One Republican after another is denouncing the direction of the party. Today Vic Gold, former press secretary to Barry Goldwater and a friend of Bush 41 and Dick Cheney, joins the club. The trend conveniently began just after the 2006 election. Many dyed-in-the-wool conservatives—including Mr. Gold—claim that pandering to the religious right precipitated the Grand Old Party’s downfall. Some claim that over-identifying with the Republican Party has tarnished Christian evangelicals.
But both groups entered into the marriage willingly—and have been happily married since 1980. Yes, it was Reagan, that poster boy of pre-lapsarian conservatism, who presided at the ceremony. Twenty-seven years later, it strikes me as disingenuous to claim that the party’s essence lies somewhere else. It’s almost like saying Republicans are really like Abraham Lincoln. Meanwhile, evangelicals have been hurt how? Their numbers continue to rise, and they have inserted the issue of “[biblical] morality” into a vast spectrum of legislative issues when, in a secular state, there is no shared morality—or at least not one that goes beyond the basics of “No killing” and “No stealing.” “Do unto others” is most definitely not part of the Republican platform (nor was it under Goldwater). The only thing that’s really changed in the last six months is that the Evangepublicans blew their cover by pushing to legislate way beyond what can plausibly pass for political problems (think attempts to make divorces harder to obtain, redundant laws and constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in 22 states, etc., etc.)
One interesting convergence between Gold’s account and Matthew Dowd’s complaint in Sunday’s New York Times is that both were at one point Democrats (Gold for about half a minute, Dowd for substantially longer) who describe falling in love with the virile optimism of a particular Republican candidate. Funny how it’s easy to be filled with confidence and optimism when you believe God exists to support your wealth and power. Maybe the cracks forming between evangelicals and Republicans will check that omnipotence a bit, but beyond that I don’t foresee any major shift in how Republicans do things or how many keys to the stateroom rest on how many church altars.
