Beginnings of a significant Republican revival

[Cees Binkhorst]

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What Coattails?
Why right-of-center candidates are succeeding in the age of Obama.

By Yuval Levin | NEWSWEEK

Published Nov 7, 2009

>>From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009

All year, leading democrats from the president on down have argued that
the Republican Party is in the midst of a catastrophic civil war. You
know the story. Successive election defeats have narrowed the GOP's
ideological range, and now an open struggle is afoot for control of its
voice and agenda. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, it seems, are out to
destroy Republican moderates and commit the party to a radical course
sure to relegate it to irrelevance. Only a move to the left can save the
Republicans.

And, in fact, the new president and Congress had a real opportunity to
divide the Republican Party. A moderate stimulus bill that offered a
short-term boost and included a meaningful tax-cut component, for
instance, might have won a very significant number of Republican votes
in Congress last winter and launched a damaging internal GOP battle over
the proper role of the opposition. Some restraint on taxes and spending
in general, and on health care and energy policy in particular, would
also have divided congressional Republicans and left the direction of
the party in doubt.

But Washington Democrats chose a different route. While they have been
peddling the story of Republican self-immolation, they have actually
been creating the conditions for a Republican resurgence. President
Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid have launched the
country on a course of massive spending, a dramatic expansion of
government, and a slew of new taxes in the midst of a recession. Finding
themselves in control of Congress and the White House and so possessed
of an unusual opportunity to pursue their ideological agenda, they have
sought to make the most of it. But they have misjudged just how far to
the left of the country as a whole the Democratic base now resides—and
so, rather than strengthen their own brand, they have inadvertently done
wonders to build and unify the Republican Party.

In Congress, Republicans now march nearly as one, to a degree not seen
in 15 years. Rather than split on the stimulus, conservative and
moderate Republicans easily agreed that it went much too far to the
left. The bill received zero Republican votes in the House and just
three in the Senate. On many crucial votes since, and in the ongoing
health-care and cap-and-trade debates, Republicans have stood together
almost unanimously.

Around the country, the party seems to be regaining its balance. Last
Tuesday's election results were an extraordinary boost for Republicans.
They showed that it is not necessary to run away from the party's
conservative brand to win elections. On the contrary, Republicans
running as Republicans seem to succeed in the age of Obama, and to
attract independent voters in droves.

In Virginia—which went for Obama last year, and elected Democratic
-senators in the last two cycles and Democratic governors throughout
this decade—-Republican Bob McDonnell ran as a practical conservative
with an extensive policy agenda and was elected governor by an enormous
18-point margin. He produced concrete proposals on transportation and
education but was also forthright about his conservative views on taxes
and his opposition to abortion and gun control. In deeply blue New
Jersey, which Obama won last year by double digits, Republican Chris
Christie let the incumbent Democrat embrace Obama, refused to run away
from his own party, and won the governorship decisively. He, too, is
pro-life; he opposed gay marriage and even associated himself with
several GOP governors who had refused to accept stimulus funds. Both
Republicans won independent voters by roughly a 2-to-1 margin.

In the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District,
Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman a
few days after the liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava (who had run to
the left of the Democrat on key issues) dropped out of the race. The
peculiar circumstances of that contest, with prominent conservatives
supporting Hoffman over Scozzafava, have been taken by Democrats eager
for good news as proof of a Republican breakdown. The day after the
election, White House political adviser David Axelrod even went so far
as to say that the victory "should be reassuring to Democrats."

But, in fact, the message of that race was largely the same as those of
New Jersey and Virginia: in this political climate, Republicans can win
by nominating an identifiably Republican right-of-center candidate in
tune with local voters. It seems clear that had they done so from the
outset in upstate New York they would have won there, even though Obama
won the district comfortably last year. For decades, almost no New York
Republicans have been elected without the endorsement of the state's
long-established Conservative Party—that dynamic in this case hardly
indicates new divisions on the right—and Republican leaders this year
clearly erred by choosing (without a primary) a candidate well to the
left of the district. Even so, Owens defeated Hoffman by a mere 4,218
votes, while Scozzafava, who withdrew at the last minute but still
appeared on the ballot, received 6,986 votes. And every poll of the
district in recent weeks suggested that the same uneasy mood prevailed
there as in New Jersey and Virginia.

That mood is the crucial fact of this moment in our politics. It does
not signify a mass migration into Republican ranks, only deep anxiety
regarding what the Democrats are up to, and a renewed openness to hear
what Republicans have to say. It means that Bush fatigue is in the past,
early signs of Obama fatigue are emerging, and Republicans have an
opportunity to win independents again if they can speak to their
concerns.

Last week's elections won't fundamentally transform our politics, but
they will likely help the GOP continue to build its strength. They will
persuade some serious Republicans around the country to run for Congress
next year, now that it's clear that serious Republicans can win. That is
just what happened in the first midterm elections of the last Democratic
president's term: most of the winning candidates in the 1994 Republican
takeover of Congress decided to run only after seeing Christine Todd
Whitman and George Allen win the governorships of New Jersey and
Virginia in 1993.

The results will also make some moderate Democrats very nervous about
the health-care and cap-and-trade bills being pursued by their leaders.
Both bills are political risks—support for the health-care bill hovers
around 40 percent in recent polls and a small majority opposes it, and
the higher utility costs that would follow cap-and-trade legislation
would surely be deeply unpopular in much of the country. Both would have
to be passed on essentially party-line votes, leaving Democrats
answerable to voters for their consequences. In both cases, too, last
week's elections will reinforce Republican unity.

The fact is, we remain a two-party nation. Republicans are not in the
midst of a destructive civil war, any more than the Democrats were when
they kicked out Joe Lieberman in 2006. When it comes to the major
debates of the moment—health care, energy, the budget, even most social
issues—the Democratic Party is far more divided than the GOP. Republican
Party identification remains low (about 25 percent, compared with the
Democrats' 35 percent), but in a country where 40 percent of voters
identify as conservative and only 20 percent as liberal (according to a
Gallup poll released last month), the more conservative party isn't
going anywhere.

Rather than a civil war, we appear to be witnessing the beginnings of a
significant Republican revival. The Grand Old Party is finding its
footing again in Congress and the states, and behind the scenes there is
a growing intellectual effort to develop the next conservative agenda—
focused in particular on easing the burdens faced by middle-class
parents and contending with the bleak long-term federal budget outlook.
Much work remains on that front, but early indications suggest that this
work—substantive policy development, seeking to apply conservative
principles to the enormous problems of the moment—not only will help
Republicans speak more effectively to middle-class voters, but will also
help the party's conservatives and moderates hone their common voice.
Issue by issue, it turns out they don't disagree all that much.

None of this means that President Obama has lost all his appeal, or that
the Democrats don't have an opportunity to advance their agenda in the
coming year. It does mean, however, that liberals in Washington would do
well to let go of the Republican breakdown narrative, take a real look
at the mood of the country and the state of their own party's prospects,
and pull back to the center—or suffer the consequences.

Levin is the editor of National Affairs and a fellow at the Ethics and
Public Policy Center in Washington.

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/221607

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