The Republican Party appears to be stuck not in the midst of a presidential nominating process, but in the middle of a messy, protracted and increasingly public divorce.<\/p>\n
Tensions within the GOP have existed forever.\u00a0 Many conservatives reviled Dwight Eisenhower.\u00a0 Many moderates thought Barry Goldwater was an unmitigated disaster, foisted upon them by a clueless rabble.<\/p>\n
But throughout the post-War era, the big camps within the Republican movement — evangelicals, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, big corporations, and so on — have been held together by outsized leaders (Ronald Reagan) and big ideas (‘No new taxes.’).<\/p>\n
There was also a sense that most factions would rally around the standard-bearer who could demonstrate the most viable electability.<\/p>\n
But in 2012, that formula isn’t working anymore.\u00a0 There are too many centrifugal forces, too many centers of gravity, too many celebrities and too few leaders.<\/p>\n
There’s also a growing sense of real, toxic animus between the different camps.<\/p>\n
We saw some of this in the North Country in 2009 when Doug Hoffman’s conservative backers went after Republican moderate Dede Scozzafava. Things got nasty.\u00a0 Scozzafava was accused of bestiality, for Pete’s sake.<\/p>\n
We’re seeing the same thing now on the national stage.\u00a0 Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich have so little commonality, so little shared ground that it’s hard to see them as part of the same party.<\/p>\n
There’s been talk of a brokered GOP convention this summer.\u00a0 As things stand, it really could look like the Democratic Party’s disastrous melt-down convention in 1968.<\/p>\n
Here’s how the New York Times described it:<\/p>\n
“If the [Republican] convention becomes as disorderly as the primaries, it will reflect a party consumed by anger and frustration, led around by its most extreme base, and lacking any sense of forward direction.”<\/p>\n
Ugly?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 But maybe a 1968-style convention is exactly what Republicans need, a cathartic blow-out that clears the air and helps the conservative movement redefined itself.<\/p>\n
After ’64, the Democrats got busy moderating their message, shifting to the center, building a big tent that included a lot of true progressives but also included small business owners, working families, people of color, and so on.<\/p>\n
This shift to the middle infuriated a lot of hard-core liberals (and yes, a lot of conservatives still think Democrats are socialists) but the end result is a palpably stronger, broader left-of-center movement.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Democrats dominate with every growing future-looking demographic in American society, from city-dwellers to Hispanics to women voters and the y0ung.<\/p>\n
Republicans, meanwhile, lead in all the shrinking communities, the communities of yesterday:\u00a0 rural whites, small towns, the elderly.<\/p>\n
So maybe it’s time at long last for Republicans to have their own big-C Conversation.<\/p>\n
Take this moment past the endless punditry and jockeying.\u00a0 Look each other in the eye and decide what their “forward direction” should be.<\/p>\n
This process would require a lot of courage and leadership.\u00a0 Rules would have to be changed.\u00a0 Fringe elements of the Republican Party which have absorbed so much power in the last twenty years would have to be confronted.<\/p>\n
Party leaders would have to find ways to harness, or at least temper, the outsized influence of all the hangers-on, from the billionaire Koch brothers to the constellation of conservative media titans to the Super PACs and Sarah Palin-esque icons.<\/p>\n
That’s a tall order for a Republican Party that is led by Reince Priebus, a clearly competent and thoughtful RNC chairman who nonetheless lacks the heft and national stature that are required in this historic moment.<\/p>\n
But ultimately, the Conversation isn’t all that complicated.<\/p>\n
GOP leaders need to hang a chart up on the wall that shows the kind of Americans who are already dominating big elections, demographic groups that are growing fast and that currently view the Republican Party with distrust bordering on disdain.<\/p>\n
Those leaders have to make it clear to the party’s base — overwhelmingly white, rural, male and high-income — that their embattled tribe simply can’t be the future.\u00a0 The math doesn’t work.\u00a0 The numbers don’t add up.<\/p>\n
From these “facts on the ground” all else in this painful discussion must follow.<\/p>\n
Another big hurdle, of course, is that many in the core of the conservative movement see modern American politics in apocalyptic terms.<\/p>\n
The Glenn-Beckian notion that these could well be the end times for our Republic is widely held in the GOP base, so the idea that it might be time to sit down and think about how to broaden the party’s appeal just may not fly.<\/p>\n
But it seems like it’s time for the party’s leaders to give it a shot.<\/p>\n
Take the conversation away from pundits (like me).\u00a0 Begin to wrestle with the big questions internally and see what a path forward might look like.<\/p>\n
Conservatives have been wringing their hands over Barack Obama, arguing that our democracy might not survive a second term.<\/p>\n
I think the real threat to our democracy is the potential unraveling (or radicalization) of one of our two great political parties.<\/p>\n
We can survive a bad president or two.\u00a0 History has proved as much.<\/p>\n
But the country needs the Party of Lincoln, the party that saved our nation during the Civil War, the movement that gave us Roosevelt and Eisenhower and Reagan.<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s time for Republican leaders to stop worrying about Mr. Obama and look to their own house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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