Two articles came out this week that tackled the future of the Republican Party on the national scene. One, written by Michael Grunwald for Time, carries the current doom and gloom prognosis – the GOP will soon be nothing more than a Southern regional party in a 3-party system. The logic is pretty much what you’ve seen elsewhere since November’s blowout, but its place in a mainstream publication lends it quite a bit more credence. Republican lobbyist John Feehery provides the alternative view for CNN, looking at recent trends in pendulum politics to predict a Republican revival in the near-future, with the Dems eventually becoming the obstructive opposition party. That’s a pretty big disparity – let’s take a look and see if we can find the discrepancies.

But if you pay attention, the GOP alternative is not just a p.r. disaster. It’s a radical document, making Bush’s tax cuts permanent while adding about $3 trillion in new tax cuts skewed toward the rich. It would replace almost all the stimulus — including tax cuts for workers as well as spending on schools, infrastructure and clean energy — with a capital gains–tax holiday for investors. Oh, and it…

The Time piece chides the GOP for failing to have any good ideas during the recent elections, and so far into the 2010 election cycle. The main problem for the author seems to be the House’s version of the 2010 budget – especially its tax cuts and lack of stimulus spending. If privatizing social security and not limitlessly advancing the national deficit are “radical,” then our party really is in trouble for the future.

The article on CNN, however, forecasts brighter skies for the GOP coming from brighter individuals. Just as necessity breeds invention, so to does opportunity make it easy on talent to shine through. The party is in a bit of a hole and already we can see a different generation of leaders stepping up to fill the ideological void. House leaders like Reps. Ryan and Cantor are front and center in framing the party’s positions, while Govs. Romney and Sanford have taken up the mantle of loyal opposition. Hopefully, the willingness of these men to step into leadership will combine with some ability to actually craft a coherent and effective message to preach in these public forums (like Michael Steele, but… not).

This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence — and the death spiral continues.

The Time article also predicts that the internal debate on whether or not the party should support more moderate candidates will eventually marginalize the politicians that used to be successful. The US has been described in the past as a right-of-center nation, with a large proportion of independents in that center. If the party only runs far-right candidates and squeezes out more people like Specter, those in the center may have no option but to vote for the party closest to the middle – the Democrats.

The CNN commentary suggests that the Republican position as the de facto Libertarian party will actually help it in the future, as people disgusted with spending cast protest votes for the opposition party. Personally, I think the economy will have to continue to limp along as it is to make that happen, especially considering that no other issue gets enough coverage now for the President to be truly judged on it. But if it should, it is conceivable that anyone with an ‘R’ next to their name could be selected, moderation unnecessary. In that scenario, having someone who’s 10 for 10 or whatever on some sort of party unity test would be preferable to having taken a flier on some guy in the middle (Note: I make no statement here on whether or not the party should run moderates – another discussion, another time, etc).

Is that the most likely scenario? Does the analysis cover other likely scenarios? These questions are all valid; but, in any case, the CNN piece takes the correct approach in actually looking at historical trends to predict that the Dems will invariably screw it up and be voted out, just like everyone else who comes to power. The Time article, though it touches on the current common knowledge, relies on logic along the lines of ‘Republican ideas are dumb, so they lost this year and will lose forever.’ And people wonder why print media is a faltering field…

Do we really believe that we could go from a 2004 majority in the election, with an incredibly unpopular President, to a completely irrelevant regional party in four years? The party platform had no giant shifts and America is no different at its core, but still the math is supposedly much different now than it was then. I think you could critique the party’s insistence on some issues and point to increasing demographical challenges, like Latino and black voters, and easily see signs of trouble emerging in the future. But to say that the party is already irrelevant and representing a fringe minority is a logical jump that can not be made – the empirical evidence just does not support it.

Last 5 posts by Gideon D'Assandro

• The Reality of Racial Politics - August 17th, 2009
• Thank God Obama's President - August 3rd, 2009
• Health Care Coverup - July 23rd, 2009
• The Suppressed EPA Report’s Effect on Healthcare - July 12th, 2009
• Social Conservatism Going Forward - July 5th, 2009