Looking at some of the exit polling from the South Carolina and Florida primaries, I’ve noticed that John McCain is winning the few GOP moderates and liberals still left (like me) as well as pro-choicers and the like. It seems that the Senator from Arizona has been able to make the long-forgotten moderate wing of the party a factor in his path to the GOP nomination leaving the conservative wing to either follow or get out of the way.
In Friday’s Washington Post, EJ Dionne spells it out:
If John McCain secures the Republican presidential nomination, his victory would signal a revolution in American politics — a divorce, after a 28-year marriage, between the Republican and conservative establishments.
McCain would be the first Republican nominee since Gerald Ford in 1976 to win despite opposition from organized conservatism, and also the first whose base in Republican primaries rested on the party’s center and its dwindling left. McCain is winning despite conservatives, not because of them.
Dionne continues to talk about that fact that McCain is making the conservative establishment crazy. Many consider him not part of the conservative movement. And in a sense, they are correct. Even though McCain’s voting record is conservative, his conservatism is far different than the type practiced by Rush Limbaugh and Mitt Romney (at least since the latter started running for President). That conservative-movement conservatism has been the type that has been in power in the GOP for nearly three decades. It’s a conservatism that is anti-government and heavy on “family values.”
McCain’s conservatism is one that is more philosophical than it is movement. It’s one that has a healthy suspicion of government, but also sees it as a force for good when used in moderation. It believes in traditions and not traditionalism. It’s the conservatism of Teddy Roosevelt, another Republican that drove conservatives crazy.
Because the conservative movement is fractured, Dionne believes McCain has been able to take the lead. I also think he has been able to create a new coalition where the hard-right doesn’t have the lead position. Moderates have someone that they can vote for with enthusiasm, even if they don’t share all of his views.
What will be interesting is what happens after November. If McCain wins, we could be seeing a new GOP. But even if he loses, I don’t think things in the GOP will be the same. The voters seem to be going against the wishes of the conservative establishment and that genie might be hard to put back in the bottle.
Could we be seeing a new coalition in the GOP? Time will tell.