Fragmentation of the conservative coalition

I predict we'll have Sarah Palin to kick around for a long, long time.

No matter what happens on Election Day, a battle for the soul of the Republican Party is well under way. McCain's defeat will hasten that conversation, but surefire losses in Congress will require the party to plot a new course regardless. Will Republicans lurch right, under the banner of Palin's social conservatism and faux-populism? Or will they try and recapture the middle, reconnecting with suburban voters and independents and Hispanic voters they've lost ever since 2000 by advocating competent government and pragmatic problem-solving?

Don't count on the latter. Reports the Politico's Jonathan Martin:


Few believe that the Republican party will respond to another brutal election by following a path of moderation, but conservatives are deeply dispirited and anxious to reassert the core values they believe have not always been followed by Bush, congressional leaders and their party's presidential nominee . Many on the right, both elites and the rank-and-file, see a rudderless party that is in dire need of new blood and old principles: small government, a robust national security and unapologetic social conservatism.

That sounds like a recipe for continued disaster, not rebirth.

On some level, I sort of regret seeing people like this [Duberstein] hop onto the Obama bandwagon. Realistically, at some point the Republicans are going to come back into power and I’d prefer that to be a less-crazy version of the GOP. That’s going to require less-crazy people, people like Duberstein, to exert some influence and have some credibility.

As party leaders digested the disappointing election results, they also began to position themselves for the January election of a new chairman of the Republican National Committee, a post that will take on special significance, given the loss of GOP power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

All the party officials who have mentioned an interest in the race are traditional conservatives -- including GOP chairmen in South Carolina and Michigan -- but party activists are looking for someone who can close the gap with Democrats in technology and fundraising and otherwise rebuild the GOP infrastructure.

The RNC election is "the most important thing happening in the next six months," said anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

Norquist is one of 20 conservative leaders who will be meeting today at the Virginia weekend home of veteran conservative activist and fundraiser L. Brent Bozell III to discuss the election results and the way forward for the conservative movement. Others expected to attend include Al Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator; direct-mail expert Richard Norman; and Leonard A. Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

The meeting is one of many formal and informal sessions scheduled for the next several months, as GOP activists begin devising a strategy for a period in the political wilderness. In years past, GOP officials have used such periods effectively, honing their message or finding new leaders, but they face serious problems among minority voters and in many of the biggest battleground states. Officials are divided over the best way back to power.

Richard Viguerie and conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway.

Conservative Leaders Meet, Plan to Battle Obama’s Agenda " With or Without Republicans

Tony Blankley, who served as a spokesman for Newt Gingrich

Not all conservatives are so enamored of this vision, it should be said. There are those who believe that, fairly or not, McCain’s adjutants will try, and with some success, to scapegoat her for their boss’s failure. There are those who think that her appeal is too narrow to allow her to unify the various ideological strands within the party. Others maintain that the damage to her image has been so enormous that it is essentially irreparable. And still others contend that she is simply too dim to be a major figure in our national life. When I asked Times columnist David Brooks if he thought that Palin could be the Republican nominee in 2012, he said, “I don’t.” When I asked why, he answered with a chuckle, “I just don’t think the human capital is there, to put it politely.”

But Palin will have ample time to become fluent"or, at least, to achieve the appearance of fluency"on national issues. As her just-good-enough performance in the V.P. debate against Joe Biden showed, she is a quick study, more information-poor than actually dumb. (Okay, I’m being generous here, but, hey, it’s not impossible.) Provocatively, the conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini compares the rehabilitation that lies ahead of Palin to that of Howard Dean. “The party elite seemed vindicated when Dean self-destructed [in 2004],” Ruffini writes. “But a little over a year later, Dean was elected DNC chairman with surprisingly little fuss … Whatever Dean’s faults, there was a sense that the party elite had bankrupted itself by running a series of poll-tested me-too triangulators. Dean’s easy victory at the DNC was the precursor of the grassroots’ long-term victory over the elite, culminating in the evisceration of Hillary Rodham Clinton [by Obama]. Does any of this sound familiar?”

Newt in 2012?
In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years?

To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly.

Even one of his strongest supporters for president in 2012 admits it is a "very risky choice." But Republicans are in a desperate mood after the fiasco of John McCain's seemingly safe candidacy.

Republicans seem chastened by the failure of seeking moderate, independent and even Democratic votes. They are ready to try going back to the "old-time religion."

BOZELL: Good morning, Bill, how are you doing?

HEMMER: I'm doing fine. Who was at the meeting?

BOZELL: Well, we're not divulging all the names.

For a redo of Bush/Cheney, imagine a Palin/Gingrich ticket. I expect Gringrich will fight to the death for the 2012 run. I expect this balloon from Novak is intentional and the beginning of Gingrich's 'campaign'.