Political Animal
Blog
I am not generally a big fan of pols switching parties and then being paraded around by their new friends as trophies and/or as “proof” the forsaken party has left its traditions or values. But then I’m touchy about it because I once worked for Zell Miller in Georgia (before he showed any signs of apostasy), and more generally, used to associate back in the day with a fair number of southern Democrats who bolted for the GOP the moment it served their electoral interests. As regular readers know, I am particularly aggrieved by the switch recently consummated by Artur Davis, whose appearance in Tampa probably boosted his congressional aspirations in his new party and his new state of Virginia.
So I wasn’t a big fan of the decision to put Florida’s Charlie Crist on display in Charlotte.
But on the other hand, party-switching is sometimes both rational (not opportunistic), and even principled. Sometimes parties do “leave people behind,” when there are significant ideological shifts. This was most evident during the Great Sorting Out that began with the Civil Rights Act and reached its peak in the 1990s, when the two parties became genuine ideological coalitions of the Left and Right instead of tribal assemblages based on ancient regional, religious, or Big Event (e.g., the Civil War) loyalties. A lot of the pundit hand-wringing in recent years over the Great Lost Traditions of Bipartisanship is actually nostalgia for a time when neither party stood for that much nationally, and the most significant divisions involved shifting bipartisan coalitions disguising solid ideological coalitions, not some sort of comity or “compromise.”
Beyond the Great Sorting Out, there are intraparty trends that “leave people behind” as well, with the most notable being the long march to domination of the Republican Party by a self-conscious conservative movement—which insisted not only on rejecting people whose ideological character logically placed them in the opposing camp, but on purifying the GOP from those who exhibited insufficient discipline, militancy, and commitment to the movement’s ultimate goals. There have been specific issues on which Democrats have conducted implicit if not explicit “purges”—most obviously, it’s increasingly difficult for Democrats opposing legalized abortion or expansion of LGBT rights to feel at home in the Donkey Party—but nothing like the constant emphasis in the GOP on proving that one is not only “conservative,” but a “true conservative,” an exercise that has become so common in contested Republican primaries that it approaches self-parody.
I’d say the time for Democrats to honorably leave their party on grounds that it’s “left them” has pretty much passed, which is why the complaints of an Artur Davis sound so insincere. Charlie Crist is a much different case. Yes, he left the GOP after he was on the brink of being trounced in a primary (Davis waited until a few minutes after his primary loss). But as he noted in his speech in Charlotte, the first big breach involved his support for Obama’s stimulus package—no more of an ideological heresy, to put it mildly, that Mitt’s Romney’s (and many other Republicans’) longstanding support for a health reform model very similar to Obamacare. The second and defining act that got him tossed out of the Republican Party was his veto of legislation radically remaking public education in Florida—again, not representative of Florida Republicans, but hardly a leap into aggressive liberalism. He certainly did not parade his hostility to interest groups in his party the way Davis did, and so far as I know, has not yet indicated an intention to pursue office as a Democrat.
Personally, I’ve always thought the acid test of whether a party-switching “trophy” is worth listening to is whether he or she actually represents a significant body of voters. Republicans have tried to claim Artur Davis is among the last of the Blue Dogs who have been run out of the Democratic Party by an increasingly intolerant liberal wing. In fact, most Blue Dog casualties in the last couple of cycles have not been “purged” but have simply lost elections to Republicans who treated them with the same contempt as other Democrats. And it’s impossible to look at Davis’ actual congressional district in Alabama and conclude that the direction in which he was rapidly heading when defeated in the 2010 gubernatorial primary was representative of the people who had elevated him to office.
I’d guess Crist is more typical of a larger group of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents whose comfort-level with the GOP has waxed and waned over the years, but mostly waned. Many of them may have beaten Crist to the exits, but some—such as the not-inconsiderable number who do not identify with the Teavangelical strain of movement conservatism, or to put it another way, the kind of people who want to serve on a school board to support, not destroy, “government schools”—are still around. It probably makes sense to give them a distinct voice within the Democratic Party. I’d say it has more of a future than that of Artur Davis Republicans.
Facebook
Twitter
DJ on September 07, 2012 4:09 PM:
Gov. Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island also spoke at the DNC. Does your distaste not extend to him, or were you merely ignorant of his appearance?
Bob on September 07, 2012 5:03 PM:
"...the kind of people who want to serve on a school board to support, not destroy, 'government schools'”
I live in the Kansas City suburbs in that reddest of red states: Kansas. I am surrounded by well-meaning Republican sorts who love their public schools and fight ardently on their behalf. As a consequence, we have some of the best public school systems in the country here. These are true moderate, good government Republicans. And yet, in every election, these folks reflexively pull the "lever" for the Republican candidates--irrespective of the candidates' actual positions. What is one supposed to do with an electorate like this. Makes me depressed.
rrk1 on September 07, 2012 5:11 PM:
Maybe Bob, above, should write a book entitled "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
Shelly on September 07, 2012 5:36 PM:
Davis and Crist aren't comparable (as indicators of party leaving them behind) for various reasons, namely that Crist is one of a parade of moderate Republicans who have either left the party or expressed the fact that they don't recognize what's it's become -- Christine Todd Whitman, Lincoln Chafee, Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, variou conservative pundits/intellectuals (David Frum, Bruce Bartlett, Andrew Sullivan), and a host of others who aren't quite as well known. And on the other hand, we have Davis, hardly a nationally known figure (until now) and Zell Miller, who came across as completely crazy and out of touch. There simply hasn't been a steady exodus of Democrats/liberals over the past 10 years in the same way -- probably because the Democrats have not in fact moved steadily to the left.
Bob on September 07, 2012 6:20 PM:
@rrk1: LOL. I didn't know him, but Thomas Frank grew up in Mission Hills, just down aways from where I live (Prairie Village). Thus reminded, I'll pull out my copy of "What's the Matter..." and cheer myself up.
TCinLA on September 07, 2012 7:54 PM:
When word came to him that Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill - who had opposed the Soviet Revolution, the Soviet Union and had even plotted to kill both Lenin and Stalin - immediately called the Soviet ambassador to 10 Downing Street and offered the unconditional alliance and support of Great Britain against the Nazis. Asked about his Big Switch later, he replied, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I should at least comment favorably on the House floor regarding the Devil."
So far as I am concerned, anyone who for any reason is opposed to the TeaTards and the Xtian Right, this generation's Nazi Menace, is welcome indeed and unquestioningly.
yellowdog on September 07, 2012 8:04 PM:
Is it progress to have a democracy reduced to two armed camps, with no possibility of working together for the common good?
I miss conservative Democrats like Sam Nunn and Howell Heflin, who made the turn on civil rights or came along after the great battles over it were over. I miss reasonable Republicans like Howard Baker, George Romney and John Chafee--who could be tough and partisan and then actually get something done for the country.
I remember Mitt Romney saying when he ran in Massachusetts that he would be a moderate voice in a conservative party. That's exactly what is missing, now more than ever. Mitt has abandoned his Yankee Republican approach, and there are no moderate voices. Meanwhile, John Barrow stands as one of the last white Southern Democrats in Congress--as he defends his seat after a brutal redistricting by the Georgia GOP.
Legislation is the art of coalition building. To do it, you have to have a certain mindset--a willingness to go along with something imperfect but workable, to get something accomplished that is in the public interest, more or less. A working legislature depends on men and women of this mindset--and they are notably absent from Congress these days. No wonder Congress is held in such poor esteem. People know Congress is no longer serious about governance.
Where have you gone Mo Udall?
Greg on September 07, 2012 8:42 PM:
There's no comparison. Democrats and Republicans have both moved right over the last twenty years. I knocked on doors for Reagan in 1984. I was a College Republican in the mid-to-late 80s. My presidential voting record is GHW Bush, GHW Bush, Clinton, Bush, Kerry, Obama.
In the Eighties, I was a moderate Republican: realist foreign policy, muscular but prudent national defense, fiscally conservative (read my lips: no new taxes, unless it's the right thing to do to reduce the deficit), pro-business and pro-markets, socially liberal.
There were *millions* who shared those views -- not just Republicans, but Reagan Democrats as well.
Since the mid-90s, the New Democrats have owned that space and the Republicans have raced to the right-wing fringe. While I regret my vote for Bush 43 in hindsight, I also believe that his administration would have been far more moderate (see: immigration reform and PEPFAR) if it hadn't been co-opted by neocons in the aftermath of 9/11.
Today? There's simply no place in the GOP for pragmatists, empiricists, or anyone with non-fundamentalist religious beliefs. The only reason the GOP hasn't already become a rump party is pure tribalism. It was frankly embarrassing to watch someone like Jon Huntsman try to compete in a GOP primary.
There is no equivalence here. There is still plenty of room in the Democratic Party for moderate and conservatives, and in fact the "progressive" wing is relatively disempowered. The GOP has been entirely surrendered to the radical right.
Anonymous on September 08, 2012 3:36 AM:
yellowdog,
there's room for a sam nunn in today's democratic party. i don't think you could say the same thing about howard baker and certainly not about nelson rockefeller, jacob javits and others of their ilk in today's republican party. a liberal republican, if one could be found, would have been burned to the stake if he or she had showed up at tampa.
John on September 08, 2012 1:50 PM:
"it’s increasingly difficult for Democrats opposing legalized abortion or expansion of LGBT rights to feel at home in the Donkey Party"
This is an odd juxtaposition. I think we could welcome someone who was strongly against abortion, if the remedy was to promote birth control, education for women, funding for child care and health care for children etc. in other words, we respect the right of the individual to make decisions about their life but we provide support to obtain the desired outcome.
How would that work with LGBT rights? If someone has a visceral dislike of gays, or any other group, how would they be accommodated? I suppose this is where the idea of civil unions came from, but it doesn't really work.