Pardon my rant... but it is just outrageous that I am required to find myself in agreement with one of the most rightwing figures in American public life. As it happens we find ourselves in soldiarity against a particularly virulent strain of Conventional Wisdom. This agreement has me in such a state that I don't even care if I mix metaphors.
Thank you in advance for your forebearace.
Proceed at your own risk.
Much has been made of Pat Robertson's recent endorsement of Rudy Giuliani. Most of the much has been so rediculous I have been left to pull out what remains of my hair. Well, metaphorically speaking anyway.
Was Robertson's endorsement really so shocking? Do journalists, pundits and yeah, even bloggers, have no memory or even research skills? Or does the Beltway manage to tighten around the heads of people who do not even live there?
Does it really matter that Robertson has said outrageous things in the past? Not particularly. At least not to GOP presidential wannabes. The man has a major cable public affairs program and remains one of the most powerful and influential conservative evangelical leaders in the United States. His endorsement and the support of his constituency was sought, for example, by Mitt Romney who this year gave the commencement speech at Regent University -- the 3,000 student all-graduate school founded and headed by Pat Robertson.
Whatever else Pat Robertson has been -- and he has been a lot of things -- he has been a pragmatist about power. Even though in his 1989 New York Times best selling book The The New World Order, Robertson wrote that George Bush Sr. was an unwitting agent of Satan, because of his support for the UN, Robertson had no problem supporting his reelection for president in 1992, and featured the president at a major conference of his then-powerful Christian Coalition. (I was there.)
In 1996, Robertson supported Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) over Pat Buchannan, even though ideologically he was far closer to Buchannan. Additionally, Robertson's protege then-Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed served as Dole's floor manager at the 1996 GOP national convention in San Diego.
In 2000, the religious right was divided among the GOP primary field in ways similar to today, with Christian Right leader Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, former Vice President Dan Quayle and George Bush all receiving support. Bush was the acknowledged establishment candidate. Robertson went with Bush.
In 2004, Bush was unopposed and whatever their reservations, religious right leaders mostly rallied around the president.
It is also worth noting that Giuliani twice traveled to Georgia in 2006 to rally support and raise funds for the Abramoff-tainted Ralph Reed's unsuccessful run in the GOP primary for Lt. Governor. Their opposing social views and practices were certainly noted at the time, leading at least one writer to refer to Giuliani as a "blatant adultering cousin fucker."
So here we are going into 2008, and there are a lot of candidates. The religious right was unable to settle on a unity candidate. That is not their fault so much as that the field is does not lend itself to an obvious candidate. And yet, and yet, this is somehow taken as a sign that the religious right is "fractured," "divided," and so on. And this crap is what passes as smart analysis. The religious right is no more divided than they have ever been under similar circumstances. Just like major Democratic constituencies, the religious right rallies around the candidate when the time comes. Difference is not the same thing as division. Competeting factions backing different horses is not the same thing as "fracture." (Organized labor, anyone?)
So what about the threat by a group of religious right leaders to go third party if Giuliani is nominated? It's real enough, and has happened before. A group of conservative movement leaders did just that in 1976, when the GOP nomimated Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan. First, they approached the then, still vibrant American Independent Party of George Wallace to join forces. These included Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, William Rusher, Morton Blackwell, and others. Unable to reach a deal, they sat out the 1976 election -- they decided that four years of Carter would set the stage for a Reagan challenge in 1980. Turned out, they were not wrong. Meanwhile, they created an external infrastructure, such as the Moral Majority, and the rest is history.
It is quite possible that a group of factional leaders will drop out or bolt this time, and take their followers with them. How signficant it would be, is entirely hypothetical at the moment. It is just to early to say. But if it did happen, that would certainly merit discussion of a "fracture" of the religious right.
At the same time, religious right leaders threatening to bolt the GOP is a quadrennial side show. And when or underwhat circumstances to call their bluff is a Republican calculation that I do not pretend to understand.
Similar rumblings have been going on all year, although they have only recently broken out into the news. Earlier this year, I reported on a speech by now-but-not-then GOP primary candidate Alan Keyes gave to the national committee of the Constitution Party.
Keyes concluded his speech by strongly suggesting that GOP front-runners Sen. John McCain, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Romney were all unacceptable to Christian conservatives -- and that the nomination of any of them would be a "betrayal:"
Because I know for sure that if they nominate some pro-abort at any place on the ticket, I will leave the Republican Party. I have said this before, and I will do it. But I think that it's really important that neither I nor others leave the party alone. We must take with us all those we can rouse so that a new possibility is created for America.
But that means, y'all, that this moment of crisis for the country, crisis for the Republican Party is a moment of opportunity and challenge for you. For, in many respects, in your principles, in your platform, in your courage--in the courage that you have shown as individuals, you represent the very thing America needs most. Are you ready for this challenge? That's the question, and it's not an easy one to answer.
Indeed. Whether the Constitution Party is ready to receive an infusion of support and a possible candidate of some national stature defecting from the GOP -- is still not easy to answer. Intriguingly, however, Keyes met again with the Constitution Party national committee at their recent meeting in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Let me wrap this up by saying that treating the religious right as if it is or ever was a monothlith of identically minded people and organizations is one of the most simple minded, ahistorical, radically uniformed -- but nevertheless widespread practice -- in modern politics and journalism.
I am too tired to go searching for particularly egregious examples, and I don't feel like singling anyone out, since so many take this stance. Suffice to say I am profoundly weary of clicking on blogs, opening up major newspapers and magazines, or tuning into any other media that I respect or otherwise have interest and finding such similar piles of of the crap of conventional wisdom.
Ok. So this brings me around to my agreement with someone with whom it is fair to say I may never have agreed on anything, although it is certainly possible that there is something I may have missed.
William Rusher (the founding publisher of the National Review) has a better analysis of the state of the religous right and the GOP presidential contests than I have seen elsewhere in the punditocracy, left, right or center. Here is an excerpt:
...Pat Robertson, a leading Christian conservative by any standard (he also controls the Christian Broadcasting Network), has "stunned" various easily stunned people by endorsing Giuliani!
Does all this portend a sharp split in the ranks of the religious right? Not at all. It is probably healthier, all things considered, when that movement is divided among several contenders for the nomination, rather than piling all its chips on just one.
Some political analysts have sought to explain Robertson's endorsement of Giuliani as an effort to resuscitate his own role as a leader of the religious right, which they say has been somewhat diminished in recent years. And it may well be that Robertson, scanning the field of candidates and noting a relative shortage of religious support for Giuliani, was influenced to some degree by the thought that backing him would reflect credit on himself -- especially if, as seems entirely possible, Giuliani scoops up the nomination. But supporting a candidate as generally attractive as Giuliani hardly needs a motive that Machiavellian to inspire it.
The key point here is that all of the major Republican contenders have now obtained the blessing of acknowledged leaders of the religious right. That removes one potent factor from consideration as the race for the nomination goes forward -- and will constitute a major plus thereafter, as the general election campaign gets under way.
Makes common sense, doesn't it? Unless of course, you still believe the overheated, underinformed analysis of what passes for conventional wisdom about these things.