Will Repubicans ever be able to distance themselves from the nutcases in their party?

Great Debates
1

Conventional political wisdom dictates that you generally to want to alienate anyone supporting you, but I wonder if Republicans will ever distance themselves from the nutcases that support them. I’m not talking about the David Dukes that come out of the woodwork to run for office, I mean the loons who are actually accepted by the party and the candidates.

A great example is McCain. He recently accepted an endorsement from Rev. John Hagee. Mc Cain said he was “very honored” to receive the endorsement of the reverend, who has said/done some of the following things:

**- “All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them”

  • “Well Islam in general – those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”

  • "All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."

  • Called Catholicism, “the great whore”

  • He held a slave auction as a school fund raiser. **

Obviously, he is a complete asshole. Yet, McCain has not repudiated him or anything he has said. In fact, he has done the opposite. McCain held a public appearance with him. He said Hagee “supports what I stand for and believe in” (he has since backtracked a little). It seems to me that the current political calculus is that the GOP can’t win without appealing to these people and their supporters. Seeing as it is unlikely that the world will be free of these religious nuts, when will the GOP cease to actively court these people.

Now before we start, I want to make it clear that I am aware of the Dems do this too, to some extent. You will often see people appeal to questionable characters like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. However, those two (and others like them) have been marginalized and demonized to an extent that their GOP dopplegangers have not. For example, contrast the treatment of Farrakahn’s unsolicited endorsement for Obama, and McCain courtship of Hagee. To quote this Salon article:

as far as the differences between the Dems and the GOP:

Things like this go beyond philosophical differences. I think most of us on the left can disagree with conservative positions while still appreciating where they are coming from. But many of the guys the Republicans reach out to are pretty despicable by any measure. When will the GOP take a stand against people like Pat Robertson, Karl Rove, et al.? Will this always be justified as a means to an end without consideration for the underlying principles, integrity, or the people who are hurt by these actions?

2

The only way is if the Constitution Party or the Buchananite Reform Party or one of that gang got big to an extent the GOP decided their followers were a lost cause and thus shifted strategy to appeal to a new group. This would involve a reversal of the Southern Strategy (IIRC, the GOP went Religious Right when it successfully wooed Southern ex-Democrats from the DNC who were alienated by Johnson’s Civil Rights programs but weren’t crazy enough to throw in with the Dixiecrats) and it would be a gold-plated Big Deal in American politics.

3

The problem is that there are so many flavors of nutcases, they add up to a majority . . . enough to win (or steal) elections.

4

I think the same question could be asked of any group: How close to center is the lunatic fringe?

5

It’s a good thing there are no nutcases on the left! THAT would be embarrassing…to be sure…

-XT

6

I think I address that in the OP. However, I don’t see Obama pandering to the far left wackos the way McCain has to the far right wackos. Do you even see anyone advocating liberal policies like legalization of drugs, etc. They even eschew the label liberal. Do you really think both sides engage in this practice with the same frequency or intensity?

7

I agree. Hagee and others like him have reach. These televised mega churches instruct people to vote for certain candidates and the faithful followers go to the polls. It’s a shame that voters are duped and used for political gain. Fundamental evangelicals represent roughly twenty-five percent of GOP voters, but they vote. The means clearly justifies the end for Republicans; otherwise, McCain wouldn’t be pandering to a wacko-doodle like Hagee.

8

Let’s be blunt. The Republicans have a solid base of support among people who are xenophobic, homophobic, mild to outright racists and sexists, claiming to be good Christians (and ONLY Christian) all the while wrapping themselves in the American flag in an attempt to deflect any outright criticism.

Republican Party leaders like to claim their party is solely made up of fiscal and political conservatives, yet they have to deal with these large voting blocks of wild-eyed hate mongers and meet them at least half-way with their bigotry.

Look at Huckabee - he is more than happy to lead that parade - hell, he probably agrees with the vast majority of those voters. His idea of change is to lead this country back to the good old 1950’s and get rid of Roe vs Wade, build a huge Berlin Wall between Mexico and the US and perhaps build some huge closets for those fags to climb back into.

I do not claim that all Democrats are sane, and there certainly is a lunatic left wing fringe with some rather bizarre agendas. The difference is there is not a huge voting block representing this element and Democratic candidates are not obliged to go off the deep end to accommodate them.

9

I think that in the end, the Republican party will shrink to the point that it is only comprised of the nutjobs (I think we are close to arriving at that point). The problem is, in the US that is still a pretty sizeable group of people: look at the percentages of people who don’t believe in evolution, we’re not talking about a small fringe.

10

So did the characters in Caddyshack 2, though theirs was for charity. It’s hardly a major offense.

11

That depends: did they sell actual slaves? Because that would be illegal.

12

Too bad the OP didn’t prominently address this point. Oh, wait…

13

Pretty ridiculous premise IMO. It’s more likely that the religious fundamentalists in the Republican party will grow fed up with the empty promises about social change from the more centrist Republicans and form their own party. Aligning the fiscal and social conservatives who form the bulk of the Republicans to the fringe of hard-core social fundamentalists in the Evangelical community was always a marriage of convenience to win elections, nothing more, and the cracks in that marriage are definitely showing as evidenced by Huckabee and his merry band, much like Nader and his band on the other side of the aisle.

Both sides (Dem and Republican) have a hard-core fringe element which tolerates the centrists because they share ‘just enough’ policy and platforms; take away that hard-core, and either party will remain but will be somewhat reduced in power. Too bad we don’t have a parliamentary system where those marginal fringes can be represented on their own and no longer have their extremism, intolerance, and incompetence hidden by the well-meaning centrists in both parties.

14

The far left wing isn’t organized at all. They don’t have 24 hour a day broadcasting networks with a substantial following. They don’t have syndicated radio and television shows.

The left has the bankrupt Air America radio. The right has TBN and Daystar, Focus on the Family and the700 club.

15

Air America was political, and aligned pretty closely to the Democratic ideals.

The ‘right’ channels you discuss are all religious in nature. Religious people are not by default Republican, they have chosen the Republican party because it hews closest to their beliefs. When they finally realize that the RNC used them to win elections and never had a plan (or a chance) to change Government to more closely hew to the Religious Right’s vision for America, they will stop voting Republican toot sweet.

16

I think the nutjob fringe on the right is far more a part of the Republican base than the nutjobs on the left are part of the Democratic party. In order to secure his party’s nomination, McCain must court the endorsement of a man who calls the Catholic Church evil, a right wing commentator has stated that he wishes terrorists would attack San Francisco, another repeatedly compares feminists to nazis, another joked about using photos of the Clintons as target practice on the pistol range, and still Republican elected officials go on all those programs and court their audience. Another right wing commentator has written a book calling all Democrats traitors to their nation. These are not fringe elements, these are core thinkers in the conservative movement.

On the left, Obama is being criticized for not wearing a flag pin.

17

I’m pretty sure that that’s not all that Obama is being criticized for on either side. Hang out much on Democratic Underground to hear the voices of the loony left? It’s nearly as bad as any Right-wing web site I’ve seen.

And McCain doesn’t have to get those people’s support to win the nomination - he effectively done so already - but to win the general election. There are effectively 4 groups of voters in the electorate, as far as I can tell - 30% die-hard Democrat, 30% die-hard Republican, 25% Independent, and 15% evangelical / religious right. If McCain wants to win the popular election in November, he needs 2 of those groups, and a small percentage of a third, to get 51%. He won’t win the Democrats, he’s got limited pull with the Independents, so he’s courting his base and trying to be as centrist as possible to get some Independents as well. Not a bad strategy, all told.

18

Oooh, but don’t forget MoveOn.org! They said “General Betray Us”! And they’re an entire website!

19

Rush? O’Reilly? Coulter? Not religious.

So you think the religious will see things as they really are and not believe the lies told by the people they hold as authorities? Interesting. Let me know how that works out for you.

20

TDN, Daystar, Focus on the Family, and the 700 Club are certainly religious, which was where my comment came from.

And whilst Rush, O’Reilly, and Coulter may be personally religious, their messaging is political.

How long do you think they’ll keep hanging on voting Republican, hoping against hope, before they bring out their own candidate who more closely adheres to their core values? McCain is a vote against the Democrats, not a vote for a candidate they truly support. Kind of like Kerry in 2004 - he was “not Bush” light™