GOP PUMAs?
Every so often I write an article which is nothing more than the sheerest of speculation, based not on any solid factual foundation but rather on the shifting undercurrents and vagaries of the American political consciousness. Of course, when I do indulge the urge to take such a stab in the dark, I like to identify it as such beforehand, out of respect for my readers' intelligence, and my own sense of journalistic ethics. This is one of those articles -- you have been warned.
The thought which keeps flitting through my mind is whether the Republicans are going to face their own "PUMA" problem this fall. For those who don't remember the term from 2008, PUMA stood for "Party Unity, My Ass!" and was the rallying cry of the non-existent hordes of pro-Hillary Democrats who were reportedly going to cause major disruption at the Democratic National Convention, and then throw the election to John McCain in the fall.
As you may recall, neither event actually took place. Which makes building a case for a similar thing happening on the Republican side pretty tough to do, I fully admit. But it's not entirely beyond the range of possibility, so here goes.
The Republican Party's internal factional divisions have seldom been as clearly on display as they have been this election cycle. This year is the first presidential election that the Tea Party Republicans have participated in, although this may not be anything new -- these folks have been around for a while, and they've usually voted Republican, but they haven't been as well-organized in the past (and they haven't had a catchy banner to march under until now). Having said all of that, one of the big stories the mainstream media has been ignoring has been the fact that the Tea Partiers are showing signs of what I have long called both their biggest strength and their biggest weakness -- the fact that they are not a centrally-run organization by any stretch of the imagination. The Tea Partiers have not coalesced around a single candidate, which is diminishing their faction's relative importance in the Republican Party as a direct result. This, to put it mildly, may lead to a bit of disillusionment later on, especially if the party nominates Mitt Romney.
The other (and lesser) faction in the Republican ranks is the libertarian wing of the party. Usually consigned to "fringe" status by Republican establishment types, they are making the strongest showing they have ever made behind Ron Paul this year. Paul has regularly been getting votes at roughly twice the rate he did in 2008. He's still not exactly a frontrunner, but he is managing to get into the double digits (something he struggled to do previously). Ominously (for Republicans), Paul has not ruled out a third-party run this year -- even more ominously since 2012 is going to be his political swansong (he's not running to retain his House seat). The Republican establishment has convinced itself that he won't actually make a third-party bid, "so he won't tarnish his son's chances within the Republican Party," but I'm not so sure about that.
Whether Paul bolts the Republican Party or not, though, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Paulites when Mitt Romney sews up the nomination. Very disappointed, if not downright disillusioned. Add to this the crowds of Republican rank-and-file voters who have been willing to follow anybody not named Mitt Romney this year (anybody -- even the likes of Donald Trump or Rick Perry), and it could indeed make for a large part of the Republican electorate which is extremely disappointed with their own nominee.
It's fairly easy to imagine Ron Paul's followers, in particular, picking up the "Party Unity My Ass!" banner and marching under it. It's not all that much harder to picture a few Gingrich supporters and Tea Partiers doing so, as well. The Republican Party, in this scenario, would face their own "enthusiasm gap" come the fall. Even before then, their convention might be a lot more interesting than normal years, should a PUMA faction show up and try to steal the show.
Of course -- once again -- this did not actually happen in 2008 on the Democratic side. The anti-Obama Democratic protest failed to materialize, even after tons of hype in the media urged them on. In fact, the most emotional moment of the convention (for me, at least) was when a surprise was engineered behind the scenes during the delegate counting. Traditionally, states are polled for their delegate counts alphabetically, but when the count is about to go over the "magic number" which secures the nomination, the order defers to the candidates' home state (so the home team can be the ones who can claim "we nominated our hometown candidate!"). But when the Democrats got close to the winning amount of delegates, the order was (as usual) passed over to the state of Illinois -- but then, in a surprise move, Illinois proceeded to pass the order right on to New York. From the floor of the convention, the leader of the New York delegation then passed on the chance to make the official announcement himself, and handed the microphone over to none other than Hillary Clinton -- sitting senator from New York -- who announced that New York's delegate total would ensure Barack Obama's nomination. Pandemonium ensued, but in a good way. The rift was healed. Tears of joy were shed. The word PUMA was heard no more. The party -- PUMAs notwithstanding -- was indeed united around their nominee.
Something similar could indeed happen at the Republican shindig this year. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich (and Rick Santorum and all the other wannabes) could be included in some symbolic and moving gesture which ties the Republican Party together in its fear and loathing of Barack Obama. That's not entirely hyperbole, either -- if anything can unify the fractious Republicans right now, it is the current occupant of the Oval Office. This is actually the safe bet -- that Republicans will put aside their differences over the relative strengths and weaknesses of Mitt Romney in order to speak with one clear voice in the fall elections.
It's probably just a punditary daydream, in other words, to imagine the Paulites breaking with the Republican Party in any sort of meaningful way this summer. It's even harder to imagine any sort of Tea Party revolt from the chosen standardbearer. For all Newt Gingrich's bluster, he'll likely drop out of the race long before the convention, which will give the party time to reconcile before they're on center stage.
But still... but still... I can't help wondering whether the term PUMA will enter into the political dialog from the Republican side this year. Rampant speculation? Sure. Lefty pipe dream? Maybe. Will PUMAs be stalking the Republicans this summer and fall? We'll just have to wait and see, now won't we?
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
I think Newt is going to drop out soon. But I think the Republicans will have an enthusiasm problem. Obama is just too inoffensive. He talks like a center-right politician. He governs as a center-right president. He doesn't set off any of the triggers for racial tensions. He doesn't make white people ashamed of the atrocities committed by our forebears. He doesn't make white people uncomfortable with how we've benefited indirectly from the unjust advantages our ancestors had, and how there's no way to un-benefit ourselves out of the situation.
Of course there's some racism against him: in a country of 300M people, there's some of darn near everything you can imagine. But the level of Obama-hate that Republican leadership is trying to appeal to just doesn't exist outside a relatively small cadre of Republican zealots who would feel a similar level of hatred toward Ronald Reagan if he showed up with a D after his name.
Whether Paul bolts the Republican Party or not, though, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Paulites when Mitt Romney sews up the nomination. Very disappointed, if not downright disillusioned.
Maybe Obomney chooses him as a VP candidate?
Weirder things have happened (Sarah Palin). After all, he certainly wouldn't choose Gingrich and I doubt Santorum as well. But he needs someone from the base.
-David
I think you've hit on something, but I also think the actual effect will be muted.
Internal factional divisions are showing in public for pretty much the first time at the national level. Those same fractures became public in 2010 bigtime: DE, AK, NV, CA, NY, CO statewide. Congressional districts were a montage of TP vs R'main across the nation. If the current POTUS were a white male, I don't think anyone would question the seriousness of these factions. But, he isn't a white male.
There will be a lack of enthusiasm for {fill in the blank} ... in MS, AL, GA, LA, TN and ID (to name a few). So what? The only real question will be whether the lack of enthusiasm carries over to OH, WS, PA, NH, FL, NC and a few others.
To be really simple about it, who cares what Obama's approval rating is in Massachusetts? He isn't going to lose MA. Further, who cares about the lack of enthusiasm for {fill in the blank} in Mississippi? {fill in the blank} won't lose MS.
You can whip up a lot of enthusiasm with the $$$ both sides have to spend in THIS election.
[2] akadjian,
Ron Paul is not of the TP base. At least he doesn't think so.
Neither does Rush. It is quite likly that a Romney/Paul ticket would cause a revolution within the TP ranks and guarantee a 3rd party.
You also have to remember that the VP cannot overshadow the P nominee. We saw the effect of that in 2008. My guess from Romney will be Cheney type VP. An older, backbench version of Sarah Palin. Of course, I have yet to right about much of anything this year.
I predict a boring, conventional pick for VP. Dunno who that is, though.
It is quite likly that a Romney/Paul ticket would cause a revolution within the TP ranks and guarantee a 3rd party.
I guess it depends what you mean by Tea Party. All the people I know who would call themselves Tea Party members love Ron Paul.
The people who don't like Ron Paul are the establishment GOP. The GOP wants the votes, but they don't really believe in any of that Ayn Rand stuff. Except when it suits them.
What Paul would bring as a VeeP candidate would be "authenticity" (if there can be any such thing in the GOP). And legions of dedicated volunteers.
I don't think it's going to happen either, but you have to admit, if you were Romney, it would be something to think about.
Heh.
-David
Ok, akadjian, It looks as though you are right. I did some more looking and apparently RP is well loved by at least a part of the TP. Which leads me to the following (truly intended to be not snark) questions:
So why aren't they backing him?
What was with the clown car inanity in Iowa?
And why didn't they vote for him in SC or FL???
Something doesn't compute.
We know that they will back totally non-winnable candidates (O'Donnell, Miller, Palatino, Angle, ...) and we know they care little or nothing about what the R'main think. So why did he only get 5% in FL?
It CAN'T be because Newt is so beloved by the TP. For crying out loud, they've taken down people who have a far more rightwing attitude than ShowMeTheMoney Newt. The excitement generated by him in TP circles is positively anemic ... not to say non-existant.
As I said, I truly would like an answer because I think you're right. Individual TP types seem to love RP. Where's the love going?
"If anything can unify the fractious Republicans right now, it is the current occupant of the Oval Office."
Today's GOP is split into two parts, really: about 55% of the party would like to shut up about gays and abortion, while about 45% cannot shut up about gays and abortion. And yes, if there is anything on which they can rally together it is the usurping Kenyan in the White House. They share a hatred/fear/loathing -- what Jeff Sharlet calls "co-belligerency."
It CAN'T be because Newt is so beloved by the TP.
Agreed.
Individual TP types seem to love RP. Where's the love going?
I think this question is tremendously interesting and the Republican primary has shined some light upon several interesting facets of the Republican party.
I'll warn you some of this will fall into the complete speculation category, but here's a little bit of what I think is going on.
I think you can break the Republican/Tea Party party down into the following categories:
1. Evangelical Christians
2. Traditional New England economic conservatives
3. The Ayn Randians
4. The South
There's some overlap among these and there's probably some other categories as well, but by and large these are probably the 4 big groups. Mormons might be an interesting 5th group that acts very similar to a combination of 1 & 2.
Notice that the Tea Party, per se, is not included in the breakdown. It's because the Tea Party is really a very similar mix. They don't seem to be as true of a split as the others. I think of them more as a re-branding of the Republican party.
The economic crisis, believe it or not, is what I think brought many of these splits to light because the GOP faced a huge identity crisis.
What to stand for? Trickle down economics wasn't exactly working.
So they've been fighting to rebrand themselves. The logic goes like this. The economic crisis didn't occur because of conservative policies, it occurred because true conservative economics was not being followed.
Hence the Tea Party re-branding. These are our true economic beliefs. We were just kidding the last time. Aspects of this new identity include an overzealous interest in deficits and a sudden discovery of Ayn Rand.
I don't think they've found this new identity quite yet though so they look quite disjointed (with the exception of their shared loathing for Obama).
Both you and Osbourne hit the nail on the head with "co-belligerency". That's about the only thing all these groups have in common right now. Maybe this hate is enough to unite them, but it's going to be a long term problem for them to define themselves only by who they hate.
What happens when the object of their hate goes away for example? You have to constantly keep finding someone new to hate (which they may very well be capable of doing, but eventually people will start to wonder if that's all they offer).
Anyways, how this has played out in the primaries:
- Romney has won the establishment Repubs and the Mormons
- Santorum and before him, Perry, won the evangelicals
- Paul wins the Ayn Randians
- Newt wins more votes in the South (probably because of his Georgia roots)
Romney also wins with the people who don't believe any of the other splinter groups are capable of beating Obama.
Remember, speculation ...
-David
Oh, please GOD, let there not be enough people who actually consider AynRand writings as literature to call it a portion of ANY party. Have you ever actually READ Atlas Shruged? I swear, The Turner Diaries are better written.
Have you ever actually READ Atlas Shruged?
When I was in high school I thought it was science fiction. L.Ron Hubbard too. Fortunately, I also read good science fiction so I thought Atlas Shrugged was about the most boring book ever written.
I would rather read a phone book. It's awful.
I do, however, believe that any reading is good reading and so when people bring up Atlas Shrugged, I try to point them at better works ...
http://thereckoner.com/?p=187
-David
The best Atlas Shrugged quote:
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
John Rogers
Trickle down economics wasn't exactly working.
Noteworthy lack of cynicism there.
Bashi -
Heh. That was funny. I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but tried to make it through the other one... The Fountainhead, maybe?... anyway, I got about two-thirds of the way through before I had to stop because the writing was just so incredibly bad...
-CW
Well said, Bashi ... that was good. I might have to have to borrow that :)
after nevada, the MSM are working overtime to give the impression that newt is the only one in the universe who doesn't know he's done. are there GO-PUMAs out there? my guess is that they do exist, but i'm not sure they'll be statistically relevant. the profile of republicans is that they fall in line, and i'm not sure gingrich has enough tea in his bag to overcome that tendency.
i've never read either atlas shrugged or the fountainhead, but someday i might try just for the comedic value. i'd say the sci-fi/fantasy books that most impacted me as a pre-teen were ursula leguin's earthsea cycle, madeleine l'engle's murry-o'keefe series and raymond feist's magician trilogy. they weren't the only works i read, but they were the ones i read most.
~joshua