Parties change. Political movements shift, sometimes in ways that leave them unrecognizable.<\/p>\n
The Republican Party began as a moral crusade aimed at ending slavery, America’s original sin.<\/p>\n
It later morphed into a Main Street-Establishment movement, with a powerful libertarian wing in the West.<\/p>\n
Then — in absorbing many former southern Democrats — the GOP took on a new menu of fundamentalist cultural values.<\/p>\n
This gradual movement and redefinition was accelerated by the Roe v. Wade decision. <\/p>\n
If Republicans saw slavery as the Republic’s original sin, many party faithful see abortion as our great modern sin.<\/p>\n
The GOP has also emerged as a movement largely aligned with the nation’s original white majority, deeply suspicious of immigration and society’s new multiculturalism.<\/p>\n
Lost in all this moving and shaking are some of the Republican Party’s most powerful leaders — men and women who find themselves out of step with the new reality. <\/p>\n
In Texas, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was trounced by incumbent Rick Perry in that state’s gubernatorial primary — Perry being a guy who flirted publicly with the idea of secession.<\/p>\n
In Arizona, Sen. John McCain — his party’s presidential candidate in 2008 — is running only five points ahead of JD Hayworth, an AM radio host closely aligned with the tea party movement.<\/p>\n
In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist has signaled that he may leave the GOP, after being pushed aside by conservative Marc Rubio, another tea party favorite who is leading the Senate primary race.<\/p>\n
What’s clear in all this is that the Republican movement is still moving to the right.<\/p>\n
It’s an open question how many of its veteran standard bearers will be able to make the transition and how many will be left by the side of the road. <\/p>\n
It’s also unclear whether this new generation of movement conservatives will appeal to rank-and-file voters in general elections.<\/p>\n
The movement has yet to find its new Ronald Reagan, someone who can unify the party and give it a friendly, agreeable face.<\/p>\n
The danger for GOP 3.0 is that it could begin to look more like Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. A little too angry. A little too revolutionary.<\/p>\n
As the original tea partier, Goldwater was a purist and a crusader who also lost in one of the biggest landslides in American history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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