The Culture Wars
Mitt Romney's Dilemma
By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, January 9, 2012
Richard Nixon once asserted that in order for a Republican to be elected president of the United States, it was necessary to run to the right in the GOP primary and then run to the center in the general election. But the Republican Party has changed considerably since Nixon’s presidential victories of 1968 and 1972, and many Republicans of the past—from Nixon to Barry Goldwater to Dwight D. Eisenhower—would have a difficult time surviving a GOP primary in 2012. Eisenhower, with his warnings about the military/industrial complex, would never win over the neocon ideologues who consider President Barack Obama “soft on national defense” (never mind the fact that Obama has actually been quite hawkish when it comes to foreign policy). Goldwater, who made no secret of his disdain for the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other Christian Right theocrats, would be much too libertarian for Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann supporters. And therein lies the dilemma of Mitt Romney, whose journey from the center-right to the far right reflects the realities of the modern Republican Party. Romney needs the theocrats to win the GOP primary, but they could scare away moderates in the general election.
In 2002, Romney accomplished something that can be quite difficult in Democrat-dominated Massachusetts: he ran for governor as a Republican and won. Romney didn’t run as a hard-right Republican; Massachusetts, after all, was Ted Kennedy territory, and embracing Focus on the Family is no way to convince Cambridge Democrats to cross party lines and vote GOP. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney insisted that he was “not a partisan Republican”; he was pro-choice on the abortion issue, and he promoted a health insurance reform program that later became the basis for so-called “Obamacare” (which is really “Romneycare” on a national level). Romney was running to the center in those days, but that was before he ran for president in 2008 (losing to John McCain) and again in 2011/2012. The old Romney is gone, replaced by a culture warrior who flipped-flopped on the abortion issue, rails against gay marriage and panders to the Christian Right at every opportunity. Romney knows that it’s going to be difficult to win his party’s nomination without the support of “values voters,” but he also knows that playing the family values card too much could hurt him in the general election—and despite Santorum’s success during the Iowa Caucuses, many pundits are still predicting that Romney will be the one running against Obama in November.
So assuming that Romney wins his party’s nomination (which isn’t a done deal but is still a strong possibility), he will have to follow Nixon’s advice—which will mean running back to the center after running to the right. But he will have to do a great deal of running because today’s Republican Party (which is really the modern equivalent of yesterday’s southern Dixiecrats) is not the party it was in the days of Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater. Although Goldwater was considered an arch-conservative in 1964, his views on religion and social issues would be considered “permissive” by today’s GOP evangelicals; there is very little room for social libertarians, moderates or old-school Goldwater conservatives in the theocratic Republican Party of 2012.
None of that is to say that Romney would be unelectable in the general election. This November, the #1 issue on voters’ minds will undoubtedly be the economy—and as a rule, incumbent presidents have a hard time getting reelected in bad economic times (just ask George Herbert Walker Bush, Sr.). If Romney wins the GOP nomination and goes on to win the general election in November, it won’t be because of abortion or gay marriage; it will be because of the economy. But a Romney Administration would likely do some pandering to the Christian Right nonetheless, and that would be very bad news for any Americans who don’t want to live in a theocracy.
Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in AlterNet, The L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, Skin Two, The Pasadena Weekly and a long list of other well-known publications.
