The real loser, Part Three
In South Carolina, as in Iowa and New Hampshire, the real loser in the Republican primary was mainstream conservatism. That’s because, once again, candidates who take conservative positions across the board (essentially Romney and Thompson) came up well short compared to maverick candidates (McCain and Huckabee) who reject portions of the traditional conservative agenda.
The South Carolina results are particularly stunning. Even in a state that conservative, Romney and Thompson combined were only able to equal Huckabee's vote, and were unable to match McCain's (which admittedly was bolstered by the votes of independents).
Though Romney and Thompson have their flaws as candidates, the relative failure so far of across-the-board conservative candidates requires more of an explanation than that. There are basically two possibilities. First, it may be that voters who embrace a given set of conservative beliefs no longer agree with the other sets of belief that have made up the conservative coalition. For example, it may that evangelical social conservatives as a group no longer believe in tax cuts or an aggressive, proactive approach to the war on terror. Similarly, it may be that national security hawks as a group no longer agree with key social conservative positions. This would certainly explain why across-the-board conservatives are failing to gain great traction this year.
The alternative explanation is that, although a critical mass of Republicans is still conservative across the board, each faction within the coalition places a greater premium on adherence to its position than on adherence to traditional conservatism across the board. In this account, Huckabee’s supporters back him not because they agree with his Carteresque foreign policy pronouncements or like his record of raising taxes in Arkansas, but because his purity on social issues trumps any flaws on other issues. Similarly, this theory goes, McCain’s Republican supporters aren’t happy with McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy, but his heroic record on national security (and perhaps his “electability”) matters too much to let deviations from conservative orthodoxy on other matters break the deal.
Selecting between these two competing hypothesis is of major significance. If the first explanation – rejection by one part of the coalition of the views of other parts – holds water, then the Reagan coalition (to speak loosely) really is dead. But under the second explanation – that Republicans are putting a premium on their pet issues – we’re simply witnesses normal behavior for a party that’s been in power for a while. In this scenario, the coalition is still alive and capable of being patched-up.
The behavior of McCain and Huckabee tells me that the second, less ominous explanation is the better one. Huckabee has tried to establish his bona fides as a security hawk, for example, by trying to bring hardliners like Frank Gaffney into his campaign. And he has tried to establish his conservative bona fides on tax issues by distorting his Arkansas record and by proposing the “fair tax.” Similarly McCain has tried, as best he can, to distance himself from the comprehensive immigration reform legislation he sponsored. He also favors continuation of the Bush tax cuts, which he opposed when they were enacted. It's unlikely that Huckabee and McCain would be doing these things if the core supporters upon whom they rely – evangelicals and security hawks, respectively – didn’t still favor traditional conservative positions pretty much across the board.
Thus, the "Reagan coalition" may well be frayed, but it's far from dead within the Republican Party. Whether that coalition provides a winning ticket for November 2008 is a separate matter.
