How Transferable is the Republican Parties Doctrine?

A couple of months ago there was an article in the New York Times by retired Senator, Rhodes Scholar, and Basketball Star Bill Bradley on the main difference between the Republican and Democratic parties entitled, "A Party Inverted." He stressed that the Republican party had a well established pyramid of think-tanks, lobbyists, and grass-roots coalitions that made a pyramid by which the presidential candidate only had to be placed on the top to make the party complete. Bradley continued by saying that the Democratic party had the opposite set-up, that frequently it would attempt to capture gold with a single candidate that would define his own issues and ideologies, and create, in effect, an upside down pyramid.

Initially this seemed like an excellent observation, especially given the recent history of the Democrats and their attempts to continually re-invent themselves over the past couple of decades. But how true is this about the Republicans? Does their pyramid only require a tiny little cap to make it complete?

I am truly starting to think that George Bush is a lot more than just a tiny cap on a pyramid. He is an extraordinary political figure who has been able to seem like a common man while having a WASP upbringing and the business connections necessary to win the business section of the Republican Party. Simultaneously, as a born-again Christian he is able to win over and more importunately, mobilize the social conservatives in a way that Reagan could not even do. For all that Democrats deride him for his seeming lack of intelligence and charisma; he is a man who has been able to unite the very distinct elements of the Republican Party.

Now according to Bradley's thesis, this should be an easy job, one that anyone could do. But I highly doubt that and I think we will see why in 3 years. Mostly because of the way that Bill Frist has manufactured a lot of his socially conservative views and how easily it will be for Democrats to crucify him on his litany of terrible choices (worst of all, according to The Economist, in his 1989 book Transplant, “He even recommended changing the legal definition of “brain death” to make it easier to harvest the organs of anencephalic babies (who are born with a fatal neurological disorder but show signs of mental activity).” Can someone say hypocrite). Because there does not seem to be anyone (as I know of yet) who has the transcendent charisma that Bush has, certainly Bill Frist does not have it, someone who rivals Al Gore in his ability to connect with the people.

In fact the Al Gore analogy with Bill Frist is a particularly fruitful one, I think I will hit more on that in a later post. But regardless of that point, I think that Bradley is giving the Republicans far too much credit for their success when he paints it as this well oiled machine, when in fact, much of the Republican success has been built around personalities who have had a much broader appeal then their individual ideologies. The list includes those like Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and of course Dubya. Also, this would explain why Reagan and Dubya have had such success while Bush Sr. floundered despite almost everything going for him.

But finally, the Democrats, because even though there does not seem to be a perfect coherent ideology from the Democratic Party, I think that is actually a good thing. The population is going through a lot of changes in its beliefs. Views on unions, economics, foreign policy, and religion have all changed drastically over the past decade, and just because the Democratic Party is going through growing pains in its attempt to capture the sturdy coalition necessary to exploit these changes does not mean we ought to spin off a dozen phony think tanks.

What the Democrats ought to do, is what Hillary Clinton is doing now. She is moderating much of her supposed social liberalism and she is appealing to the vast swath of lower-class Republicans that Bush was so apt at swooping into his coalition. David Brooks had an excellent column on this today and where he dissects poll numbers that are going to scare a lot of Republicans, who until now have reassured themselves that there is just no chance another Clinton could ever make it to the White House. Well it seems they have their work cut out for them and I promise that it will take a lot more than Bill Frist (or Al Gore 2.0) to accomplish that.

-Mr. Alec