Karl Rove’s Broken Wings
Filed under: Republicans, John McCain, Featured Stories, Economy, Religion, Sarah Palin
Much like Alan Greenspan, political strategist Karl Rove has received a mountain of lavish praise over the past decade. Back when times were good, Rove epitomized success. His business was winning elections, and with the dawning of W., he seemed to have no peer. Well, the mighty, they have fallen.
Himself a closet atheist, Rove forged what proved, for a time, to be a cunning strategy of harnessing the fervor of two distinct groups within the Republican Party: Christian and fiscal conservatives. To be sure, these two factions often overlapped. There are many anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage people who also want a balanced budget amendment, for instance. But between these two groups there is also a fair amount of distrust. The libertarian strain of the GOP, which advocates the harshest form of small government self-reliance, bristles at the prospect of a further erosion of the wall separating church and state.
So, then came Rove, who — through the folksy visage of George W. Bush – figured out a way to tiptoe through this minefield and make everyone feel they had a piece of the action.
Over the course of the past eight years, however, the two groups that elected, and then re-elected Mr. Bush started to feel more and more betrayed. Fiscal conservatives watched in horror as our national debt doubled, and the president enacted large government initiatives in education. Religious conservatives were heartened at Mr. Bush’s supreme court picks, but took umbrage at the way they’d been played and then shut out from a larger role in the administration.
It was with this backdrop that the curtain went up on the Republican primary contest. Very quickly, it became apparent that what was missing in this year’s crop was the man who could simultaneously wear all the funny hats necessary to unite the party. The God squad had Mike Huckabee, but to social conservatives his Jesus sounded a whole lot like a tax-and-spend liberal. Mitt Romney seemed to know his way around a balance sheet, but then his version of Christianity didn’t work with the bible belt crowd. Fred Thompson, that purported second-coming of Ronald Reagan, just didn’t seem to really want the job very much — and who could get excited about that? Rudy Giuliani tried to slip in without appealing to either the Christians or the fis-cons, his biggest card was that he would bomb the crap out of anybody who looked at us funny.
In essence, you had a group of guys who played to one extreme or another, but who could not unify them. Hence — to collective shock of the neo-cons and bible thumpers alike — a campaign finance reformer who believes in evolution actually won.
When it became apparent that McCain would best his rivals, many observers, like Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, figured the Democrats would have a tough fight on their hands. If independent voters were to be the prize in this election, then McCain might dominate among this group who has traditionally admired him. But that view ignored one very crucial aspect to the house that Rove built. For the GOP to win, it must rely on overwhelming lift from its religious and fiscally conservative wings. Those two bases must be pumped, excited, and, yes, united in fear of the Democrat. Unfortunately, the GOP had settled on a guy who did not, by a long shot, stir emotion among the faithful. As heard daily from the right wing selection of talking heads, picking McCain amounted to political suicide. Ann Coulter would rather have had Hillary.
This is where McCain himself made what I believe will be remembered as the fatal mistake of the campaign. Rather than stick to the moderate, reform-minded platform that had earned him the maverick title back in the early 90’s, McCain tacked right and did his level best to shore up his base. Sarah Palin was, McCain hoped, the “red meat” that would satisfy the beasts in his own party and propel him to victory. For a brief moment, it seemed like it was just crazy enough to actually work. Religious conservatives were instantly brought back on board. But as the days passed, more and more fiscal conservatives began voicing their unease with a person who seemed not the least bit qualified for the job. Worst of all for McCain, Palin alienated independent voters. Suddenly, it was becoming clear to everyone just how tricky Rove’s little puzzle was to put back together again.
And now we are witnessing a campaign in full disarray. Fire all the entire campaign and start again from scratch, says neo-con Bill Kristol. Get nasty, says Michele Malkin. Be nice, say others. Talk about the economy. Don’t talk about the economy. Unleash the anger. Put a cork back in that bottle. Blame the media. Do more interviews. There are many opinions on what McCain should do to save his sinking campaign, but none really addresses the underlying structural problem. The house that Rove built has a faulty foundation. The Republican Party bought a sub-prime mortgage from this huckster, and its rate just got readjusted.
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