Last Thursday, at FDL, David Dayen posted a diary, "Murkowski Would Lose Leadership Spot if She Runs Third Party". He began with a Fox News report that Lisa Murkowski would mount an independent campaign for her Senate seat, much like Joe Lieberman in 2006. Then he wrote:
What's notable here is not necessarily whether or not Murkowski runs; it's the ferocity with which the Republicans have already struck back at a member of the leadership team in the Senate. Not only have they openly expressed their opposition to Murkowski running (even though polls show it would make McAdams less likely to win, not more), not only have the top PACs already started donating to Joe Miller, but Roll Call reports that Murkowski would have to give up her leadership position if she persists:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will likely be forced out of her party leadership position should she decide to launch a write-in or third-party candidacy, a Senate Republican said Wednesday [...]
Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other GOP leaders have not yet formally discussed what to do if Murkowski does run, the Senate Republican said there is likely no scenario in which she would be allowed to remain Republican Conference vice chairwoman.
According to this source, Murkowski could simply resign her position, or McConnell and other leaders could press her to resign. The conference could also formally vote to strip Murkowski of her leadership mantle.
All the sources are anonymous, which is a bit cowardly, but none of them equivocated whatsoever. "She's an adult. She lost the race," said one senior GOP aide.
David goes on to note that if Murkowski does run and wins, she'd probably be welcomed back into the fold, but for now, the GOP response is dramatically at odds with Dems' response to Lieberman in 2006:
Not only did no member of the Democratic leadership even think about stripping Joe Lieberman of his seniority when he lost his primary, but several Senators openly supported his third-party run. And Ned Lamont's support from the party and the Senate leadership was tepid at best.
But I think David's conclusion--though close--doesn't quite hit the bullseye:
It's the old story. National Republicans are either afraid of their base or a part of it, and either way they openly align with it; National Democrats are contemptuous of theirs.
It's true, of course, but it's not the deepest truth.
First off, the GOP leadership has been fighting its Tea Party base in election after election this year. While I agree 100% in general with the above characterization, I think this year it's more accurate to say that the GOP believes in tribal unity. They will fight their base (or even contemptuously ignore it) when they feel they can or must. But once the battle's done, they will support whoever is their candidate.
The only exception I can think of to this rule is David Duke, but only because his still white-hot KKK-based racism made it imperative to distance themselves, in order to keep their plausible deniability about their own use of such similar, though more subtle, strategies. So Duke stands as the GOP exception that proves [tests the limits of] the rule.
The tribal group cohesion factor is utterly central to conservatism, and its rise in taking over the GOP. Ronald Reagan famously promoted what he touted as "The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican," a formulation that helped him enormously in his rise to power, but that conservative Republicans never felt bound by when it came to attacking "RINOs". Theoretically, at least, libertarians and social conservatives as polar opposites of each other, united only by their shared hatred of liberals. But they cohere based on that shared hatred, and a shared identity based on a common enemy. They are a tribe, even though their internal differences render them philosophically incoherent. Finally, after the 2003 publication of the meta-analysis "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition", the authors were subject to a political attack that even threatened to cut off funding to a wide range of research. In response, the authors wrote an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, "Political Opinion, Not Pathology" that successfully quenched the fires. It said, in part:
It's wrong to conclude that our results provide only bad news for conservatives. True, we find some support for the traditional "rigidity-of-the-right" hypothesis, but it is also true that liberals could be characterized on the basis of our overall profile as relatively disorganized, indecisive and perhaps overly drawn to ambiguity -- all of which may be liabilities in mass politics and other public and professional domains.
Of course, as I said before, I agree with the formulation about how the two parties relate quite differently to their bases. But I think the Murkowski example--including strong party support before her primary defeat--conforms much more completely to the tribalism model of conservatism as a comprehensive explanation.
STATE BLOGS
Powered by: SoapBlox