Republican Battle

Recently it has appeared that a battle is still brewing inside the Republican Party for how to define its electoral support base. In essence, there appear to be two different wings of the Republican Party jockeying for control. In one corner are the fiscal/government conservatives and in the other are the social conservatives. While many mainstream observers believe that these two sects of the Republican Party should be able to peacefully coexist, it is not a forgone conclusion that they will.

However, to really understand today's conflict it is important to understand how these two groups were united under the Republican Banner. In many ways the uniting of these groups electorally occurred under Reagan. Reagan's charismatic leadership style, coupled with the troubled big government years under Carter, firmly pushed fiscal/government conservatives into the Republican camp. In fact, the Republican wins of 1980, 1994, 2000, and 2002 in many ways can be attributed to the fact that the adherents to these two separate ideologies came together under the Republican banner. Thus, there is no question that for the last thirty years the Republican party has always needed both groups to win.

The problem that arises is that while on paper these two groups are able to work together, in practice, this is not always the case. Most of the conflict surrounds the proper role of government. Fiscal/government conservatives strongly support smaller government: less government involvement in daily life and less government spending. Social conservatives on the other hand argue that the government should be used to promote and protect moral values. The conflict that has recently arose occurred under Bush II, when social conservatives greatly expanded government activity and spending on what they perceived to be key social issues. Such action ran contrary to the beliefs of the fiscal/government conservatives. However, as the Republican Party was electorally successful under such a platform from 2000-2006, fiscal/government conservatives' concerns were largely ignored.

This marginalization of fiscal/government conservatives boiled over as a result of the 2008 election results. Fiscal/government conservatives saw the election as vindication of their views and confirmation that the Republican Party must return to small government. Meanwhile, social conservatives saw the election as proof that they had not pushed their agenda hard enough. These different interpretations has lead to the current conflict within the Republican Party.

The key questions of course for the Republican Party is who is right and what should be done about it. If electoral history is used as a guide, the Republican Party can not hope to retake the White House or Congress without both of these groups. There is no question that the Republican Party has to craft a new message to the voters if it is to have any hope at dividing the Democrats' new support coalition under Obama, but there are clear risks in both directions. If it heads the direction of the fiscal/government conservatives it risks comparisons to Republicans under Hoover. Cutting back government spending during a depression is not a popular idea with most Americans. However, equally risky is the social conservative direction which calls for greater government regulation of moral issues, which both 2008 exit polling and current polling data show is not a major priority for the vast majority of Americans.

There is no doubt that Republicans are in a tough position. However, lack of a clear direction is already costing Republicans in Congress. This is because as the minority party their best chance to influence policy is to be united to block bills in the Senate using a filibuster threat. But currently, the Democrats have been able to play both wings off each other to get bills through the Senate. While there is no simple answer, the Republicans need to resolve their intraparty fighting so that they can mount an effective opposition to the Obama administration.