David Frum: A tea party exit would be a blessing for GOP

[ErikJ]

A tea party exit would be a blessing for GOP
By David Frum, CNN Contributor
Mon October 14, 2013.

................................
Consider, for example, the case of the Democratic Party in the election of 1948. That year, the Democrats faced two groups that bolted.
To protest President Harry Truman's turn to support civil rights, southern Democrats coalesced as a "States' Rights" party and nominated South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond for president.
Williamson on the nature of Tea Party Defunding Obamacare a 'fool's errand'
Left-liberal Democrats angered by Truman's tough Cold War foreign policy created an "American Labor" party and nominated former vice president Henry Wallace.
Together, Thurmond and Wallace took almost 5% of the vote in 1948. Thurmond carried four Deep South states and 7% of the Electoral College.
Yet Truman survived. In fact, there's a reasonable argument that Truman was actually helped by these third- and fourth-party challenges.

In 1948, African-Americans remained very much a swing constituency. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans had moved north and gained voting rights in the 30 years between 1917 and 1948. As a group, they tended to prefer the New Deal policies of the Democratic Party, but they deeply distrusted that party's Southern white supremacist wing.
Truman was a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who had adopted the civil rights cause late in his career. Could he really be trusted? Truman's willingness to face down Thurmond convinced many Northern blacks that he could be. He carried an estimated 77% of the black vote in the North, and those votes provided the margin of victory in the three crucial states of California, Illinois and Ohio. Those three states provided 73 electoral votes in total, and they were each won by Truman with a margin of less than 1%.

Meanwhile, the Wallace challenge helped Truman with more conservative voters. Truman had initiated the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift, yet some questioned whether the Democrats were tough enough on communism -- an important question among voters of eastern European origin in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
With Wallace vehemently denouncing Truman as too tough on the Soviet Union -- sometimes in speeches that echoed the editorials of the newspaper of the American Communist Party -- Truman gained the same kind of political cover on his right flank that Thurmond had provided him on his left.
The result, everybody knows.
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/14/opinion/frum-tea-party-third-party/

[HooptieWagon]

1. Short term no. Long term yes.

Obviously, if they ditch the teabaggers they're going to lose a lot of voters in the near future...just like the Democrats did with civil rights and lost southern democrats for a couple generations.
In the long term, assuming they ditch the teabaggers soon, they have a better shot at attracting youth, women, and minorities to the party. If they wait too long, there might be irreparable damage done....which is what I suspect will happen.

[ErikJ]

2. The problem is the primaries

The Tea Party does better in the primaries as we saw in Romney who had to flip flop far - right to win the primary.

[HooptieWagon]

5. Correct.

And the GOP candidate will run more towards the center, which will only rob them of teabagger votes in the GE. They'll either vote for a Teabagger, or stay at home. Its about 40+% of the GOP. No candidate will win with only 20-30% of the GE votes. That is why I doubt the GOP will ditch the teabaggers. They want those votes. They not thinking long-term, their backup plans will remain gerrymandering, voter suppression, election fraud, and propaganda.

[dkf]

3. Who would be left? A party of political consultants?

[BainsBane]

4. I think the base is too firmly committed to nuttery

They call Frum a Rhino. The GOP is reaping the results of playing to these elements of the country, while the RW media has further radicalized them. Whatever happens, the GOP is going to go through some rough times and unfortunately take the rest of the country with them.

Of course, another option would be that Boehner and McConnell could develop some spine. I won't be holding my breath for that one.

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. When is the last time anybody here has talked to a currently active Republican who was not a Tea

Party supporter? When was the last time you saw a Facebook positing from a Republican that was not a Tea Party posting? Mr. Frum is being ridiculous - more than 4 in 10 registered Republicans identify with the Tea Party and they dominate the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives. Every Republican who is not Tea Party is running scared of them. What were the Republican debates except who can sound the craziest competitions with the Tea Party as the judges and juries? Their departure would be equivalent to all liberals and progressives bolting from the Democratic Party. Mr. Frum can be very clever at times but he is completely out of step with his own party. As someone above said, "If they departed who would be left? Political consultants?"

[Chan790]

7. All of them, actually.

I may be an accident of geography or the fact that we suffer fools poorly...but where I'm from (suburban central CT, later NYC) the Tea Party is about as popular as tertiary syphilis, people who put empty cereal boxes back in the cabinet and the Klan.

Republicans in CT generally campaign by running away from the national GOP...doubly from the Tea Party and religious conservatives. In fact, I cannot recall the last major running-for-office Republican that I knew the religious views of. Having Ted Cruz show up to campaign for you is about as palatable of an idea as...well...it'd be more painful than anything I can imagine.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. then that is the exception. In most of the country the loons have completely taken over

[gopiscrap]

9. a tea bag exit would be a blessing for all of us.