Since the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party emerged in 2008, a new brand of conservatives hijacked part moderates like former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Ks.), Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain tried to jump on the parade running against President Barack Obama in 2008, picking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin, together with former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), represented the new GOP breed, a hybrid of evangelicals, social, religious and fiscal conservatives. When Obama steamrolled to victory Nov. 4, 2008, the GOP wrongly concluded that McCain wasn’t conservative enough to galvanize the GOP base. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was replaced by former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, hoping to add more diversity to what looked like a mostly white party.
When Steele showed no better luck adding more GOP folks in Congress and state houses, the RNC replaced him with a young Tea Party upstart, 38-year-old Reince Priebus, taking over Jan. 20, 2011 to turn things around in the 2012 presidential election. When former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lost to Obama in 2012, Priebus made the same excuse that Mitt wasn’t conservative enough to rally the GOP base. Now running the GOP at age 43, Priebus pushes hard for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the Party’s last hope for a new breed conservative to take on what looks like Democratic front-runner former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Priebus was emphatic, after Romney’s loss to Obama in 2012, that the GOP failed to run a true conservative. Playing out in the days before the Iowa caucuses, the same battle between GOP moderates and conservatives goes on.
Denouncing conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), 92-year-old former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole threw in his two cents. “If he’s the nominee, we’re going to have wholesale losses in Congress and state offices and governors and legislatures,” Dole told the New York Times. Putting Cruz, according to Dole, at the top-of-the-ticket would be “cataclysmic” for the GOP. Complicating Cruz’s problems, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad urged Iowans to not vote for Cruz because of his opposition to the ethanol corn industry. Cruz has been criticizing front-running GOP candidate real estate tycoon Donald Trump for his “New York” values, not being conservative enough. Cruz’s definition of conservative says more about opposing abortion and gay marriage than other pressing issues facing the country, including what to do with immigration or Obama’s national health care called “Obamacare.”
Cruz brought the GOP backlash on himself by attacking Trump’s conservative credentials. Getting Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin’s endorsement suggests that Trump is conservative enough. Having backing of conservative media icons like syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Sean Hannity or best-selling author Ann Coulter, has sabotaged Cruz’s argument that Trump isn’t conservative enough. Winning 91-year-old conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly also undercuts Cruz’s argument about Trump. Calling Cruz unelectable is the “same flawed narrative the Washington establishment has unsuccessfully pushed for years,” said Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier. Getting hit from conservatives and moderates like Dole makes tough sledding for Cruz heading into the Feb. 1 Iowa Caucuses. Dole doesn’t like Cruz for lumping him into the GOP’s past liberal failures
Trump walks a tightrope heading into Iowa with Palin campaigning on his side. While she’s got her following, it’s hard to predict what she’ll say on the stump. Palin hurt McCain in 2008, primarily because she was seen as a new breed of GOP crank, not ready for president. If Trump marches to the nomination, he’s got to be careful not to repeat McCain’s mistakes. Announcing his pick April 29, 2008, McCain trumpeted Palin as the “future of the Republican Party.” McCain’s forecast couldn’t be more off. Profiting from McCain’s experience, Trump should let Sarah doe her thing without going overboard, certainly not picking her as VP. If and when he gets around to that, he needs to pick someone qualified for the Oval Office. Getting key endorsements before Iowa, Trump looks like he can overtake some polls showing that Cruz holding an edge with Iowa’s evangelical voters.
With a wind at his back, Trump looks to sneak past Cruz in Iowa, win New Hampshire handily and move on to victory in South Carolina. Getting hit from all sides, Cruz faces headwinds before Iowa, much to his own doing, challenging Trump on his “conservative” credentials. Opening up the rift in the GOP between Tea Party conservatives and mainstream Republicans, Cruz reminds moderates what they dislike most about new conservatives. “Running to the middle and nominating a moderate who will continue to bank the payroll of the Washington cartel is a losing strategy,” said Cruz spokeswoman Frazier. Trump doesn’t run to the right or the left but to what he thinks can help fix a divided country. Trump’s overriding message has to do with fixing what’s wrong on the right and the left, not ripping the GOP apart with arguments about conservatives and liberals.
