RNC Chairman’s Race Haunted by the Republicans’ Either/Or Problem
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country.
Ronald Reagan did it. George W. Bush did it. But lately, the Grand Old Party is having an awfully hard time finding candidates that can bring together the religious conservative and more business/centrist flanks of the party.
John McCain, for instance, never excited the party's religious conservative base. Sarah Palin did, but she turned off the party's more secular center. Remember the Palin denunciations from Peggy Noonan, David Frum, George Will, and a long list of other so-called mainstream Republicans?
The problem is that so many Republican figures of late are falling into either the religious conservative camp (think Mike Huckabee) or the more secular, socially centrist one (think Rudy Giuliani). Without leaders who can unite those two wings, the GOP is bound for ideological schizophrenia—and more losses at the polls.
The latest installment of this either/or drama arrived yesterday, when former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell announced his candidacy for chairman of the Republican National Committee. Having helped spearhead Ohio's 2004 drive to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage and currently serving as a Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the Family Research Council, Blackwell is a dyed-in-the-wool religious conservative.
Now, he and aspiring RNC chairman Chip Saltsman, the campaign manager for Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign, will duke it out for the votes of the RNC's religious conservative members. South Carolina Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson may have a dog in that fight, too.
The contest's other contenders, former Maryland Gov. Michael Steele, Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, and current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan (an undeclared but expected entrant into the race) will be vying for the votes of the RNC's more secular, centrist members.
The problem for the GOP is that regardless of who wins, the party will have either a lot of ticked off religious conservatives or distraught establishment types. Where's the bridge candidate who can appeal to both sides?
- Read more by Dan Gilgoff.
Tags: Republicans | religion | RNC
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Reader Comments
To Shelby of WA
Shelby of WA,
Somehow I doubt seriously you are a moderate. Moderates are only democrats in disguise or disillusion. I can smell your alinsky-jujitsu, axlerod-astroturfing ways a mile-off.
Real, solid Christians are not judgmental and small-minded as you would like to think. Please do your soul a favor and do some homework on the basic tenets of Christianity.
The left are the intolerant among us.
Btw, the Lord gave man dominion over all creatures, great and small. Research the wolf culling program. The predated herds were under stress, fyi.
The campaign against Sarah continues in earnest. She must be doing something right.
She will have 2 possible paths to the White House is 2012. With the goings on in Chicago, Palin will be the change we are begging for in '12.
And you forget one critical element of the '08 campaign, Sarah was not allowed to be Sarah. In addition, many conservatives got fooled by barry or just stayed home this time around due to the top of the ticket dominated by Dem-Lite McCain.
Se y'all in '12. We will not be caught flat footed this time around.
Checkout TeamSarah.org
Palin/Jindal'12
Hey Roger
You'd better check Romney's "unblemished" track record again. do $50 co-pay abortions in massachusetts sound familiar? Oh wait, it's "unblemished" because he said he was against abortion when he was running for the nomination. that's not very conservative...and last i checked, the Republicans were the "conservative" party, even if they sold out this time. the religious (christian, not mormon) right will never go for aforementioned flip flopping, and that's why Romney will never place his hand on a bible and take the oath.
I'd personally rather have someone who's son would hang a dog than someone who would murder the unborn, wouldn't you?
GOP --Get Out and Push
Republicans are a party of rules. They like discipline and little dissent. That works when people are largely happy with the status quo. The Republicans were doomed from the start when Obama began picking up steam. People began throwing rules out the window and basically said "What the hell--let's throw long." And they elected Obama.
The GOP tried to intercept, surprising many by bucking their own rule of sticking to rules and putting up Sarah Palin as the VP candidate. Like Obama, no one ever heard of her. Her platform, however, was Old Shoe. Pro-gun, anti-abortion, and small-town, Christian values. The GOP basically regifted--take the same old product, but wrap it up in a new, pretty package.
Now they claim they have made a comeback by winning a seat in Georgia--the reliably red South--as well as Louisiana--to a corrupt Democrat. It seems now the strategy is to ride out the storm. Except they have no idea how bad the storm really is. The sun's gotta come out sometime, right?
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