When the Party’s Over

I know Clayton Cramer means well but one of his latest posts is off base regarding the 2008 presidential race and Bryan Fischer’s column thereon. Fischer expressed his honest belief that Rudy Giuliani could not win the Presidency and would never have Fischer’s vote. Clayton responds:

A few years back, gun owners self-righteously withheld their votes from George Bush, Senior. I understood their disgust, and I could not develop any enthusiasm for him, either. But the net effect of gun owners refusing to vote for Bush, who was a weak supporter of gun control, was to put in office Bill Clinton–an enthusiastic supporter of gun control.

And what is the state of the gun control movement in the United States today? This  is a missing piece from Clayton’s analysis. The Assault Weapons Ban has been allowed to expire. Even with a Democratic Congress, we’re not seeing major votes on Gun Control legislation on the House floor. And the Democrats have a pro-gun National Party Chairman

Thus making the argument for why pro-lifers should vote for Giuliani–or perhaps not. Had Clinton never been elected President, and drifting clueless Bush I Administration continued in power, Republicans would have continued to slowly bleed members from the House and members from the Senate. The only way the spectacular bloodless Coup of 1994 occurs is with Clinton in power.

Am I calling for Democratic victory in 2008? Certainly not, but the idea that life doesn’t exist beyond this election is completely shortsighted.  Sometimes, things need shaken up and as long as a party holds onto power, it’s very to do. As John Quincy Adams said, “Duty is our’s, results our God’s.”

There is a possibility that Republicans could pressure a pro-choice Republican President to nominate a mixture of pro-life and pro-choice judges to the federal bench. This is not an ideal situation for a pro-life Republican, obviously. But if a Democrat ends up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, any pro-life judge that gets appointed will be an accident.

Why would Giuliani bother? Pro-Lifers who would support him would show themselves morally weak patsys who are so scared to death of the Democrats that they’ll support him no matter what. What leverage would pro-lifers have? None.

A reader sends a write on comment to Clayton:

A more dynamic analysis would note that how you vote in one election influences the choices you get in the next election. If, for instance, pro-gunners demonstrate to Republicans our willingness to vote for an anti-gun Republican candidate, the rational response by Republican candidates is to become more anti-gun, because this gains them some marginal votes from anti-gunners, but does not lose them our votes. The Democrats then respond by also becoming more anti-gun. And suddenly we’re not debating the Lawful Commerce in Firearms act, but instead renewal of the “Assault weapon” ban.

Clayton responds:

I understand the logic of this. But is letting President Clinton pick the next two or three Supreme Court justices a case of “temporary setback is likely to lead to a permanent loss”? Imagine a Supreme Court that decides that same-sex marriage is Constitutionally mandated, and limiting “hate speech” allows revoking the non-profit status of churches that speak out against homosexuality or abortion. Imagine a Court that rules that freedom of religion does not include the right to refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

Imagine that we put a guy in as President who appointed someone who was an officer for International Association of Lesbian and Gay Judges. That would be Giuliani.

There’s also the experimental example. After the 1992 elections, when gun owners to a large extent sat out the elections because Bush Senior was mildly anti-gun, what was the name of that strongly pro-gun candidate that Republicans picked in 1996? I’ll bet he just cleaned Clinton’s clock! (Oh, that didn’t happen?)

The NRA sat out 1992 and 1996, and then in 2000 endorsed Bush. As explained above,  this wasn’t awful times for the NRA or Gun Right other than the first two years of Clinton’s term.

Ditto for what happened when gun owners sat out the Dan Lundgren for Governor campaign in California? He was strongly anti-gun. And which strongly pro-gun Republicans have followed him at the top of the ticket?

I would quote the 2002 Republican nominee for Governor of California, Bill Simon, who stated:

Says California has enough gun control laws and does not support new legislation. Would enforce current California laws in court but says some state gun laws are ineffective. Says he would not have signed a ban on cheap “Saturday night special” handguns, calling the law too broad.

I wouldn’t define Simon as “strongly anti-gun.” And at this point, there have been two general elections since 1998. Hard to judge the long-term effectiveness of a strategy.  In addition, the gun issue is different. For a whole host of folks it is the rubicon, you do not cross. It is the reason they’re active in politics, the reason they’re Republicans at all. Some people feel that way about guns, but it’s a far smaller group.

Clayton concludes with a warning:

Sometimes, if you sit out an election, those parts of the Party that don’t particularly agree with you anyway have a reason to say, “Why are we worrying what they think? When we needed them, they weren’t there for us.”

The best possible outcome for our country of a Giuliani nomination is for a conservative third party to emerge that either leads to the GOP going the way of the Whigs or moving the GOP to the right and then disbanding. What I fear most is that some will give up on politics for good, so that yes, the GOP can ignore them with good reason….they won’t be there, and the GOP will fade as Democrats enjoy long-term rule whoever wins the 2008 election.

UPDATE:

Clayton responds:

Adam Graham thinks I’m missing the reason for this, pointing out that gun control is largely a dead issue now. But unfortunately, not because Republicans learned their lesson–but because Democrats lost the 1994 Congressional elections, by their own admission, largely because they got what they wanted on gun control.

I would disagree that Republicans didn’t learn their lesson. The House Republican leadership shifted from Bob Michal to Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America. While the Contract answered the challenge of Ross Perot more than anything else, people forget that in 1996, the Republican House voted to repeal the Assault Weapon Ban.

I’d also say it would be very hard to tag the entire Democrat loss on gun control, Hillary also over-reached on Health Care, gays in the military, etc. It cost them dearly.

Clayton then raises three concerns with my thoughts on the idea that the best thing to happen would be a third party, if Giuliani were the nominee. It should be noted that I consider this preferable to the option of 10-20% of the Party simply dropping out of politics never to return, which is the other option I see.

My statement is also analytical at its heart. In reality, this issue is out of my hands and out of Clayton’s. It depends on how many Religious Conservative leaders will stick by their principles and how many will back Giuliani regardless of their beliefs and then how effective their response will be. James Dobson was not thrilled with the nomination of Bob Dole in 1996 and he ended up privately voting for Howard Phillips of the-then US Taxpayers Party  and not saying a word about it until 7 months after the election. If that’s the type of opposition that occurs than the third party option is non-viable, and it won’t happen, though Giuliani will have a quiet slow leak of voters. We wouldn’t have had the 2000 Fiasco in Florida had 2 million less Evangelicals than Karl Rove expected shown up at the polls. You can about triple that number of MIA Evangelicals regardless of whether there’s a third party.

 If there’s a mass movement led by serious respected leaders of the conservative movement, than there really is no argument that will blunt that movement.

1. There would need to be enough conservatives to form a third party. There aren’t even enough to control the Republican Party with any certainty–or Giuliani wouldn’t be a serious Republican candidate for president.

I would agree with Clayton’s logic from a strategic viewpoint, but where I disagree is the conclusion that we must always be ruled by the strategy of the quickest and easiest thing out there.

Our country was certainly not founded that way. The Revolution from an analytical point was not a move with guaranteed success, quite the opposite. The Republican Party itself was founded by anti-slavery folks who were refugees from third parties, old Whigs, and disenchanted Democrats.

There becomes a time when one must draw a line in the sand and say, “Thus far and no further.” and take action, regardless of the short-term costs. Wisdom is required is deciding when the right time for such an act is.

Sometimes, it comes out well, sometimes not. The establishment of the Republican Party and the American Revolution worked out. The Confederate States of America failed, as did Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party.

In many cases, victory has been worse than defeat, and defeat has been far better than victory. A couple examples.

In 1952, Republicans nominated popular war General Dwight D. Eisenhower over the conservative Robert Taft.  Before the 1952 election, Republicans were a 48-47 minority in the Senate, and a 234-199 minority in the House. By the end of the Eisenhower era, they were a 64-34 Minority in the Senate, and a 283-153 Minority in the House. The net result of their 1952 and 1956 victories was a 16 Seat loss in the Senate and a 49 seat loss in the House.  Eisenhower appointed Justices Earl Warren, Potter Stewart, and William Brennan who all turned out to be quite liberal. Were Republicans and conservative better of because Eisenhower beat Stevenson? Republicans lost control of the Senate for 26 years and the House for 40 years. Such a scenario is forseeable under a Giuliani Administration and would the GOP be better off to avoid 2 terms out of power in the White House and trade 20-40 years out of power of Congress for it?

In 1976, Gerald Ford lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Had he won, would we have gotten Ronald Reagan and the Republican Senate of 1980? No way.

And even Clinton’s win. Had Clinton not won, there’s no way Republicans would have captured Control of Congress.

Everyone loses once in a while (or is anyone under the allusion Republicans can hold the White House forever?), and no one knows what the outcome will be as we might pretend we do. Therefore, it can only fall to us to do what we understand is right and leave the rest in the hand:

2. If the GOP goes the way of the Whigs, the net effect will be to hand over control of the nation to Democrats for perhaps two presidencies, at the end of which there will be either a solid leftist majority on the Supreme Court, or we’ll be fighting against Islamists in the streets of America. (The Whigs did elect two presidents, but the Democratic Party was largely in control for most of the period that the Whigs were the “other party.”)

I don’t think we know that. Again, that’s speculation. It took 8 years for the Democratic Party to destroy itself in the 1860s when infused with a few pro-slavery Ex-Whigs, and with no “major party” to threaten it. The modern Democrat Party is a group of disparate interests with little commonality.

3. I like the idea of moving the Republican Party right–but what if the net effect of doing so is to cede the libertarian and liberal wings of the Republican Party to the Democrats?

A party like the GOP really operates on a compact. Certainly no one agrees with everything that goes on, but the issues they don’t agree with, they accept so what they care about happens. If you’d rather give the likes of Dennis Kucinich and Charlie Rangel control of our government than Conservative Republican than you may be more suited for the Democrat Party.

A more Conservative GOP will require a greater focus on education and discussion of conservative ideas. Sadly, many of us have fallen into nothing more than political analysis and figuring out the odds, and analysis never won converts on the great issues of our time or anyone else’s.