In tomorrow's Washington Post, Michael Gerson engages in a bout of concern trolling at the GOP. Specifically, the tea party elements are pining away for another coming of Barry Goldwater. But as he notes, what they forget is that Goldwater permanently tanked the party's chances with Blacks.
But some political choices are symbolic and more than symbolic. Following Goldwater’s vote, a young Colin Powell went out to his car and affixed a Lyndon Johnson bumper sticker. “While not himself a racist,” concluded Martin Luther King Jr., “Mr. Goldwater articulates a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the racists.” Jackie Robinson, after attending the GOP convention in 1964, helped launch Republicans for Johnson.
In the 1960 election, Richard Nixon had won 32 percent of the African American vote. Goldwater got 6 percent in 1964. No Republican presidential candidate since has broken 15 percent.
While Goldwater did lay the groundwork for Ronald Reagan in 1980, Reagan was much more pragmatic than Goldwater. He worked with a Democratic majority to get a lot of his agenda through. He was able to switch gears and appear moderate the reasonable when the occasion demanded it. None of his successors, however, have had the kind of charisma that Reagan had, where they could unite the various factions of the GOP and still retain an appeal to moderates.
Karl Rove's approach towards winning a permanent GOP majority revolved around building up a sufficient Hispanic base that they could count on as the country gets more diverse. But the hostility of the far right in the GOP to immigration reform and the overt racism has driven down Hispanic support for the GOP down to levels similar to Black support. And given the numerous laws rolling back women's rights and the right to choose, women may be the next demographic to desert the GOP in droves and follow the Blacks and the Hispanics.
The concern oozes off of Gerson's keyboard:
The problem comes in viewing Goldwater as an example rather than as a warning. Conservatives sometimes describe his defeat as a necessary, preliminary step — a clarifying and purifying struggle — in the Reagan revolution. In fact, it was an electoral catastrophe that awarded Lyndon Johnson a powerful legislative majority, increased the liberal ambitions of the Great Society and caused massive distrust of the GOP among poor and ethnic voters. The party has never quite recovered. Ronald Reagan was, in part, elected president by undoing Goldwater’s impression of radicalism. And all of Reagan’s domestic achievements involved cleaning up just a small portion of the excesses that Goldwater’s epic loss enabled.
The Republican Party needs internal debate and populist energy. But it is not helped by nostalgia for a disaster.
This nostalgia for disaster continued in 2008, when John McCain made the impulsive decision to pick Sarah Palin for his VP candidate. Palin initially energized the party, but turned out to be a disaster. While many hard-right voters turned out to vote for Palin (and not John McCain), there were many more who didn't vote or voted for Obama because Palin was on the ticket. One undecided voter ranted about how Obama was allegedly a Muslim and a Communist -- but was still undecided because of her fear that Palin might become President. And Mitt Romney fumbled away a chance to beat Obama during a bad economy with his polarizing "47%" remark and his propensity for making enemies, as evidenced by the fact that he was secretly miked up.
Now, certain Republican donors and heavy hitters are so disenchanted with the current lineup, most of whom trail Hillary Clinton by double digits, that they are taking a look at New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez. But while she was able to win in a Blue state and she was able to get things done with Democratic support, she has some of the same negative attributes that helped tank Sarah Palin. If that's not nostalgia for disaster, then I want to know what is.