The end of center based politics in America

With the election of Barack Obama, many pundits speculated that the nation was undergoing a fundamental shift away from the center-right politics that has dominated our society at least as far back as Ronald Reagan and giving way to a new, center-left establishment.

The pundits were wrong – but in a way nobody really contemplated in the heady days following the Obama victory.

Rather than the pendulum of government making small, measurable moves to the left or the right, as has long been our history, we are experiencing radical shifts in political thought that is producing some truly unexpected shifts in political behavior within the halls of government.

On the right, we have the examples of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT).

Earlier this week, the Charleston County (the largest county in Graham’s home state) Republican Party Executive Committee took the unusual step of officially censuring Sen. Graham. His crime? Graham had the audacity to team with Democratic Senator John Kerry in an effort to find a bi-partisan agreement on a clean energy bill.

The censure stated that Graham’s…

“…bipartisanship continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom.”
Via Climate Progress.org

Apparently, Graham’s 90% conservative voting record score is no longer good enough for South Carolina Republicans. Indeed, polls indicate that were Graham to run for his party’s nomination today, he would be soundly defeated.

Meanwhile, in the great State of Utah, conservative Senator Bob Bennett, whose American Conservative Union rating is only 75 (having voted to the Conservative Union’s satisfaction on 18 of 25 times), is fighting for his political life thanks to his willingness to to team up with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in an effort to create a bipartisan health care reform bill in the Senate – a bill that has been unable to gain any traction.

These political stories are replicating in Senate and Congressional districts throughout the nation, as most recently seen in New York’s 23rd Congressional district where a GOP candidate, deemed to be too cooperative with Democrats, was forced out of the race by a conservative who gained the support of nationally known right-wingers.

The message being sent by constituents to conservative national leaders is clear- it’s our way or the highway.

And the politicians are listening. Rather than pursue a conservative agenda in Congress, GOP national politicians are simply saying “no” to everything, afraid to make a move that may not be conservative enough for the base.

While there has always been a fringe aspect in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, it is impossible to recall a time when the fringe took control to the point where a national party verges on suicide as a result. Yet, a review of the leading candidates for the GOP nomination for President in 2012 is highly illustrative of the point.

Leading the pack is Gov. Mike Huckabee, a man who has said, “I do not necessarily buy into the traditional Darwinian theory, personally.”

Then there is Sarah Palin – no further explanation required.

Probably the greatest indication that the GOP has given up on any semblance of looking for the middle-right ground would be Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a man once considered to be something of a moderate who now figures prominently in the presidential sweepstakes. Pawlenty has read the tea leaves and determined that moderation is hazardous to his political health. His conversion was recently on full display during an appearance on Morning Joe where Pawlenty pronounced moderate GOP Senator Olympia Snowe to be unfit for membership in the Republican Party.

As for Newt Gingrich, who made the mistake of supporting the GOP candidate in the N.Y. 23rd race rather than the more conservative entry backed by other national conservative leaders, Newt suddenly finds himself deemed too much of a centrist to be taken seriously by Republicans nationwide. Who could have ever seen that coming?

Even the modern day God of Republicanism, Ronald Reagan, understood that nothing gets done if the two sides of the aisle do not find a way to work together. Yet that lesson, apparently one learned by Senators Graham and Bennett, is falling on deaf ears both within and without government.

The result is a Congressional GOP agenda that can be summed up by another Reagan era battle cry – “just say no.”

While this narrowing of acceptable political perspective on the part of the GOP threatens their own survival, the impact reaches far beyond GOP future political opportunities.

With a GOP committed to simply blocking any of Obama’s legislative initiatives rather than pursue a more proactive agenda, the Congressional conservative Democrats have stepped into the breach to fill the role typically provided by Republicans.

No more proof of this need by provided than the current exploits of Sen. Joe Lieberman, a long time Democrat – now Independent who caucuses with the Democrats – who is threatening to single-handedly stop the health care reform debate from reaching the floor of the U.S. Senate. Add Democratic senators Bayh, Nelson, the other Nelson from Florida, Landrieu, Lincoln, etc., etc. and we have the makings of an all-new party in the United States Senate – one that is center-right but with enough votes to stop legislation proposed by their brother Democrats but without sufficient power to create a center-right agenda that is too far to the left for the GOP base and too far to the right for the Democratic base.

As a result, the political danger does not only fall on the GOP. Progressives everywhere have grown disgusted with their party in the face of its failure to deliver on the progressive agenda. By allowing the Democrat conservatives to call the shots, as they have done in the health care reform debate, most recently with the Stupak Amendment, progressives are ditching in droves.

When progressives bail, they don’t vote. And when Democrats don’t turn out the vote, Democrats lose.

The result is a remarkable circumstance where the GOP is caving to the harshest elements of their base while Democrats are going the other way by rejecting the concerns of their own base.

If this has happened before in American politics, I don’t know when. What I do know is that the current inability of Congressional Democrats to get it together and take advantage of the GOP’s problems may well turn out to be the single greatest contribution they could make to saving the Republican Party.

And it just doesn’t get any stranger than that.