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THE GRAND OLD PARTY is in a grand old mess. With the defeat of John McCain in November, the Republican Party has been thrown into a tumultuous identity crisis. The Republican Party is faced with a choice: stay mired in uncertainty about their role in society or unify under some rallying banner to once again challenge the solidarity of the Democrats. That rallying banner will be defined by those who actually comprise the party and after 2008, that make-up may be shifting.
As a New Hampshirite and a white male attending a private Christian liberal arts college, I should have loved John McCain. And I did, voting for him on January 8th to help him win the New Hampshire primary and rise from the ashes of a crumbling campaign. But McCain started to take on a distinctly different tone after the Republican convention. As PBS’ Frontline put it “Mr. Outsider was trying to become Mr. Insider.” That shift rankled me; the reason why I voted for McCain in the primaries was precisely that he was an outsider, that he often spoke out against party bureaucracy, that he wasn’t an establishment candidate.
The self-described “foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution” actually tended to act more akin to Theodore Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Progressivism. Like Teddy Roosevelt, McCain had been a reforming thorn in the side of his own party. He was often co-sponsoring unpopular legislation with conservatives and heard publicly speaking out against Republican corruption or White House mismanagement. His blend of progressive, reform-minded, genuinely compassionate conservatism made perfect sense in light of Roosevelt’s legacy. Despite a July New York Times article detailing Theodore Roosevelt as McCain’s conservative model, the electorate as a whole never seemed to grasp this key model behind McCain’s story, and his own campaign never capitalized on that revealing rationale behind McCain’s brand of conservatism. What did get highlighted was the fact of—not the reasons for—McCain’s gadfly role in the GOP. And this is, ironically, what catapulted him onto the national stage and through his first two primary victories. The nation, as a whole, seemed sick of partisanship and especially of Bush. They were looking for change, nationally and even in the Republican Party. So outsider McCain won the spot for the inside position.
But by the waning days of summer, McCain found himself in trouble. He had gotten his candidacy by being a Maverick, now he was trying to adapt his message to invigorate the party base and keep the moderates. It wasn’t working. Competing against a well funded and highly moving candidate, McCain was struggling. And so McCain, along with his seemingly incoherent campaign, was left to resort to tactics that were, or at least were painted as, volatile and capricious. Advertisements run by the Obama campaign entitled “Erratic” and “Robocalls” began to attack the McCain campaign for reversals and diversionary schemes. As McCain the Candidate seemed to be slipping further and further from McCain the Maverick, these attack ads stuck in our minds and laid the groundwork for a migration of independents, moderates, and compassionate conservatives to the Obama ticket.
And so we faced the fractured McCain persona on November 4th. I was left with a black felt-tip pen, mulling my options in my local high school gym voting booth for a long time. Was I really going to cast a vote against my primary favorite? But as a Christian, a moderate, and someone who aligns more with compassionate conservatism (as a political philosophy not as an election ploy crafted by Karl Rove), could I really vote for someone willing enough to pander to party fundamentalists that he appointed Sarah Palin as his Vice President? In the end the McCain I knew, the McCain New Hampshire knew, the Maverick, wasn’t really on the ballot. A lot of people came to that realization, maybe subconsciously, maybe gladly. I was a bit more saddened.
As I watched election night coverage and McCain giving his concession speech, I was struck by how liberated he seemed talking to that Arizona crowd. It mades sense, for in losing the campaign and ending his candidacy McCain was really freeing himself from the constraints that mavericks don’t live with easily. I sat for a while and wondered where this will go and what the Republicans are going to do next. Will Sarah Palin really become the face of the party, bringing fundamental conservatism and Reagan back? Or will the Republicans realize that their “base” was never really the far right, but the compassionate conservatives, the independent-minded moderates, the Rooseveltian progressives, the voters that gave Bush the presidency in 2000 and McCain the nomination in 2008? Faced with an energized and rejuvenated Democratic Party, The Grand Old Party better figure out soon what direction they are taking at this crossroads if they want to have a “Grand” 2012.
Jon-Daniel Lavallee
