Sarah Palin & the Right-Wing Industrial Complex

Sarah Palin shocked the political world last week when she announced that she would step down as governor of Alaska at the end of July.

Speculation remains about Why. But one very real possibility is that Palin simply couldn’t reconcile the two wings of the conservative movement.

I don’t mean the Right and Center of the party.

I mean the policy wing — the group of Republicans who actually engage in the business of government — and the Right-Wing Industrial Complex.

The RWIC is made up of conservatives who feed (very well) at the trough of book contracts, think-tanks, non-profits, political action committees, speaking tours, syndicated talk shows, etc.

Republicans can’t get elected to save their souls, but their books, their radio shows, and their TV news networks top the charts, raking in big bucks from millions of alienated traditionalists.

The problem for the GOP is that the RWIC and its lucrative network of funders, donors and consumers is available only to the most ideologically pure.

If you’ve ever raised taxes, accepted stimulus money, signed environmental legislation into law, or partnered with Democrats on significant legislation, you need not apply.

If you are pro-choice, it’s no dice. If you flirted with immigration reform, you’re off the dance ticket.

Which makes it very hard indeed for conservative lawmakers trying to navigate a new America, one where most young people are comfortable with gay people, where more and more Americans are people of color.

There was a time, in the pre-Reagan era, when Republicans faced a huge disincentive to be conservative.

The GOP “establishment” offered huge benefits to moderates who didn’t rock the boat.

Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and Rush Limbaugh ended that tradition, battling fiercely against “country club” Republicans.

But now they’ve installed a new disincentive.

These days, there’s a disincentive to navigate the hard choices, the compromises, the awkward gray zones of governance.

There is a disincentive to choose policy and practicality over ideology.

After Palin quit, Ann Coulter described the culture war between the Republican policy wing and the RWIC this way:

People are acting like leaving a governorship is a step down. Who is bigger and more important? Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and Bill O’Reilly vs. Mark Sanford (before the fall), Bobby Jindal, and Tim Pawlenty?

Put simply, this conflict is destroying the GOP.

In the modern era, accomplished centrists such as George Pataki, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist are sneered at by “the base.”

A moderate like Arlen Specter is literally driven out of the party.

When John McCain went looking for a VP candidate to run at his side, he wanted a Joe Lieberman or a Tom Ridge.

But the RWIC demanded that he take on a character like Sarah Palin.

And now Palin is elevated to the status of saint and martyr, even as she quits the fight to improve the lives of Alaska’s citizens.

Make no mistake: By following in the footsteps of Ann Coulter and Phyliss Schlafly, Palin now stands to make far more money with a far bigger national profile among the conservative faithful.

There will be book deals, speaking tours, perhaps her own talk show. Among the faithful, her image will remain unsullied by encounters with the real world.

But will Palin’s decision help lead her brand of conservatism back to power? Even most Republicans can hardly wish that on the country.