Rick Perlstein: Beyond the Palin

[Wetzelbill]

Beyond the Palin
Why the GOP is falling out of love with gun-toting, churchgoing, working-class whites.

The conservative opinion elite is divided—irreconcilably so—about Sarah Palin's decision to quit the Alaska governorship. One faction says good riddance: The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer had already judged her unfit for national office 24 hours before her announcement, and The New York Times's Ross Douthat now refers to her "brief sojourn on the national stage" in the past tense. On the other side, the Post's William Kristol called Palin's quitting a "high-risk move" designed to catapult her to greater public prominence. Taking the longer view, though, the clash is symptomatic of the deepest strategic debate in Republican circles since the disciples of the Reagan revolution captured Congress in 1994.

For decades it has remained a Republican article of faith: white, lower-middle-class, "heartland" masses, fundamentally socially conservative, were an inexhaustible electoral resource. So much so that Bill Clinton made re-earning their trust—he called them the Americans who "worked hard and played by the rules"—the central challenge in rebuilding Democratic fortunes in the 1990s. And in 2008 the somewhat aristocratic John McCain seemed to regard bringing these folks back into the Republican fold so imperative that he was moved to make the election's most exciting strategic move: drafting churchgoing, gun-toting unknown Sarah Palin onto the GOP ticket.

But beneath the surface, some Republicans have been chafing at the ideological wages of right-wing populism. In intel-lectual circles, writers like David Brooks and Richard Brookhiser have argued for a conservatism inspired by Alexander Hamilton, the least democratic of the Founding Fathers, over one spiritually rooted in Thomas Jefferson, the most democratic. After Barack Obama's victory, you heard thinkers like author and federal judge Richard Posner lamenting on his blog that "the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/206098

[BurtWorm]

1. Tres interessant...

:thumbsup:

[Wetzelbill]

2. this article set O'Reilly off the other night

So I figured it must be a good read. :)

[Cha]

10. 'Cause he likes to think he's one of

them "gun-toting, churchgoing, working-class whites"?

[gratuitous]

3. "Conservative Intellectuals"

Heh. Blrmpphhhs. Chuckle. Bwahahahahahaha! :rofl:

I know an old-style phone booth they could meet in.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

4. William Kristol seems to still have the hots for her.

[slackmaster]

5. K&U - Down to the curb with all Palin threads

:nuke:

[Wetzelbill]

6. you just suck

Actually this isn't a Palin thread, it's more about the GOP as a whole than Palin. Rick Perlstein is a historian on the Conservative movement, so he's giving his analysis on where the party is going.

[BurtWorm]

7. I agree with Wetzelbill.

This is a view of the mess the GOP is in. Kind of an important read, considering the author, who is a brilliant historian of American politics and the right-wing of it particularly.

Maybe you should have read the article first, huh?

[slackmaster]

12. I find the word "Palin" so sickening I can't bring myself to read it

I really don't care about her or anything about her.

[BurtWorm]

13. As I say, this article is not so much about her as about what her VP nomination unleashed

among the movers and shakers in the party. It's about the huge mess the GOP has found itself in catering to the "wrong class of people" to build a future on. It's a very interesting piece.

[mitchum]

8. "Conservative intellectuals"...like Gingrich and Kristol?

HAHAHA

[Wetzelbill]

9. now don't make fun

I am sure they all get a ribbon for participation and all.

[BurtWorm]

11. kick

[Wetzelbill]

14. shameless kick