The wingnuts are all right.
As everyone reading this knows by now, The Hammer has been forced to step down (at least temporarily) because his ethics problems have officially mutated into criminal ethics problems. The modern Republicans really are like bad parodies of themselves.
Anyway, apparently while I was kayaking and then reading about the history of the Old Age Security/ Guaranteed Income Supplement (Canadian retiree anti-poverty programs I'm trying to numerically simulate, blah blah blah), the GOP Congressional delegation has been arguing over who becomes the temporary leader in Delay's absence, House whip Roy Blunt (the third in line behind Hastert) or Rules Committee Chairman, David Dreier.
Word is, Delay wanted Drier because he's less ambitious. Most of the GOP caucus was on board with the plan because, unlike most Republicans including Delay and Blunt, Dreier is good on TV (that's what they say; I've never seen him). But Dreier hails from California, is modestly in favour of stem cell research, and is an opponent of the constitutional ban on gay marriage.
According to John Dickerson, writing in Slate, and backed up in a graf early in the Post article linked above,the rest was history:
But the best-laid plans fell clattering apart. Though Dreier's pick had been wired last night by House leadership, and was agreed to by members this morning, by the end of the day he was out, replaced by Blunt. It was a quick and bloody business.
Social conservatives who dislike Dreier's position in favor of stem-cell research started calling House leaders and members to lobby against him. "We do not find David Dreier representative of the values of conservatives," said Jessica Echard, executive director of the pro-family group the Eagle Forum, which contacted members of the Republican caucus. The House "Values Action Team," a group of GOP members tasked with pushing pro-life/pro-family issues within the caucus, blasted an e-mail to their colleagues alerting them that Dreier was to be tapped as a replacement and underlining his voting record supporting stem-cell research and against the marriage protection amendment.
I guess it's a relatively minor thing and Dickerson speculates that maybe Blunt was behind the anti-Dreier flash campaign. But I still think it's heartening. Lately I've been growing increasingly concerned that the Repubs are going to nominate John McCain, whose been sucking up to rightwing bloggers lately and laying the groundwork for 2008, as their next presidential candidate. A recent poll finding that GOP primary voters are seemingly undeterred by Rudy Guiliani's divorces and pro-choice stance in supporting him as the 2008 frontrunner, made me more concerned; if the rightwing base can stomach Guiliani, surely they can stomach the Goldwater conservative McCain. I think we can beat Huckabee with the right candidate. I think we can beat Allen or Frist with just about any candidate. But I just don't know who the Democrats have who can beat McCain (or Guiliani, but he's really too liberal for the Repubs) -- not Edwards, not Kerry, not HRC, not Biden, not Bayh, not Feingold, not Richardson. Maybe Clark if he runs. But unlikely.
But maybe I don't have to worry. Even with Falwell at least partially disgraced, if the Eagle-Forum/"values" crowd* can make such quick work of Dreier even against Delay and what passes for the "mainstream" Republican leadership, maybe all the sucking up to Powerline in the world isn't going to help McCain win the GOP primary. Maybe, even if the GOP can outride their corruption with chutzpah in the face of a desensitized electorate (and I wouldn't put it past them, though I think liberals have the advantage going into 2006), they won't be able to escape the vise-grip of the wingnut lobby. And that will be a problem, because neither "compassionate conservatism" nor "steady leadership in times of change" is likely to work next time. The GOP needs an at least implicitly anti-Bush "reformer" in 2008, and the most viable way to "reform" is away from the statist (crony big-government, Bible-thumping wingnut) right and back toward either the libertarian (arrogant, upwardly mobile white man) or traditional-conservative (Kempian, nominally-pro-progess) versions. With any luck, Phyllis Schlafly, with the expected help from Grover Norquist, really will keep that from happening.
*Side note: to understand just how electorally out-of-touch the Eagle Forum is these days, just check out this hilarious Phyllis Schlafly article from two summers ago on "man of the people" Alan Keyes vs. Barack Obama. I really find it hard to interpret this column as anything other than a testiment to Schlafly's absolute certainty about Keyes' impending landslide in the Illinois Senate race.
Anyway, apparently while I was kayaking and then reading about the history of the Old Age Security/ Guaranteed Income Supplement (Canadian retiree anti-poverty programs I'm trying to numerically simulate, blah blah blah), the GOP Congressional delegation has been arguing over who becomes the temporary leader in Delay's absence, House whip Roy Blunt (the third in line behind Hastert) or Rules Committee Chairman, David Dreier.
Word is, Delay wanted Drier because he's less ambitious. Most of the GOP caucus was on board with the plan because, unlike most Republicans including Delay and Blunt, Dreier is good on TV (that's what they say; I've never seen him). But Dreier hails from California, is modestly in favour of stem cell research, and is an opponent of the constitutional ban on gay marriage.
According to John Dickerson, writing in Slate, and backed up in a graf early in the Post article linked above,the rest was history:
But the best-laid plans fell clattering apart. Though Dreier's pick had been wired last night by House leadership, and was agreed to by members this morning, by the end of the day he was out, replaced by Blunt. It was a quick and bloody business.
Social conservatives who dislike Dreier's position in favor of stem-cell research started calling House leaders and members to lobby against him. "We do not find David Dreier representative of the values of conservatives," said Jessica Echard, executive director of the pro-family group the Eagle Forum, which contacted members of the Republican caucus. The House "Values Action Team," a group of GOP members tasked with pushing pro-life/pro-family issues within the caucus, blasted an e-mail to their colleagues alerting them that Dreier was to be tapped as a replacement and underlining his voting record supporting stem-cell research and against the marriage protection amendment.
I guess it's a relatively minor thing and Dickerson speculates that maybe Blunt was behind the anti-Dreier flash campaign. But I still think it's heartening. Lately I've been growing increasingly concerned that the Repubs are going to nominate John McCain, whose been sucking up to rightwing bloggers lately and laying the groundwork for 2008, as their next presidential candidate. A recent poll finding that GOP primary voters are seemingly undeterred by Rudy Guiliani's divorces and pro-choice stance in supporting him as the 2008 frontrunner, made me more concerned; if the rightwing base can stomach Guiliani, surely they can stomach the Goldwater conservative McCain. I think we can beat Huckabee with the right candidate. I think we can beat Allen or Frist with just about any candidate. But I just don't know who the Democrats have who can beat McCain (or Guiliani, but he's really too liberal for the Repubs) -- not Edwards, not Kerry, not HRC, not Biden, not Bayh, not Feingold, not Richardson. Maybe Clark if he runs. But unlikely.
But maybe I don't have to worry. Even with Falwell at least partially disgraced, if the Eagle-Forum/"values" crowd* can make such quick work of Dreier even against Delay and what passes for the "mainstream" Republican leadership, maybe all the sucking up to Powerline in the world isn't going to help McCain win the GOP primary. Maybe, even if the GOP can outride their corruption with chutzpah in the face of a desensitized electorate (and I wouldn't put it past them, though I think liberals have the advantage going into 2006), they won't be able to escape the vise-grip of the wingnut lobby. And that will be a problem, because neither "compassionate conservatism" nor "steady leadership in times of change" is likely to work next time. The GOP needs an at least implicitly anti-Bush "reformer" in 2008, and the most viable way to "reform" is away from the statist (crony big-government, Bible-thumping wingnut) right and back toward either the libertarian (arrogant, upwardly mobile white man) or traditional-conservative (Kempian, nominally-pro-progess) versions. With any luck, Phyllis Schlafly, with the expected help from Grover Norquist, really will keep that from happening.
*Side note: to understand just how electorally out-of-touch the Eagle Forum is these days, just check out this hilarious Phyllis Schlafly article from two summers ago on "man of the people" Alan Keyes vs. Barack Obama. I really find it hard to interpret this column as anything other than a testiment to Schlafly's absolute certainty about Keyes' impending landslide in the Illinois Senate race.
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