I love the NCAA March Madness (the “March Madness” slogan belongs to Illinois by the way). I am just using the Final Four, like the dueling Zell Miller, Louis Gohmert (eat to pass it), and Hank Johnson (Gaum will tip into the sea) as a metaphor. Actually, universities are the liberal pockets in conservative states. Basketball teams are more diverse than the Tea’ers. Basketball teams have nothing to do with party politics. It is the region or the culture these teams represent that has caused me to compare the tourney to the fight for the GOP.
My bracket fell apart last weekend, none of the teams left are the one’s I had picked. Checking on the teams headed to Indianapolis, the four schools each come from a region or culture that mirrors the fight for the GOP. Duke the Southern White elite school has a long record of success in the NCAA basketball tournament. Named for a patron who was rich with tobacco money certainly Duke represents the country club upper class segment of the Republican Party. Wouldn’t the RNC have a much better image with Katon Dawson rather than Michael Steele; certainly Katon knows the value of only partying in a private club. Duke stands for money, power, and tradition, the Republicans’ natural constituency.
This year’s perfect mascot for the GOP is the West Virginia Mountaineer. Buckskin clad, coonskin hat, and flintlock carrying, everything an Appalachian would want. The Mountaineer mascot would fit in perfectly at a tea party rally. Unfortunately, they somehow let a woman be the mascot. Of course, the GOP is a big tent, and at least she is a white woman. Now, if we can get another 20,000 fans to bring their guns to the final four just to prove they are Americans who love freedom, the referees’ calls may be more judicious. The Mountaineer represents the hard core red state streak running from the Blue Ridge across the Ozarks right into the red clay of Oklahoma and Texas. These voters were not ready for someone like Obama, one of those N’s. Opinions they freely offered during 2008. Angry loud in no mood for compromise or reason, this is the Tea Party.
Michigan State gets to represent the Midwest GOP coalition. The old line Midwest Republicans truly ancestors of the party of Lincoln; now trying to find a good partnership with Reagan Democrats really the Wallace constituency who feel pushed around by the government. These are working people lost in the rust belt. Hard hit former union laborers wondering why we aren’t making the 57 Chevy. Actually, I wonder why we aren’t making the 57 Chevy everyone seems to love it. These people sound more Canadian than Ozark, but share a sense of displacement. Once the backbone of the Republican party few of the socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative Midwest Republicans are left. If the GOP appeal is too conservative then the Midwestern Republicans cannot win general elections. It is in the primaries that the most conservative and extreme statements are proposed. These coalition builders don’t have the passion wanted by today’s GOP partisans.
Butler represents the Religious Right. Indiana is Bible-Belt country. Butler’s former public broadcast station was sold to a religious broadcasting company. These allies of the Republican Party are beginning to have doubts. The control of Congress and the Executive by Republicans did not result in enactment of their social agenda. The Gays seem to be winning public opinion especially with younger people. Roe v Wade was not overturned. Some are even questioning what social justice means. Traditional GOP platform planks may not solve the environment, people’s health care, and financial corruption. They still want to side with the RNC, but feel betrayed. Some of the most political of the Religious Right leaders are gone. The message is less clear; the GOP seems less the party of morality. Although the GOP still needs the Moral Majority and the family values constituency; some in the evangelical movement seem ready to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and search for meaning in the spiritual realm.
In this Final Four I think tradition wins, so I’m guessing Duke in the tourney. I think money wins out in the GOP, but how corporate interests keep all the people in the tent is hard to see. In the political realm money usually wins, but after the next election I think the tent breaks into separate camps. The tea party holds too many contradictory policies to stay together as a movement. I think in two years it is a split party one a GOP coalition and the other a Libertarian protest grouping.