Rush Limbaugh seems to think that with the perception that the economy is improving, the best strategy for Republicans would be to wage yet another ‘culture war’ election. He says, “Something tells me, that if the upcoming election could be decided on social issues, the Republicans could win that in a landslide, because we are on the right side of the culture war. The problem is, we’re scared to death of it. The Republican establishment wants no part of it.”
I think he is wrong. Far from being ‘scared to death of it’, the Republican establishment has never been averse to culture wars as long as they thought it was a winning issue. Since Richard Nixon that has been their main electoral strategy. But the high water mark for culture war elections was 2004 with all its anti-gay and anti-abortion rhetoric. That turned out to be successful in turning out voters to re-elect George W. Bush but the party then jumped the shark with the Terri Schiavo case in 2005. The ensuing debacle indicated that the tide had begun to turn and such issues were losing their power.
You can be sure that the reason that the Republican establishment is balking now is because they have their own internal polls telling them it would be a disaster. True, there are some voters who will be galvanized by I what I call GRAGGS issues (god, race, abortion, guns, gays, sex) but they tend vote Republican anyway and will be more than balanced by those who will be turned off.
It looks to me like they always wage their culture war.
Other than Romney, who seems to be making a half-hearted effort at waging that hissy fit to appease his base (a sign that the Republicans are marginalizing themselves into irrelevance), all of the other candidates have not only leapt into the culture war morass, they’ve positively wallowed in it.
This has been the case for Republicans since Reagan the Scumbag, especially. Even Nixon and Ford didn’t go as far, as viciously and stupidly, as Reagan the Scumbag did.
Rick Perry’s campaign seemed to fall out of fashion after his ridiculous ‘war on religion’ ad was widely mocked, and several other loony candidates such as Michelle Bachmann never got much traction to begin with. But now it seems to me like the remaining candidates are increasingly saying a lot of the same kinds of things (even the exact same things) as those others had, ramping up a competition to be the most loony.
The culture war is a winning electoral strategy for the Democrats, and they should hope the Reactionaries “bring ’em on.”
The White-Wing has yet to realize that the country has “jumped the shark” of their racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic twentieth century philistinistic ideas. The reactionaries will not be singing “Happy Days Are Here Again” anytime soon.
In Reason,
Madison
There are two things going on with the culture war. The first is the people who vote in primaries tend to be issue driven. The culture war appeals to them, so the candidates for nomination are playing to them.
The other thing is the Republicans are going overboard on the culture war. Let’s consider the apparently hot issue right now, contraception. People who are anti-abortion are not necessarily anti-contraception. A lot of anti-abortion folks are actually pro-contraception because they feel the more widespread contraception is, the less need there is for abortion. Also a large number of people are annoyed at the Catholic Church for trying to inflict their dogma on non-Catholics. As a result, they are not impressed by anti-contraception tactics used by various teabaggers.
Sounds like an admission from The Bloviator that they have no ideas for, you know, governing a nation. Whipping up anger and divisiveness about personal matters is an admission of civic bankruptcy.
There’s a very good reason the Republicans are keeping the culture wars alive: divide and conquer. They know they can’t win on economic issues, especially with a 1% poster boy like Romney, so they divide the electorate with ridiculous non-issues like gay marriage or the “war” on religion.
I think the point is that ‘the Republicans’ consist of, roughly, the party leadership as ‘the establishment’ and the base that turns out and votes. There is no doubt that a large segment of that base loves the culture wars and the actual candidates have to pander to them to get anywhere. But I think that the party establishment realizes that this is a losing strategy and hasn’t given the culture wars the kind of full-throated support to it that we have seen in the past and that the base expects, hence Limbaugh’s disappointment.
Eager to gobble up the supporters of the candidates who dropped off.
The bizarre thing about the GOP primaries is that the candidates seem utterly focused on issues and views that only appeal to a narrow segment of the die-hard, sure-to-vote GOP membership. Those issues don’t seem like they’ll carry any resonance beyond that however. Or I’d hope not for my American friends down south.
Ricky Santorum has a strategy that will surely win over the independents, he said “Americans don’t want someone to manage Washington.”
No culture war there, just plain old insanity! 😉
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/hours-before-n-h-debate-santorum-attacks-romney/
I don’t think Rush is completely off-base in that at least some Republicans are increasingly terrified of the culture wars, or at least the marriage equality aspect of it. (Rush is badly wrong in thinking that Republicans can win November in a landslide if they make it a culture war election, though playing up things like abortion is probably a wise short-term decision for them)
Opposition to marriage equality is a real albatross for the GOP right now, and will become even more so in the near future. Young people overwhelmingly support marriage equality, even extremely conservative young people. (I have a number of cousins who are hardcore Republican, but are staunchly in favor of marriage equality… cuz you know, they are under 35) There’s no way out of this for Republican candidates without losing a whole lot of votes on one side or the other. The smart Republican politicians only wish that particular issue would go away…
This is what happens when the candidate for President is decided upon by a mere fraction of those who could participate. All it takes is a small, highly vocal group that votes as a block in order to effectively hijack the party.
Of course, I advocate doing just that — only in the other direction. Why doesn’t the Republican Party kowtow to reason, secularism, and equal rights? Because the small vocal minority doesn’t believe in those things. The way to fight that fire is with fire.
Personally, I’d aim the entire “occupy” movement at the Republics. Join the party, attend the caucuses (caucii?). Make signs. Protest as Republics. It doesn’t take anything at all to become a Republican. Just register as one, or change your registration.
The reason it worked for the “tea party” branch of the Republics is because they moved and shouted en masse — even if they didn’t have any coherent ideas.
One of the biggest reasons the Teaparty took on more significance than it should have, in the end it was shown to be essentially a well disguised Astroturf effort by well known GOP functionaries and their backers, was that it was significantly different from the usual GOP story line. It carefully avoided the classic culture war issues and took lengths to avoid religious displays you so often see at GOP events. This difference was key to its acceptance by many preferring a libertarian, pro business, policy and non-religious independents. When the main leaders of the Teaparty showed that they had a standard GOP party-line cultural agenda, and that their funding came from the usual GOP deep pockets, the jig was up and the tri-corner hats, illiterate hicks, and Rambo wannabes rolled up their Don’t Tread on Me flags and sulked on back home.
The culture war is clearly not a winning issue for the GOP. And they knew it way back when they planned out the Teaparty strategy for exploiting ‘Joe the plumber’ and non-religious Palin supporters. Hard to say what they planned to do when the finance and culture war agenda came out. As it was bound to. Perhaps they figured they could slip the culture war thing in the back door and bring the Teaparty their way. Didn’t work that way.
As it is I’m a little disappointed that the GOP pushed the culture war thing so early. There may be time between now and election day for the GOP to pivot and change the subject. How they do that remains to be seen. Looks to me that they ‘can’t pull it off with the equipment they have’. But I would like it better if it was more clearly impossible.
They can’t do it with the candidates they have now. The frothy mix of feces and Astroglide is all about culture war so he’s unsuitable. Flipping it would be a little too on-point for Willard. The Big Fig could easily pull it off. Preaching one thing and doing the opposite, and getting away with it, is his super power. But he is on the official GOP shit-list for numerous misdemeanors and talking mean about Republicans. You can say it about a Democrat but never a Republican. Bad form.
Some within the GOP are pushing for a figure that can quell the braying from the culture warriors long enough for the GOP to claim to have reformed, woken up, turned practical. The heir apparent, Jeb Bush, says he wants no part of it. Christie went out of his way to straddle a recent decision to keep his name alive but he looks to demure in the end. The GOP wants another Reagan, even as Reagan wouldn’t qualify.
Nixon won by embracing the racist, hyper religious, fascist/confederate wing of the American id. They need these culture warriors to provide spirit, new blood, votes to have any chance of winning. But these same people are monsters with a deep abiding need to change the culture and roll the calender back to 1860s and the American people aren’t buying any party with them at the fore. It is a problem I’m glad to see them have.