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 here
is one clear and present danger in the aftermath of the Jim Jeffords
defection to the Democratic party. That
danger
is that Republicans will learn all the wrong political lessons.
The press is reflexively deifying Jeffords as a man of principle
and statesmanship (poor John McCain is just stewing that for at
least a few days he's no longer the source of the media's adoration)
and is warning that this is a major setback for the Republican agenda.
In truth, the media has vastly overstated the political significance
of this defection. The fact is that the Republicans never had functional
control of the Senate these last six months thanks to the thorough
unreliability of left-leaning Republicans like Jeffords, Lincoln
Chafee, and Arlen Specter. The Jeffords defection simply makes official
the de facto control of the Senate floor the Democrats already had.
What is really critical now is how Republicans respond to this defection.
How does the GOP move forward with its agenda on tax cuts, Social
Security reform, school choice, and so on? And how does the GOP
take back the Senate in 2002?
There's a lot of hand wringing, finger pointing, and soul searching
now going on within the party echelons of power. The political pundits
in Washington are, of course, trying to steer the GOP to all the
wrong conclusions. The USA Today wrote that "Jeffords didn't
leave the Republicans, the party left him." The media spin has been
that the GOP has swayed so far to the right that it is no longer
the "inclusive party of Lincoln." E.J. Dionne of the Washington
Post wrote that it was doctrinaire groups like the Club for
Growth that were chasing good moderate Republicans like Jeffords
out of the party. Comically, Dionne pines for the day when the GOP
was populated by tax-and-spenders like Jacob Javits and Clifford
Case. Never mind that when people like Javits and Case were controlling
the party platform, the party was at the nadir of its power.
Dionne pines for the days when the GOP was the party of Rockefeller.
Thank heavens it no longer is. In the 1960s and 1970s the Republican
party was dominated by a left-leaning northeastern Rockefeller
Republican ideology. There were up to a dozen very liberal northeastern
Republicans in the Senate and several dozen in the House as recently
as the 1970s (such as Case and Javits). They were not much different
in their voting behavior than Mr. Jeffords (or Ted Kennedy, for
that matter). And their stranglehold on the party helped insure
that the GOP was a minority party for decades until the Reagan revolution
began to convert the party into one that stood for bedrock GOP principles:
lower taxes, less government, and more individual freedom. The Republican
message in the landslide GOP election of 1994 — the election
that created the GOP majorities in the House and Senate in the first
place — could not have been more free-market conservative in
its tone and its policy prescriptions.
Stick with that anti-big government message and the GOP will prosper.
The majority of Americans agree with us, not Jim Jeffords, on economic
issues. Note that every single vulnerable Senate Democrat up for
reelection in 2002 voted for the Bush "risky" tax cut. Every
one.
Republicans must not capitulate to the left-wing base of the party,
which seems to stand for, well, nothing really. Alas, there's a
very real danger that this is precisely what the GOP "leadership"
intends to do.
What's left of the left wing of the party is in an agitated state
now. They are seizing upon the loss of Jeffords as an indication
that the party should not insist upon "ideological purity" and "strict
unanimity," as Mr. McCain put it. The emboldened Lincoln Chaffee
threatens that unless he sees a more accommodating attitude for
his far left-wing views on economic issues, he may be the next out
the door. Olympia Snowe says the party needs to move away from its
conservative message. I fervently hope that Chaffee and Snowe remain
Republicans, but not at the price of neutering the Republican message.
The GOP cannot retain the White House and regain the Senate by enticing
voters with servings of vanilla pudding.
Chaffee's ransom isn't worth paying. It will reduce the party's
voter base, rather than expand it.
No, for a political party to survive and to thrive it must stand
grandly and unwaveringly for something. Tax cuts are a signature
issue for the Republican party. If liberals in the party don't want
to cut taxes, then why are they Republicans?
The GOP, from the local level up through the governors' mansions
and the White House, is stronger now than it's been at anytime in
fifty years. That is because the GOP has been almost thoroughly
transformed from the party of northeastern Rockefellers to the party
of southern and western Reaganites. Jeffords was a political dinosaur:
a throwback to an era long gone. His defection is indeed a short-term
setback. It will only be a long-run set back if the GOP learns all
the wrong lessons.
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