If you’re among those who feel that your party must cleave to its base in the aftermath of Tuesday’s elections, you are in danger of missing the boat. There’s still time to catch it before it sails, though:
The common theme of the Recriminatathon is that the party lost its way after seizing control of Congress in 1994, focusing on power and perks instead of principles. But behind all the maneuvering, posturing and backstabbing lingered a serious debate over the party’s future, and what those principles should be. It’s a familiar argument between confrontation and compromise: appealing to base voters on the right or independents in the middle.
The moderate Republican Main Street Partnership fired its first salvo on election night, unleashing a news release titled “Far Right Solely Responsible for Democratic Gains.” Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the partnership’s director, complained that GOP leaders had rejected popular causes such as the minimum wage, embryonic stem cell research and lobbying reforms while ignoring health-care issues that did not involve Terri Schiavo. The result, she said, was that moderate suburban voters saw Republicans as extremists.
Sounds like folks who are looking for a boat to me.
Not interested? That’s okay, because your party’s boat, whether its banner is a bright blue donkey or a scarlet elephant, is still docked — along with quite a number of others.
You’ll need to wait for the rush on and off, but don’t panic. There’s no hurry, because without some massive changes, your boat isn’t going anywhere. The neoconservative raft, in particular, has a lot of room just now — and I expect there to be plenty of empty space on the impeachment and religious right boats, too.
Those ships just ain’t gonna sail, folks.
If, on the other hand, you actually want to leave the dock, look for the ship proudly and prominently displaying the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America. It’ll be easy to spot, because it’s the only one big enough to hold everyone — assuming they want to board.
It’s a free choice, as it should be. This moderate, thoroughly fed-up-with-everybody party-boat may not be for you. In fact, if you’re a hard-core partisan wedded to ideological purity, you’ll find this ship’s ideas a bit strange, because here, you’ll be expected to listen to others — to look for mutual solutions to common problems. Yes, it’s an alien approach… but clearly, this president is working to absorb the message:
But he looked forward rather than back. “The message yesterday was clear: The American people want their leaders in Washington to set aside partisan differences, conduct ourselves in an ethical manner and work together to address the challenges facing our nation.”
Too bad it took such a massive virtual smack upside his partisan head to get it through.
For a very long time — too long, obviously — there have been only two ships sharing a sagging, two-sided dock. In and out of the harbor they’ve sailed, alternately blasting party music or moaning dirges as they came and went past this massive, silent ship in the middle with its forlorn, limp American flag. No more:
For decades, moderates have been the cowardly lions of American politics. You’d see them quivering in the corner as the anti-establishment left exchanged culture war mortar fire with the anti-establishment right. You’d see them passed over and dissed as the parties mobilized their bases and played to their primary voters.
Well, somebody’s been on steroids, because on Tuesday the muscular middle took control of America. Say goodbye to the era of Rovian base mobilization. Say goodbye to the era of conservative dominance that began in 1980. On Tuesday, 47 percent of the voters were self-described moderates, according to exit polls, and they asserted their power by voting for the Democrats in landslide proportions.
The millions of people on this ship are the moderate, independent, non-partisan thinkers who are tired of the games, lies, extremes, and partisanship, and Tuesday, we blew the wind into our own sails at last. But we haven’t pulled away from the dock yet. We’re going to wait a while for some decisions to be made.
Over the next two years, the major parties will either jettison or embrace dialogue and bipartisanship, or they won’t. If they do, we’ll happily add their banners to the mast, beneath Old Glory where they belong… and then we’ll sail.
Either you’ll leave the dock with us… or you won’t.