Even before Osama bin Laden got whacked, some smart people declared that 2012 election would be a crashing bore because Barack Obama is likely to coast to re-election. I don’t think it’s so obvious. But even if we do see a dreary, 1996-style general election, the Republican primary promises to be fascinating. That’s not just because the spectacle of, say, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich attacking one another in a debate is a political junkie’s dream. But also because the GOP will spend the next year or so resolving an ongoing identity crisis. A main feature of that crisis is the tension between the party’s grass roots populist Tea Party base, and its backbone of corporate donors and party elites. Three recent stories illustrate the point:
The first is the debt limit. John Boehner is trying to balance the demands of musket-toting Tea Party activists and House conservatives who oppose a federal borrowing hike (at least one without negotiations to include major budget cuts) with the interests of Wall Street bankers, who insist that the aforementioned Republicans are like children waving around sparklers in a hay barn–the barn, of course, being the U.S. economy.
Another is President Obama’s renewed immigration reform push. Congress probably won’t take any real action on this front before 2013–not least because immigration remains an utterly explosive issue on the populist right. In my recent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire to check out presidential candidates, I’ve heard voters raise the issue at every candidate event. (At one, an Iowan proposed to Tim Pawlenty that Mexicans spotted crossing the border should be shot.) Again, business interests see things differently: Corporate America likes the cheap labor that immigrants supply in manual labor jobs, and doesn’t like a system that subjects them to federal workplace raids.
Finally, social issues: Social conservatives are fired up for epic battles over gay rights, abortion and more. But the party’s business and Washington elites care far more about taxes, spending and the economy (and understand that the general public does, too). A vivid example of this disconnect came last month, when the law firm which House Republicans retained to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court reversed course and withdrew from the case. Although some have noted that factors beyond the merits of the case may have affected the decision, it seems likely that the social stigma of fighting gay marriage was too great for a big city white-shoe law firm, even if its home city is Atlanta.
Naturally, the Democratic coalition has its own fractures–between labor and business, doves and interventionists, pragmatists and idealists, and so on. But the GOP’s problems are worse, in part because the conservative base is in such a historic uproar. Even if you’re not excited by the current crop of Republican contenders, then, seeing how the party resolves its internal differences–or not–offers plenty of reason to look forward to the 2012 primaries.