What's Wrong with the Republicans

These should be salad days for the Republicans. They control all three branches of the government, have 28 state governors and a majority of the state legislatures. They have gerrymandered Congressional districts to make their incumbents almost invulnerable, and the bulk of the social issues they espoused in the last elections, particularly opposition to gay marriage, passed with wide margins.

Why then, does this increasingly feel like a party under siege?

Decades need to pass before we can properly assess how presidents and their parties have changed our country. But if the 2004 elections represented the height of Republican power, it also signals a finale. There are too many cracks in the foundation, and Bush’s second term is succumbing to what many called “second-term-itis,” marked by the scandals and infighting that have always plagued second-term presidents.

A fish rots from the head, and the president is partly to blame for not keeping his house in order. Originally elected on a platform of compassionate conservatism, Bush’s tenure has been marked by the largest increase in government spending and fiscal unrestraint this side of The Great Society. Government is bigger than ever. Republicans are wasting more money than Paris Hilton at Neiman Marcus, with bills so laden with special interest perks and pork you can smell the methane here in Boston. The massive governmental growth and unchecked spending, combined with tax cuts and a war in Iraq costing millions each day, has brought our budget deficit to new heights. We are also billions of dollars in debt, mainly to China, who will one day stop buying our bonds and move on to a stronger currency if things don’t stop. The GOP can no longer realistically position itself as the party of fiscal restraint and smaller government. The current administration has completely squashed that notion.

Bush would never have been elected and re-elected without massive support from the evangelical community, and he certainly owes them his support. What is alarming is how they appear to be hijacking the center of the party and not only pushing it farther to the right, but dancing on the edge of the church/state abyss. There have been alarming messages of intolerance and bigotry sent by the Republicans on homosexuals and ignorance disseminated by the ridiculous “intelligent design” theory vs. evolution. American schools do a bad enough job teaching biology and science as is. I find it very difficult to believe that someone as educated and erudite as President Bush truly believes that intelligent design (remember when it was fobbed off as creationism?) should trump evolution as a school standard. There is also no way a medical doctor like Bill Frist could have diagnosed Terry Schiavo and said the evangelicals’ medical assessment was correct (he was wrong). Both are obviously pandering to this wing of the party.

The recent fiasco over Harriet Miers illustrates how GOP infighting is drawing to a head. Evangelicals, dead-set on overturning the abortion issue, attacked Miers for not being conservative enough. Miers was obviously not the most qualified or brightest candidate for the job, but when religious groups have more sway over a nominee than the Senate, it’s a good sign that your party is too beholden to outside influence.

With the president’s low popularity, you can see how the GOP is beginning to splinter. Fiscal conservatives are now demanding action on spending. Moderates are spending more time with Democrats. Republican Congressmen and Senators up for re-election next year are tracking the polls and are strategically shifting their policies away from an increasingly unpopular war and president.

So what will happen to the Republicans in 2006 and 2008? Of course, it’s too early to tell. But the party’s leadership is losing too much Independent voter support on wedge issues like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage by kowtowing to the religious right wing of the party, which is likely a minority of the overall party but overabundant in the party’s leadership.

But don’t forget what I mentioned first – the Republicans are in full control, and you don’t get that way by making mistakes. Republican congressmen and women are ensconced by redistricting, and won’t lose many seats (if any). And the Party is smart enough to sense that if the President is poison and seen as beholden to a radical fringe, the party can easily nominate a centrist candidate like John McCain and Rudy Guiliani who will appeal to those Independents and swing voters like me who decide elections. Frankly, I think the Party is now so far to the right that it has no choice but to steer back toward the middle to get votes it needs. The whole idea is so crazy it just might work.

Come back in the next week or two when I tear the Democrats a new one!