'Make my decade'
Robert Shrum
Across the post-election landscape, Republicans have called for a reappraisal of the party’s relevance and rationale. A tide of blue has left few red enclaves outside the Great Plains and the deep South, with even North Carolina and Virginia falling to the Democrats. Predictably, conservative true believers favor a move even farther right. However, pragmatists and some influential conservative commentators have concluded that threadbare condemnations of liberalism, hollow attacks on “unpatriotic” Democrats, and ritualistic charges about “class warfare” and tax increases are the residue of a bygone era. These Republicans envision a broader reach to suburban, younger, and minority voters.
While the post-mortems on the death of the Reagan-Bush era differ, they have one feature in common: Everyone seems to agree that something must be done.
Except Frum. He cites a pointed observation by retiring Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia—a capable legislator denied a chance even to run in a Republican Senate primary because he bears the non-scarlet letter of moderation. Davis said the Republican brand is so discredited that “if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” So far, so good. But Frum immediately pivots to an improbable celebration of the “robust . . . market share” McCain won as a foundation for the Republican future. Frum’s silver lining has a lot of clouds, political and otherwise.
First, the political front: Frum inches up McCain’s share of the vote from 46 to 47 percent, apparently to enable a slightly favorable comparison with Michael Dukakis’s performance in what Frum calls “the not-so-bad Democratic year of 1988.” This is the first time I’ve read that doing as well as Dukakis is an encouraging sign.
If the popular vote is Frum’s preferred metric, then perhaps he should note that Barack Obama secured the second highest percentage of any first term President since Dwight Eisenhower—higher than Reagan’s total in the realigning year of 1980. Frum focuses instead on a racial booby prize: McCain’s lead in “the white vote.” But the trend here is all wrong for Republicans. Obama increased the Democratic share among white voters by seven percent in Ohio; 15 percent in Virginia; 17 percent in North Carolina; and an astounding 22 percent in Indiana—where he actually carried white working-class voters.
At the same time, Hispanic support for Republicans collapsed, a seismic shift triggered by the party’s scarring (and scary) rhetoric during the immigration debate. The fallout here has only begun. Within a few years, Texas, where Obama captured 44 percent of the vote without campaigning, is likely to change from red to blue.
So Frum’s forensic analysis offers Republicans little more than demographic doom, ignoring altogether another, potentially decisive, trend—that younger white voters went heavily for Obama. Even worse, his recommendations would further disgrace the party of Lincoln, which, in effect, he proposes should become even more the party of Rove.
How would Frum mobilize what he calls the Republicans’ “residual assets” (and what others less charitably call the Republican “rump”)?
First, appeal to “nationalism.” Frum describes the exuberant reaction to Obama’s victory in Kenya and decides that Americans might ask: “Who is this guy working for anyway?” This is ridiculous. Election night here brought outpourings of relief and happiness everywhere, not only in Asia and Africa but across Europe, Canada and, most significantly, these United States. Is an American President only supposed to be popular in majority-white nations? Or is he or she perhaps only supposed to be white?
Second, Frum advises Republicans to go after Democrats as the party of “affirmative action” and “the racial spoils system.” He puts an edge on this recipe for backlash politics by positing Republicans as the true representatives of “American indigenous culture.” (Who knew they represented Native Americans?) He pictures Obama as someone who “offers a very different vision of what it means to be an American.” Incredibly, amid the dismal gloom of President Bush’s poll ratings, Frum concludes that Bush is seen by Americans as “more authentically their own.” This is exactly the stereotype of “the real America” that failed disastrously in the campaign and left John McCain’s reputation in the bargain bin.
Frum does pay lip service to the idea that Republicans need “new policies and a new tone.” But he would marry these to base appeals that would again lead the Republicans down the dirt road to defeat.
When I heard McCain’s graceful concession speech last Tuesday, I thought: Where has that guy been for the past few months? The McCain of election night would have been better for America—and he would have had a better chance to win American votes, indigenous or otherwise. Something like that is what a lot of Republicans are thinking and saying now. But are there enough of them to pull the party back from the brink? Instead, the party very well may follow Frum’s advice. If I were to put politics—and not country—first, my reaction would be this: Go ahead. Make my decade.
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15 Comments
Posted by gb506, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 7:40 am If Shrum thinks it's a stupid move for republicans to move rightward, then a move rightward is surely the best route for republicans to take. Shrum's Democratic clients have been beaten by conservatism and conservatives in the Big Show every time they've been stupid enough to hire the guy, the only difference 2008 brought is that a.) Obama didn' hire Shrum(!), b.) there was no conservative at the top of the republican ticket - not even a pretend one, and c.) it's not possible to beat 600 million dollars and 95% of the news media. Shrum, who cannot drive a car, and who is never seen in public without his expensive suits and cufflinks, is so far removed from what the average American thinks and believes that literally nothing the man says about politics should be taken seriously.
Posted by Brett, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 7:55 am "When I heard McCain’s graceful concession speech last Tuesday, I thought: Where has that guy been for the past few months?" He was always right there, being intentionally obscured by the news media.
Posted by Tennwriter, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 8:36 am Frum should probably be sacrificed to the Paleocons, or some other group, as long as he leaves. Shrum makes a couple good points in the midst of bad points. We need to lurch rightward Now, and then have a message for the middle to believe in. Happy Warrior Conservatism wins...see Barak Obama and low taxes and optimism. Granted his is fake, which just means that ours, if we are sincere in our values, our national defense, and our fiscal responsibility will win. Because Americans chose a fake Reagan over a Big Gov't Republican. We can give them the real thing.
Posted by Roger, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 8:48 am Bob Shrum and too many Democrats have put party before country. That's been the problem.
Posted by sean, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 12:21 pm Dump social conservatism. NOW. Or I'm gone and so is the majority of people my age. Social liberty cannot be ignored. Otherwise all the talk of 'Getting the Government Out of Our Lives' rings empty. This is no small contradiction.
Posted by Sean P, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 1:22 pm "If Shrum thinks it's a stupid move for republicans to move rightward, then a move rightward is surely the best route for republicans to take." Agreed. However, there remains the possibility that this is simply clumsy psi ops, and Frum really wants the party to turn rightward, in which case a tack to the center would be the best bet.
Posted by fblaze, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 2:10 pm Any party that wants to win must a have a candidate that can communicate well. The candidate must be likeable. A few positive good ideas that purports to solve the important problems facing the voters is essential. Younger is better than older. Positive is better than negative. Its too easy.
Posted by BR, Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 2:33 pm The real John McCain of old has been gone for 8 1/2 years and he finally was able to re-appear during his concession speech since he didn't have to pander to the right any more. Becoming more conservative is what sank him. His true character was not hidden by the "liberal" media. There is no such thing as the liberal media. That is another divisive lie that many repubs have swallowed hook, line, and sinker because it allows them to maintain their skewed version of reality. If McCain had gone independent after having his honorable character and record trashed by W and his group, then he may have won in 2000 and 2004, and if he stayed true to his principles of the 1990s the country would have been better off. Instead, he went further to the right so he could get the republican nomination, which was only begrudgingly given to him, and he had to say and do a lot of things that he did not believe in. Now that the repubs have lost, they have already started accusing others of what they are guilty of (e.g. the comment from Roger that Shrum and the dems put their party before their country among others) instead of being honest with themselves and realizing that the course they were taking was wrong all along, like so many of us in this country have been telling them all along. We weren't just opposing you out of an "us and them" mentality. Many tenets of neoconservatism were completely unsustainable. If you want to go further right, bring Newt Gingrich back, and make Sarah Palin the new overall leader of your party, then go for it! You will become a tiny, little lunatic fringe party that will get hammered even harder in 2010 and 2012, and the rest of us can get down to the business of cleaning up your messes and making our country even greater.
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