The chaos of the GOP clown car parade reveals a vacuum of leadership at the top of its food chain. Reince Priebus, the current chairman of the Republican National Committee seems to be in over his head in wrangling all the alley cats in this year’s primary free-for-all. The nastiness of the process is quite unlike anything in our lifetime. In previous elections, it is usually the Democrats who go at it tooth-and-nail; but even then, the tone of their verbosity is tame compared to the tenor of this year’s Republican fiasco.
One cannot help but speculate as to how it could all be so different if their former kingpin Lee Atwater was still around to pull the strings, as well as the dirty tricks. Would not the nomination process be a lot calmer, if not already decided as to whom the stand-bearer will be? Instead, we have candidates trashing each other’s wives and carping about installing militia-type groups in Muslim neighborhoods. Meantime, we have the high-priced political kingmakers like Karl Rove wringing their hands as the entire party elitist crowd is left scrambling to re-take their influence. Then, you have bridesmaids in the form of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, John Kasich and a cast of at least a dozen others, chomping at the bit for that brokered convention. They all hold on to the fantasy that the beleaguered delegates will cast their weary eyes to them during the third or fourth balloting.
Yup, ole Lee must be flipping a few somersaults in his grave as the implosion of his party, which by the way, one could say all started under his watch. Back in the 1980s, he was the chief mischief-maker, to be put it politely, of all things sleazy when it came to presidential politics. His tactics are legendary, such as the Willie Horton rape blame game that sunk Michael Dukakis’s presidential campaign. Then there was the infamous “Southern Strategy” he promoted that utilized racist language to appeal to blue-collar Reagan supporters. Nothing was too nasty or too slanderous, as long as the end result was victory for right-wing Republicans. Alas, he did not live to see the next campaign cycle through, much to Bill Clinton’s (and our) great benefit. The radical seeds that the GOP is now living with cemented under Atwater’s watch.
Unfortunately for the GOP, only the poison wrought by Rove and other Atwater disciples are all that is left. The leadership that kept everyone on the same page, working toward a united front is ineffectual. The party’s machine is trying to recoup, as shown by its plotting to deny Donald Trump the magical number of delegates he needs in Cleveland. The clumsy, excruciating debacle before us merely reveals that the current cabal is unable to keep itself from cannibalizing its own.
Any sharp-eyed political analyst saw this coming, given the rise of neo-conservatives in various state political organizations over the past 30 years. By letting in the cancer brought by down-ballot radicals at state and local levels, it has now wrought a runaway train that even the old Atwater allies are struggling to contain. It was fine for all these ignorant folks to run school boards and state legislatures, but the elites want to stay that way, without having to share power or even let these, uh-hem, low-lifes run the show. Well, the Tea Party folks and disaffected will no longer have any of it. They are demanding more than a place at the table – heck, they want be at the head of it, and dominate the seating.
Promises made were not kept for their version of real reform. For many of these self-styled new-age Republicans, that means going back to the beginning of the 20th century on many social issues and a Teddy Roosevelt-style of gung-ho foreign policy. What the Party has wrought is a radicalism without a viable engineer at the controls. Whether whatever is left of the old GOP leadership can keep it all from derailing will be the big show in Ohio come July.