Nixon’s Still Swinging, Bay-bee

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, peep this good theorizing from one fabiorojas at orgtheory.net

Healthy blurb:

In other words, the narrative about Goldwater as the guiding light of the post-war GOP is wrong. Nixon, and his allies, have driven the agenda since the late 1940s. Other Republicans (Eisenhower, Goldwater, Reagan) represented factions who, at most, were allowed a seat at the table created by Nixon…

…How does play out in policy? First, cultural conservatism and market economics are occasional pay-offs to coalition members and talking points for the media, not core agenda items. [C.S.'s emphasis] These issues will be quickly sacrificed to win general election contests, though they might still play a big part inside the party (e.g., GOP politicians bow to pro-lifers in the primaries, but run away from the issue in the generals).

Nailed it. I don’t think it’s based on a conspiracy, this continued influence of R. Milhouse, but rather a legacy. After all, Nixon might have been the most savvy politician of the 20th century– if winning is important, you could do worse than looking at him*.

Politicians always play this way. The issue is that the constituents need to see it. The Silent Majority and The Religious Right were both used by GOP officials to gain power. Can they say that the GOP has delivered anything?

Lookit: New Hampshire just signed into law gay marriage. Sean Penn has hung out with a Venezuelan communist leader and continues to win awards, MTV has over MTV’ed itself and spawned 80 different channels of the same stuff. Our president has the middle name Hussein. Does any part of that sound like Ward Cleaver or Pat Robertson’s America? Yet those are the alleged constituents of the party that fought against all these things.

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*I think President Obama’s campaign had some of the same Nixonian strategies as successful GOP races. He managed to divide-and-pick-off his opponents’ supporters, he talked a great game to his bases but doesn’t plan on delivering, and presented a bunch of false choices. Tricky Dick sends his approval from the Rear Molars of The Gnawing Jaws Of Satan.