We know that the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives and the libertarians in the Republican party don't see eye to eye on everything. Neither do the realists, the neocons or the paleocons, though they have few places to go. Watching the Foley fallout, it's hard not to muse over what happens if and when the Republicans find themselves in the minority in the House. We know there's going to be a leader batttle, temporarily put on hold by GOP representatives terrified of what would happen if they fight that battle now (Hastert may not last until November, and he's certainly gone then).
Dick Polman, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, looks to 2008:
Regardless of whether the small-government Goldwaterites swallow their frustrations and help salvage the GOP's fragile House and Senate majorities, the road to 2008 figures to be rocky. Clearly, the unwieldy conservative coalition (which also includes the neoconservatives, who want to promote Middle East democracy, and the skeptics who don't) seems poised for some kind of crack-up and reconfiguration.
In the words of conservative commentator Ryan Sager, author of The Elephant in the Room, a new book on the GOP's coming ideological clash, we shall soon witness "a tectonic shift in the ground under the conservative movement." And he says this is happening because "George W. Bush has been a disaster for conservatism."
Well, actually, is there anything Bush hasn't been a disaster for?
Sterling Newberry writing at TPM Cafe has his own take, which includes the inability of the GOP to come to grips with homosexuality. This is reflected in today's NY times piece, showing that
to some VA social conservatives, that's all that matters. But as Polman puts it
So here's the overall situation: The powerless libertarians think the religious faction has gotten too much, and the powerful religious faction thinks it hasn't gotten enough. Some neoconservatives think Bush hasn't sufficiently supported the Middle East democracy dream (because he didn't put enough troops in Iraq and screwed up the postwar), whereas the so-called "realist" conservatives (people like William F. Buckley and George Will), skeptical that America can remake the world in its image, think that Bush screwed up by invading Iraq in the first place.
On that score, count me as agreeing with the realists.
This is not a stable situation for the GOP. Only increasingly polarizing policy would make the social conservatives happy, and TPTB in the GOP aren't inclined to give it to them. Like with the Terri Schiavo fiasco, when they try to enact what they preach, the country rejects them.
How the GOP deals with their civil war, which threatens to break out in the open over the Foley-Reynolds-Hastert scandal will go a long way in choosing which of the current crop of Presidential contenders remains viable. But as a party, a loss woud mean a hard look from each of the coalition constituents about what they're getting out of an unhappy marriage of convenience. What follows ain't going to be pretty - divorces never are.