.html#— NEPhilly
- NEPhilly: winning prime time among cable news networks is like claiming to be the smartest poster on this blog. It may be technically true, but you have to keep it in perspective :)— still_independent
- still, GWB did do what he thought was 'right' in the face of bad poll numbers many times (surge, immigration, social security, etc). McCain was governed by polls and during the campaign switched some positions accordingly, not a good idea in my opinion. I was posting the poll numbers because several of your fellow less educated liberal posters were saying, incorrectly, that the public option was wanted by a majority of Americans and I just used the poll to counter that argument. How many politicians (on either side of the aisle) would sacrifice their seat for their own ideology and beliefs? That is my idea of a 'principled politician' and not many fit the bill. If they were not worried about themselves (not their constituents) and their jobs the dems in congress would have passed this healthcare bill long ago, imho.— NEPhilly
- still, right you are:) Just trying to keep it real in the face of the Fox bashing:)— NEPhilly
- still, my posting of polling data is usually beckoned by someone stating that the public option is favored by the majority of people, and how the majority of people view healthcare reform as a major priority. For the first few months since Obama was inaugurated, it was mentioned ad nauseum on this site how popular Obama was, how the nation loved his policies and how he could remake America. Now, with his popularity tanking, his policies viewed unfavorably by more than 50% of the nation, and nothing having been fixed by his actions, those same people barely mention polls, so I do it for them. Frankly, I do not believe politicians should govern based on polling data, especially where military action is concerned. Clinton governed by polls, Bush did not, and Obama seems to be stuck somewhere in the middle. I believe his indifference to a decision on Afghanistan troops is more the result of bad polling of that war and the politics of his healthcare ambitions than on his "review" of the strategy (which he announced this past March) and the election fraud (we had Richard Holbrooke over there...were they really surprised by the fraud?).— tom - wilmington, de
- liberal, kindly explain how the economy has rebounded. Where is the data to back this up? Are you saying having a jobless recovery is indicative of a rebounding economy? Do you believe that bunk on "saved jobs"? What exactly, except for extending unemployment and assisting with COBRA, has the stimulus stimulated? It was supposed to create 600,000 jobs over the summer (it didn't happen). It was supposed to prevent unemployment from exceeding 8% (it didn't happen). It promised to create or save 3.5 million jobs, but we are still bleeding 500,000 jobs per month. The stimulus did not stabilize banks or the auto industry, that money came from TARP. So exactly what has the stimulus accomplished? As for internationally, please point to one success. All I see is backtracking (missile shield in Poland), dithering (troop increase in Afghanistan), Iran is still producing uranium, North Korea has tested missiles six times since January, Russia has offered no help with Iran despite the reset of relations, Europe leaders have been snubbed (Sarkozy and Brown), Israel has little confidence in Obama, a trade war is starting with China, trade pacts with Colombia and South Korea are left unsigned, we are backing a Hugo Chavez puppet in Honduras, China is exerting influence among trade partners in Asia and we sit by and do nothing, so where are the foreign policy successes?— tom - wilmington, de
- tom, one thing the stimulus bill did was change the rules of the Tarp legislation retroactively. A lot of people don't know that. ***American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("ARRA"). ARRA includes new executive compensation restrictions that apply to institutions that have received or will receive financial assistance under the Troubled Assets Relief Program ("TARP").***— NEPhilly
- As if the Democrats don't have their own set of tests. The democrat purity requirement for abortion is far more absolute than the Republican. name ONE prominant democrat who is publicly pushing to restrict abortion. Casey's father was the last. Casey speaks the words, but he has never actually done anything to support the anti-abortion people and his true colors became clear campaigning for Obama. And let us not forget, Obama pushed to allow hospitals to kill babies born alive during late term abortion by not treating them.— Dutch-wayne
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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