Daily Progress: Virginia Republicans Need To Choose To Govern Again

The Charlottesville Daily Progress opines on what ails the GOP — and it’s worth noting in one regard:

There is an inherent danger for Republicans in assuming a coattail effect in all this, the opposite of the one that swept McDonnell and Cuccinelli to victory in 2009, along with incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. What happened last month and culminated with Obenshain’s admission of defeat this week was about more than the clinging residue of scandal.

…and this is true.  While the few remaining defenders of McDonnell’s legacy will point to a 62% approval rating, what they don’t point towards all that vociferously is the mere 17% of Virginians who feel strongly about that support.  Most Virginians are lukewarm to tepid in their support for McDonnell, ostensibly because what’s coming in the form of Governor-elect McAuliffe will be four years of the legal form of cronyism, with few missed opportunities for the left.

Republicans long have built platforms partly on claims to piety, but those planks are rotting. Ethical lapses like those of McDonnell and, to a lesser extent, Cuccinelli put the lie to the concept of moral superiority based simply on the toting of conservative banners. Village scolds seldom are suffered, let alone when scandal stains their public lives.

Reason #1 why we lost the 2013 elections, right here.  We saved McDonnell… and scuttled the GOP.

At one time, Republicans based their appeal largely on the idea of responsibility in governance. Separated from side shows that sometimes have politicians whose own houses are in disarray telling constituents how to conduct their private lives, the concept of sound fiscal management and care with the public’s money still carries allure.

To regain their footing, Republicans must return to that message, but they also must live it. It does not suffice to tout responsibility’s virtues while brandishing a broken ethical compass. Republicans’ cheap talk has turned shrill. And the electorate has responded. The party needs to listen and respond in kind, or else brace for similar responses in elections to come.

Here’s our problem at the moment, and it is twofold: (1) not only have we demonstrated to Virginians that we cannot be trusted with the levers of power, (2) we cannot even sort out our own party.

Which is why appeals from certain quarters to reforge the conservative movement have their appeal.  The outrage from the Duck Dynasty fiasco has evangelicals reconsidering their strength — 40% of evangelical voters stayed home.  Catholic voters remain ostensibly split.  Hispanic voters aren’t liberals much less progressives… but feel as if the GOP isn’t exactly throwing their arms open to the Latino community (much less other minorities).

…and then there’s the libertarians and liberty movement, headed up nationally by Senator Rand Paul:

Not exactly the typical profile of a Republican standard-bearer. But that appears to be precisely Paul’s gambit for a possible presidential bid in 2016: that he can remake the party’s traditional coalition, engaging younger and minority voters without alienating the older, whiter and more conservative demographics that typically decide the Republican nomination.

It’s a narrow tightrope for Paul to walk. Every break with his party on national security and foreign policy — and there have been several — threatens to make it that much harder for him to shed the isolationist tag in the eyes of the Republican establishment. Every entreaty to libertarian-leaning college students who adored his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, could complicate the task of creating some space from an element of the GOP regarded in some quarters as radical, even kooky.

Liberty movement boosters and libertarians have two problems.   First, pro-lifers, evangelicals, and Catholics strongly outnumber libertarians.  No new fusionism can exist without incorporating “middle America” as it were.  Second, national security conservatives have been a major plank of the conservative movement since the 1950s and Eisenhower.  It was Reagan that welded the Goldwater liberty movement together with the national security establishment to defeat Soviet communism.

This grinds down to a very concerning third issue.  While libertarians and liberty-minded voters may consist of as much as 20% of the electorate, social conservatives are somewhere close to 40% of the movement — pro-lifers being the hardest of the hardcore when it comes to single issue voters.

Which brings us full circle to the Daily Progress editorial page.  This is no longer a question as to whether or not the conservative movement is willing to reforge itself with a new (and temporary) alliance of like interests.  Conservatives have to be willing to govern.  Not with platitudes, but with policy that will have consequences.  Principles are great… but much like tools, they tend to get dirty and dinged when you put them to use.  This is why conservatives pragmatists such as Reagan, Gingrich, Scarborough, and others have such great appeal, because they are indeed willing to govern and get those conservative principles dirty.

…but is the liberty movement savvy enough to allow this?  Are pro-lifers content to move the ball down the field rather than go “all or nothing”?  Moreover, are conservatives willing to regain the trust of Virginians by committing to governance rather than radically transforming the commonwealth in one shot?

There’s room for both camps, establishment and conservatives.  Whether a new fusionism is the key beyond a rebranding, I would seriously question if it involves jettisoning any portion of the conservative four-legged table (fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, national security, Tea Party).

Either way, the sooner one camp or the other — whether it’s the establishment qua Rovians, the pragmatists, the moderates, or the liberty movement — discovers the answer?  The sooner Virginia Republicans will choose to lead a red state made blue only through our own laziness… and the corruption of a few.