Selective Outrage
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By contrast, Scott Brown commanded broad enthusiasm throughout the Republican Party, from libertarians to vegetarians, to borrow an old joke of John McCain’s. Does the breadth of enthusiasm bespeak a broadening of accepted views? If so, Tuesday’s big victory offers more than hope for a better quality of health reform. It offers hope that the Republican Party has truly recovered its center – and its way not only to win, but to be deserving of it. ~David Frum
It seems that the breadth of enthusiasm for Brown is not really a sign of the “broadening of accepted views.” As Frum noted, Brown is likely to be to the left of Specter once he starts voting in the Senate, and movement activists and party regulars were glad to be rid of Specter last year, so it might appear as if something has changed in atittudes toward moderates. However, the enthusiasm for Brown was not an expression of newfound acceptance of moderate Northeastern Republicans. It is not as if movement conservatives recognized an error in pushing Specter to switch parties and wanted to remedy it by replacing him with an even more liberal Republican from Massachusetts. As I mentioned earlier, the selective outrage that targets the less liberal Specter and Crist with serious primary challenges but leaves the more liberal Brown unscathed depends entirely on the degree to which the moderate Republican opposes or embraces Obama’s agenda.
Specter and Crist crossed the line by respectively backing and embracing the stimulus bill. Brown won boundless sympathy and admiration for pledging to kill the health care bill. There is still an “ideological straitjacket” limiting what Republican candidates can do, but its dimensions may be a little different than they were in the past. The most important factor in determining whether or not movement and party will rally behind a Republican candidate is his readiness to thwart Obama. Everything else is secondary and will be overlooked, so long as the candidate doesn’t have presidential aspirations.
Just look at how quickly the Huntsman ‘12 talk evaporated almost as soon as he began to become a national figure. Huntsman went to Beijing as ambassador in part because he surveyed the political landscape and realized that there was too much resistance even to a pro-life Utah Republican candidate who had supported the Western Climate Initiative, backed civil unions and acquired a reputation for reasonableness. Bob Bennett is currently discovering that his positions on the environment and health care are not really welcome in the Utah GOP. The primary challenge against Bennett and the broad conservative enthusiasm for Brown actually stem from the same desire to oppose health care legislation. In other words, at least as far as national Republican and conservative support for Brown are concerned, Brown has profited from the same political pressure that sent Huntsman to China and made Specter a Democrat. As soon as Brown reveals that he really is a moderate Northeastern Republican, conservative enthusiasm will disappear.
Filed under: politics
As I mentioned earlier, the selective outrage that targets the less liberal Specter and Crist with serious primary challenges but leaves the more liberal Brown unscathed depends entirely on the degree to which the moderate Republican opposes or embraces Obama’s agenda.
Wow. It’s almost as if the Republicans were an opposition party.
Yes, they are, and that’s just about all they will be at the rate they’re going. The point I was trying to make here is that what counts as an unacceptable deviation from the party line is completely arbitrary. Crist is far, far to the right of Brown, but his deviation on the stimulus made him persona non grata while Brown’s numerous deviations are not really held against him. Given his new status as conservative folk hero, they may not be held against him for some time. Crist is probably opposed to Obama’s position on many more things, but he is regarded far more negatively than Brown and he is the one being targeted with a primary challenge.
Isn’t as simple as Brown was the only one that could win in Mass? That a Republican took over the seat of the most lauded liberal in half a century? That his win derails the biggest liberal project in decades?
Also there was no other opportunity to vote for the more conservative candidate whereas there is with Crist can be challenged from the right and a conservative can win in Florida. Same goes for Toomey/Specter in PA.
Look I’m a Ron Paul Republican and I’m pretty happy about this unexpected surprise even though he’d be terrible on my issues anywhere outside of the northeast. I think even conservative ideologues can be consistent in cheering on a Brown win in Kennedy’s old seat especially since if derails the biggest intervention in the economy in recent memory.
Conservatives can think and act strategically too.
Honestly, I don’t know who I would have chosen last Tuesday had I been a Massachusetts voter. The thought of voting for a supporter of waterboarding revolts me, but so does the thought of voting for an enabler of the Great Child Abuse Hysteria. Probably I would have called a wash on civil liberties and voted for Brown, because thwarting Obama’s economic agenda is the most pressing priority. I don’t think that’s irrational, inconsistent, or ‘arbitrary’.
Btw I voted for Obama, for reasons of foreign policy and civil liberties. Also after Palin I didn’t much trust McCain’s judgment on anything, and I had a slim hope Obama would turn out to be as fiscally conservative as President Clinton was.
As I mentioned earlier, the selective outrage that targets the less liberal Specter and Crist with serious primary challenges but leaves the more liberal Brown unscathed depends entirely on the degree to which the moderate Republican opposes or embraces Obama’s agenda.
In the short term, if one feels that Obama’s agenda is the most urgent threat, to do so makes sense.
Besides, as others have pointed out, the GOP has taken Ted Kennedy’s seat. That’s a coup in and of itself.
The GOP has an interest in getting out liberal GOPers when it has a chance of getting more conservative GOPers in, and in promoting liberal GOPers when they have no other options.
Brown is not likely to vote to the left of Specter in the US Senate, no matter what he did the rest of his life. He now is part of the Republican Senate caucus and someone who needs to amass a lot of campaign contributions between now and his re-election. He is much more likely to vote the party line than show his true colors. Plus, he’s pro-choice. Anything else unorthodox would simply explode the brains of establishment Republicans and conservatives.
Yes, Norwegian Shooter.
The GOP senate has mained incredible discipline in the past few years; expecting a new GOP senator to buck the entire rest of his caucus is expecting a lot. [and note - yes, the Democratic caucus works differently]