Will the GOP fracture?
Meanwhile, Obama is preparing to prioritize immigration reform on his second-term agenda, a move that would do as much to divide the GOP as it would to score points among Hispanic voters. It would threaten to engulf the GOP in a heated internal debate that would make the fiscal-cliff arguments seem like child’s play. Immigration sparked the beginning of the Republican rebellion from George W. Bush, well before the tea party emerged as a GOP force. And the wave of tea party-aligned freshmen, most representing homogeneous districts, aren’t at all inclined to embrace positions they once railed against. Most Republican strategists believe that, without a jump in support from the growing Hispanic population, the GOP could become a permanent minority party—and immigration reform is the ticket to win them over. But they would acknowledge that quickly adding more Hispanics to the voter rolls could further damage the Republican party’s long-term standing as well. Conservative talker Sean Hannity, the day after the 2012 election, reversed course and came out for some version of comprehensive immigration reform; the next day on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh doubled down on his opposition.
All these policy divides have already cropped up in the political arena, and could easily intensify. The litany of conservatives taking on establishment Republicans in 2010 and 2012 is well-documented. Already in 2013, Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is threatening to mount an independent candidacy against Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race, a move that would all but doom the GOP’s chances. The Club for Growth wasted no time making noises about a primary challenge after Rep. Shelley Moore Capito entered the West Virginia Senate race, even though the state, long dependent on federal aid, isn’t particularly hospitable to fiscally conservative dogma.
I’ve long been skeptical about the feasibility of a third party, but I’m beginning to entertain the possibility that the GOP could become split apart as these policy debates come to the fore.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Enough with this leftard propaganda! Sheesh! We’ll be back in power 2016 because voters are fickle and will always follow the shiny new object. More importantly, obama and his cronies will have trashed this country so badly, people will be overjoyed to throw the bums out. The bills are coming due. All that affordable healthcare? Not so affordable. Taxes? Yep, taxes are going up. Also state taxes.
Blake on January 9, 2013 at 8:04 PM
Better question: will the Democrats blow up?
John the Libertarian on January 9, 2013 at 8:12 PM
Hey Republican Party Insiders, you’re in a lose-lose situation from now on. Embrace it.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/479807-we-are-born-into-this-time-and-must-bravely-follow
ninjapirate on January 9, 2013 at 8:15 PM
All this talk about how the GOP must appeal to minorities etc, and etc… this is happening to every right wing party in every western democracy… there is no difference anywhere whether it is in the US, Australia, UK, France, Sweden…
The question shouldn’t be whether the GOP can survive… but whether any conservative party in any western country can survive… and whether the west as an entity survives another 80 years.
ninjapirate on January 9, 2013 at 8:25 PM
It’s not “immigration reform”, it’s the “White Minority Act”. If one Republican congress could point this out, Obama wouldn’t go near it. As it is, he won’t do anything without Republican cover.
It’s the worst crime done to a race of people since the holocaust. Half the white Democrats would switch to Republican before seeing themselves become scapegoated minority status in the US, if the issue gets framed in that manner.
Buddahpundit on January 9, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Rather than a complete split at the moment … might I propose …
An agreed upon “partitioning”.
It’s clear to me the GOP is divided into two groups – most people say they are “moderate” and “conservative” but, in actuality – the groups are mostly geo-politically based.
The Dims had a split, back in the day … between “liberal” dimmocrits and “DIXIECRATS”. Dixiecrats ruled the south.
Why not do that with the GOP? No moderates running in the Conservative Southern States – only die hard conservatives who want action.
Leave the liberal RINO’s to the Northeast and California.
We can save the nation this way – by saving the conservative states. Yes, Liberal and Conservative GOP’ers will clash in Washington DC – but the solutions to our problems will never come out of Washington DC – they will come from the states forcing changes on the federal government and standing up for the 10th amendment.
HondaV65 on January 9, 2013 at 8:42 PM
both mccain and romney tanked. its old news. been fractured for awhile now.
renalin on January 9, 2013 at 8:53 PM
When the split occurs, who do you think the GOP will ally themselves with? The new conservative party? Or the Democrats?
Do you even need to answer that? Look at what Boehner just did…
The GOP will betray you
True_King on January 9, 2013 at 9:20 PM
You bring up a point that people seem to forget: Yes, there is a slight fracture in the GOP, and no, we shouldn’t be worried about it. Even though the conservative Tea Party members are smaller in number than establishment types, the more moderate establishment types that want to be more moderate to attract independent votes fail to recognize that the independent voters who are likely to swing to the right do so because they like the libertarian and small-government bent of the Tea Party versus the unrestrained liberalism of the Democrats and the restrained liberalism of the establishment GOP.
In the next ten years, the GOP establishment will lose mindshare among the right and conservatives, generally (we’re already seeing it happen with the new, younger conservative stars), and the remnants of the establishment will be sucking up to the Tea Party Shiredwellers for committee placement and primary support. The establishment will be bargaining with the new conservative leadership in order to keep around some crusty old bastions of moderate GOPism before finally folding into the newly-conservative GOP. When the GOP begins standing for something other than simply acting as an electorate-adjustable constraint on Democratic folly, people will stand with them.
mintycrys on January 9, 2013 at 9:38 PM
No, they aren’t. The rubes outnumber the GOPe by probably 50:1. Secondly, yes there is a fracture. It’s been apparent at least since 2008, maybe 2006. It’s not “slight”; the friggin’ bone is popping out of the skin.
ddrintn on January 9, 2013 at 10:04 PM
The essential, underlying problem is not with immigration — there are many obvious incremental improvements to be made. The problem is that the government has repeatedly taken 5% of something reasonable rolled into 95% graft-laden wrongheaded statist bovine excrement and labeled it as “comprehensive XXXX reform”. Anything “comprehensive” coming from Congress is guaranteed to actually make things worse, and might as well begin and end with “BOHICA”.
It’s just a way to hold the 5% of obvious improvements hostage to the pork and socialist meddling.
cthulhu on January 9, 2013 at 10:25 PM
Depends, IMO, on how willing leadership is to listen to the base a little bit….
cs89 on January 9, 2013 at 10:36 PM