Republicans enjoyed a fantastic election on Tuesday, making gains deeper and broader than they could have imagined earlier this year. They arguably dealt Democrats an even more crushing defeat than they had in the Tea Party election of 2010.
Which, of course, means that some of them believe it’s time to reload and restart the internecine war between the party’s Tea Party guerrilla warriors and the professional political operatives of its regular army.
The Republican Party’s civil war became nasty this year on the campaign battlefield, but not nearly as nasty as it had become last fall. It may now be a distant memory, but Republican political chances in 2014 were nearly ruined by a fight over parliamentary tactics that shut down the government and nearly revived President Obama’s sagging approval ratings, an accomplishment that seems beyond the president himself.
Some of those on the right of the GOP almost immediately reacted to Tuesday’s victories by denying the party Establishment any credit for the rout that had just been inflicted on the Democrats. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin issued a stridently dismissive statement about the party operatives who had done the campaign work needed to get her fellow conservatives elected. “[R]emember that you didn’t build this,” the former Alaska Governor wrote on her Facebook page, adding, “This majority that swept you into power tonight is thanks to the rank and file commonsense conservative grassroots. That’s who built it. And they expect results.”
In Politico magazine, conservative writer and activist Erick Erickson accused this so-called Establishment of a soulless pursuit of political power, with which it would do nothing to advance conservative goals. He added that the Establishment, with its “strategists, consultants, and other political operatives who eat, breathe, and sleep Washington, D.C.,” had presented no positive conservative vision that could prevail in the coming presidential contest.
All of this is an attempt to blunt the scoffing by the Establishment regulars, who are sure to argue now that they took more control over the nominations process in 2014, producing higher-quality candidates than in 2010 and 2012 and thus making more Senate races competitive.
Both sides have a point, and it would be fatally wrong for either to discard the other’s. The real story of 2014 is that many key Senate races, particularly Iowa, Alaska and Colorado, probably only became competitive because the Establishment and conservatives backed the same horse. Senator-elect Joni Ernst’s race, especially, demonstrated that a true consensus candidate can turn long odds in a race into good ones.
Conservatives frequently harbor unrealistic expectations about how well terrible candidates can do simply by dint of their ideological convictions. Their lack of political savvy has created the Sharron Angles and Christine O’Donnells of the world.
Meanwhile, Establishment types frequently fail to back or cultivate viable conservative candidates who strike them as almost too vigorous, preferring party favorites whom they regard as safe. This has given the world its Tommy Thompsons and other assorted Establishment losers.
Fortunately, candidates can be found who combine strong conservative principles and political imagination on the one hand, with, on the other, a practical mastery of tactics and strategy. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who just won his third election in four years in a state that twice voted for President Obama, is an obvious example.
The lesson conservatives should take from yesterday’s election is that the party regulars really do want to win, and they will work with conservatives when they see that doing so can be a path to victory. Therefore, conservatives should accept that electability is not an optional extra but a necessity if they wish to get their agenda enacted. They must produce and coalesce behind better candidates for open-seat races, as they did in Iowa, instead of backing whichever crank can establish his or her claims with the most intemperate rhetoric against both Democrats and Establishment Republicans. This is the only way conservatives can influence the composition of the congressional GOP, which in turn is the only way to change the behavior of its leadership.
Conservatives should also take a lesson from their expensive loss against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, considering reserving that sort of treatment for the Arlen Specters of the world in the future. When such contests are undertaken as a harassment tactic with no chance of victory, they deplete individual conservatives’ reserves both of money and credibility. They also divert money that could be used in open seat primaries to produce more realistic gains.
The Establishment types must also take few lessons. First, in open-seat races, they should obviously work with conservatives in the states to identify and recruit strong candidates. Again, this worked well in Iowa.
And unless they want this year’s ugly contests in Kansas and Mississippi to become regular features of GOP primaries, party leaders need to start getting on the case of members who lose touch with their constituents. There is no excuse for Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., failing to keep a residence in the state he represents, and not even having Internet connections for his campaign until after his primary. Party leaders want to defend their incumbents — that is to be expected — but they need to make sure those incumbents are defensible, or else they are asking conservatives to back losers.
Also, much of the gripe among conservatives is rooted in the valid observation that when Republicans gain power, they often are too risk averse, allowing government to grow and failing to embrace bold and meaningful reforms.
Conservatives and Establishment-types each have something the other side needs. The Establishment has political aptitude that the base simply lacks. For all the complaints about campaign professionals and consultants, there is a reason the best ones get paid a lot of money. And if conservatives want their candidates to win elections, they need party institutions that also motivate and mobilize less conservative Republicans to vote for them.
Conservatives, on the other side, cast most Republican votes, and their enthusiastic turnout can produce results like those of last night, which is something no amount of sophisticated data analysis can replace. Conservatives also have the ideas and winning message that the Republican Establishment so often lacks. A party that isn’t afraid to think big has a much better chance of getting new people involved in politics.
Republicans already face long odds in 2016. If the two main factions of the GOP insist on fighting, those odds will lengthen. That would make it more likely that Democrats’ next bad idea, their next Obamacare, would become law. If you want that, then forget about reaching out and just start shooting. If you don’t want that, as you really shouldn’t, get over yourselves and work together.
