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That the governing style of the Obama Administration has catalyzed public sentiment back toward the founding principles of limited government has made the GOP’s return to its roots something of a glide path – but it will have to be fought for in order to be preserved.
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| Liberal journalists (but I repeat myself) – a fraternity for whom indignation is proof of sentience – believed they had found just cause to be aghast last week in the nation’s fourth largest state. Deeming themselves the keepers of political Wisdom, the chattering class bayed at the news that Florida Governor Charlie Crist is leaving the Republican Party to continue his pursuit of a seat in the U.S. Senate as an Independent.
The mainstream media laments the Crist defection as only the most recent sign that the conservative movement – smelling blood in the wake of the declining popularity of liberal government – is in the midst of an ideological purge. From The New York Times to MSNBC, the narrative is unvarying: the right wing, having lost itself in the fever swamps of the Tea Party movement, is dragging the GOP away from the sensible center, ensuring a self-marginalization that will keep Republicans wandering in the political wilderness for the foreseeable future.
Crist and the Tea Parties are only the most recent invocation of this trend. The defection of erstwhile Republican Senator Arlen Specter to Democratic ranks, the supposed overreach of Arizona’s new immigration law, and the unanimous Republican opposition to health care reform have all been cited as proof that a revanchist conservative movement is willing to follow its first principles off a cliff.
Hogwash. Crist’s decision to run as an independent stemmed from one simple fact: he is demonstrably unable to win a Republican primary. In the course of a year, Crist’s poll numbers against conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio dropped by around 50 points. Apart from the pundits who lament his extirpation, there’s no market for what Crist is selling.
Nor are the other signs of the rightward death march particularly compelling. If Senator Specter is the hallmark of moderate pragmatism, why aren’t Democrats being held to account for the fact that liberal Representative Joe Sestak is now within just a few points of Specter in the Pennsylvania primary? If Arizona’s immigration law is a form of voluntary political suicide, why does it enjoy majority support nationwide (as well as in the Grand Canyon State)? And if opposition to ObamaCare was gratuitous obstructionism, why did that opposition see consistent increases in public support as voters learned more about the reform plan?
If the Republican Party is turning to the right, it’s because it found out what life in the center was like. Per the axiom of southern politics, “there ain’t nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.” When the GOP lost its commitment to limited government and individual freedom, it became a pale-faced confederation of appropriators, unable to articulate a principled standard for the limits of government or offer a vision of sufficient contrast from the Democrats.
That the governing style of the Obama Administration has catalyzed public sentiment back toward the founding principles of limited government has made the GOP’s return to its roots something of a glide path – but it will have to be fought for in order to be preserved. The emergence of candidates like Marco Rubio shows that certain quarters of the Republican Party have immunized themselves against the temptation to become what used to be referred to as “Me Too Republicans” – nominal members of the GOP who genuflect to every statist idea from the left. This new generation of leaders are standing strong, they’re planting their flag, and if that leaves the media floored … well, then, all the better.
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