Article Contributed on: 6/28/2006 11:59:55 AM
You have all heard the admonition that the Republican Party is the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, ad nauseum. Well, even though I am a democrat who turned republican and then became and Independent, I am here to tell you Tom Tancredo is sounding the death knell for the Republican party. How and Why? Read on, pilgrim.
What we forget is that in the decades preceding Abraham Lincoln there were two parties; the Democrats and the Whigs. The Whigs, if you study their history were a force of nature and dominated American and British politiics for decades. Then in the years leading up to the civil war the Whigs self-destructed and were replaced by a new party, the Republicans, that Lincoln embraced.
Being essentially a two party system Americans tend to be bi-polar, flip-flopping back and forth in terms of who gets the keys to the executive bar. But, it is not the core of either party who makes this determination. Increasingly, no party can win in the general election without getting the knod from independents who can swing either way. So in the primary, candidates go to the extreme left or right trying to get their party to back them, then they put the car in reverse and over-correct trying to get to the center so that the independents will vote for them. In such a situation most candidates win by a gnat's hair and a 50/50 teeter-totter balance exists between elections.
There are long term trends and they are important. But, you can almost count on the Democrats being around forever. They have become the "Rainbow Party" and represent disaffected groups: gays, minorities, women, children, labor unions, and a host of groups who would become political parties in and of themselves if this were in Italy. In America they are smart enough to band together and call themselves Democrats and I think their party's existence is pretty well guaranteed, although they will not hold a majority unless the Independents swing their way in any given election.
For the Republicans it is another matter. After the Great Depression and their abject failure to respond to the crisis they had troubles getting elected. If they had a charismatic guy like Eisenhower after a world war they did ok, but oherwise they were distrusted as being to uncaring and narcissistic and aligned with big business. The rise of evangelism, and the flip in Southern politics to be red states, along with general distrust of Democrat's spendthrift ways paved the way for the Republicans to get their big chance to govern, beginning in the early 1990s. But they have thrown it away and guys like Tom Tancredo have command of the microphone at a crucial time.
First, the Republicans have had trouble delivering, mainly because of the U.S. Senate, whose filibuster procedures give undue power to the minority. For example, the House has passed legislation 8 times on small business health care reform, but, it can't get to the floor of theSenate for an up-or-down vote. For a host of reasons, the Republicans have had their image tarnished as the national debt rose, we got entangled in Iraq, and reform of health care, social security and other areas have been eclipsed by an orgy of ear-marks and scandals.
Now, enter the "really-long-term". The Republicans, led by their man Tom Tancredo is on the verge of disenfranchising the Hispanic vote, which promises to replace blacks and labor as the next big demographic chunk. I remember my grandfather and uncles, who were not pro-union spitting on the ground at the mention of Herbert Hoover and the Republicans because of the pain and misery they suffered from the Great Depression. They knew we would never have come out of that Depression but for World War II, and the sons lost by working men was another steep price to pay. I predict the day when Hispanics will spit on the ground at the mention of Tom Tancredo. They will never, never become Republicans--you can take that to the bank. But, will they become Democrats? I think not.
I don't think Hispanic and Latino people see themselves as aligned with the interests of blacks, gays and labor unions, who they generally dispise. And, neither are the hundreds of thousands of Asians and other foreigners who are hard working, education oriented and entrepreneurial. They transcend both parties and identify with neither.
So, I see the current amorphous situation gelling around a new party which currently consists of disillusioned and disaffected independents and demographic segments who have yet to align themselves politically.
The second reason is that politicians like Tom Tancredo are single issue guys who inflate their personal currency to stay in office. He likes being in the House, covets the Senate or being Governor and is already calculating his pension. Running every two years and raising the money from the suburbs is tough. But, if you latch on to a national issue that resonates, the money flows in from everywhere and you are on the news enough to be king of the hill for a long time to come. But, he is still a single issue guy and hasn't delivered on anything. And he won't. But, he is virtually unbeatable and that is where the irony comes in.
No Democrat can beat Tancredo. Only an alliance of interests from the Independents and "new demographics" can. In his particular case the purity of demographics south of Hampden Avenue prevent that alignment from occurring right now. But it is his success in beating the drum over immigration which will do grave harm to the Republican Party and put it in the dustbin of history with the Whigs. Go, Tom, Go!