It is a functioning paradox: Though the Republican Party has been the dominant force in American politics the past eight years, its power comes from an odd mix of factions that should make it impossible to unite.
At its heart, the Grand Old Party is a coalition of strong-willed groups that contradict one another in fundamental ways, and its presumptive nominee, John McCain, can’t realistically hope to please them all.
A strong military is a must within the party, but the best way to deploy it remains contested. Stances on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage are overwhelmingly solid, but not universal.
The groups don’t even agree on that keystone Republican value: limiting government and its taxes.
And yet a recent Pew poll showed that 88 percent of the Republican base that had supported other GOP candidates would vote for McCain come November, compared with only 72 percent of such Democratic-base support for Barack Obama.
What unites the factions?
They all fear liberals, and come November, the conservative factions could rally behind McCain despite themselves.
“What he’s got going for him is that his opponent is Obama,” said Ken Bickers, chairman of the University of Colorado’s department of political science.
“Running against the most liberal member of Congress is a dream come true for a Republican candidate,” Bickers said, in light of Obama’s rating by the National Journal as “the most liberal senator in 2007.”
“McCain has benefited and continues to benefit by not being his opponents,” Bickers said.
The GOP consists of four distinct groups, which also have internal divisions, experts say. It’s also not uncommon for a Republican to identify with more than one group.
To sum up the factions, The Denver Post consulted with political scientists, strategists and articles on political theory. Chief among those interviewed were Bickers; Susan Sterett, chairwoman of the political science department at the University of Denver; and Michael Dimock, associate director of research at the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Economic conservatives and social conservatives far and away make up the two biggest blocs. Libertarian-minded conservatives and neoconservatives collect in much smaller numbers but form an intellectual elite that exercises great influence on party philosophy.
The fiscal conservatives
Economic conservatives constitute the historic foundation of the party. Above all other considerations, the group focuses on limited government, limited regulation and limited taxes.
Though the group sometimes shares values with social conservatives on such issues as gay marriage and abortion, its members — which include gays and abortion-rights supporters — aren’t interested in translating those values into legislative language.
But its adherents are so adamant about limited government spending, Bickers said, that they “punished” their own in 2006’s Democratic congressional gains by voting against Republicans they considered too wasteful in adding the so-called earmark provisions to legislation that critics call pork-barrel spending.
“That’s very good for McCain,” Bickers said, because the Arizona senator has made attacking pork a hallmark of his career.
That position also could help him appeal to the more libertarian-minded members of the party, though that appeal could be squelched by other libertarian views.
The faith-based base
Social conservatives are animated by cultural issues informed by unbending religious beliefs. They hold a melange of economic ideas. Some consider themselves in step with economic conservatives. Others approve of expanding government spending if the programs support schools, make health care more affordable, fight poverty or illegal drugs, support the environment or fund anti-abortion education.
The social conservatives voted against McCain in large numbers during the primary in favor of the former Baptist preacher and governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. One of their leaders, James Dobson of the Colorado Springs evangelical Christian ministry Focus on the Family, told the faithful he would not vote for McCain, though Dobson has softened that position.
A problem for McCain is that he supports embryonic stem-cell research, taboo for social conservatives. But advances in research now allow for the use of ordinary skin cells in the place of embryonic cells. Some Republican operatives say that could give McCain a pass.
“The issues of gay marriage and abortion have moved to the judiciary. I think that’s why you’re seeing the ability to support McCain,” said Dick Wadhams, the chairman of Colorado’s Republican Party and campaign manager for former Rep. Bob Schaffer’s bid for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.
“The cultural conservatives see that electing him gives a good shot of adding (U.S. Supreme Court) justices like . . . Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia,” Wadhams said. Social conservatives approve of those justices because of their rulings in abortion-related appeals.
The libertarians
The Libertarian Party has about 16,000 dues-paying members and a presidential candidate in Bob Barr, above, the former Republican congressman from Georgia. The party’s membership is loath to support McCain, says its spokesman, Andrew Davis.
Libertarians want America’s military protecting the homeland, not continuing interventionist actions in Iraq and elsewhere, Davis said. They consider McCain’s government programs like the cap-and-trade of greenhouse gases too expensive.
“He offers no plan to cut government spending,” Davis said.
But within the GOP, there exists a small group of libertarian-minded voters who do support the party’s mainstream candidates and whose economic views inform the party.
Like the economic conservatives, those libertarians most desire a small government that provides only basic services and believe that the marketplace should take care of regulating itself. Libertarians also advocate that international trade be free and open.
The neoconservatives
Finally, the neoconservatives, or neocons for short, constitute the architects of the Iraq invasion who famously created the argument that installing a democratic government in Iraq would transform the Middle East.
The neocons got their start during the Cold War and tended to be former socialists who found communist rule distasteful.
The neocons believe that a strong interventionist and pro-democracy effort abroad is the best way to strengthen the homeland. Because this group is less concerned about shrinking government and more focused on the international agenda, the group is more supportive of McCain.
And yet, Bickers said, McCain has been careful during his support of the Iraq war to avoid the typical neocon justifications, keeping his support of the military’s presence there limited to an argument that it is important to national security.
So at the end of the day, McCain lines up only with portions of each group.
“I don’t know that any of (the factions) would claim victory on having gotten their guy in, and I think that’s an interesting situation,” said the Pew’s Dimock. “With Democrats, the more liberal-minded think that they’ve won,” Dimock said. “I don’t know that any side of the Republicans . . . was ascendent.”
And therein lies the key to McCain’s apparent success in unifying the party to the extent that he has done so, the experts conclude. They may not agree on their candidate, but they do agree in their disdain for his opponent.
“It’s a really good question,” said DU’s Sterett. “The idea of a liberal and that word, ‘liberal,’ has become something that everyone just flees from in the United States.”
Sterett says the ruination of the word conflicts with its historic definition. Classic liberalism supported individual rights and free thinking and limited government intrusion. Classic liberals rejected monarchies and were powerful players in establishing democracy as America’s founding principle.
Now the term is applied to Democrats focused on New Deal policies such as social welfare, education and health care who advocate taxes to pay for the government-run programs that most Republicans criticize as ineffective bureaucracies.
“It’s an amazing accomplishment that the conservatives have been able to pour such derision into that term,” Sterett said.
