I don’t quite buy it. Salon.com, however, is running an article that suggests otherwise. The authors of this one believe that the Republican Party is becoming a hostage to the same divisions that have long plagued Democratic voters.

I agree with many premises of this article, but I think that at whole, it is a bit overblown. The fact of the matter is, Bush does not simply pander to uneducated cultural conservatives. Maybe his talk is anti-intellectual, but the truth is that wealthier citizens still vote for him in droves because he’s giving them gobs of money. It seems that these folks are able to look past Bush’s cowboy persona, right to their bottom line.

Certainly, I’ve talked to self-avowed conservatives (not just moderates) that despise Bush, but I still believe that they’re a minority group. Plus, the truth is that many of these folks aren’t the most ardent Republicans in the first place. They’re more likely the kind of folks who say “I vote Republican, but I did vote for Carter/Clinton/whomever.” There’s nothing wrong with that inherently, but let’s not pretend that these folks were ever particularly loyal. They’re just well-principled.

There will be no huge fissure in the Republican Party in 2004. The article itself admits that support for Bush among Republicans is at a staggering 87%. That’s not division, especially not compared to Democratic standards (who are quite a bit more ideologically diverse).

However, I believe that Bush’s strong ideologies will have several more subtle effects, especially if this conversion of moderates to the Democratic Party persists. Indeed, some of these secondary changes could directly influence the coming election. First, demographic breakdowns of party affiliation will become even more rigid. When your leader is a clear ideologue, I believe there is more of a tendency to judge him/her exclusively on that ideology than on him/her as a leader. This means more classism, more regionalism and ultimately more aloofness in the political process.

Secondly, it will become more and more difficult for the Democrats to define their party platform in anything but a reactionary light. The Democratic Party has a long but shaky history of defining themselves because of the diverse ideologies and opinions they represent. This will become even more difficult as more moderate positions are added to the Democratic jumble. This could be a problem for the Democrats. Since voter turnout and personality rule national electoral politics, it could become even more difficult for Democratic candidates to put themselves in a positive light.

Truth be told, I think this is beginning to happen already. I mean, Kerry surely deserves some blame for his campaign bumbles, and he doesn’t exactly have Bush’s war chest to help him out, but the truth is that Bush makes it very hard for Kerry to portray himself as anything but the anti-Bush. The same would have been true for Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich or any of the other Democratic candidates.

I don’t really know what the solution is to this problem. This is the crux of a problem that journalists too frequently fail to address. Clinton was known as the great triangulator, but he lived in a far different time than we do not, and triangulation is far more difficult than it used to be. Perhaps 2004 will simply be a test of who can sway voters with the least triangulation. The truth is, that could be a dangerous problem for Democrats no matter what.

Posted on March 25th, 2004 by Lee
Filed under: Uncategorized