GOP harmony: the pre-season doesn't count

By R.K. Barry 

David Weigel had an interesting article recently in Slate about how rumours of impending GOP civil war are greatly exaggerated. He makes a good case that we might be surprised when all those Republicans end up playing nice with each other. I do find it interesting, though, that the subtitle of the piece is: "Anyone hoping for 2011 GOP infighting is going to be disappointed." The article is then sprinkled with qualifiers like "so far" or "not yet," or "GOP's honeymoon period."

I don't want to speak for Mr. Weigel, but it seems to me he's arguing with himself. Who cares if they're getting along this week or even into next year? That's not what's going to matter, and in his own way I think he knows it. So far they are getting along. OK. But when it counts they are either going to get along or they're not. Anything else is just pre-season.

I certainly never expected them to start throwing office furniture at each other this soon. Come on. Most of the new class are still hiring staff and finding the bathroom or complaining about how long it takes their health benefits to kick in. And the old guard is having too much fun once again having some power.

Hell, these people just had a major electoral victory. I suspect they're partly stunned with their good fortune. It's going to take some time for them to remember that many of them really don't like each other very much and are really not in lock step on a number of things. And outside the Beltway people are going to start to realize that this is a very broad coalition, as any successful coalition must be.

Victory can paper over a lot of dissension, but true believers and pragmatists in bed together? Can it last? I don't know.

Remember that this is a party that rejected a strong Senate candidate in Florida because he once hugged the president. These are very emotional people prone to some pretty severe judgments and they'll get around to remembering that again.

Getting along now doesn’t matter. Getting along when there are spoils to be fought over, that's going to be a different thing. Getting along when the next campaign season gears up with all of those contested nomination races: the Senate, House, and presidency, not to mention state and local races, well, that’s going to be much, much different.

Weigel writes that "[i]n order for there to be a real split in the new GOP there needs to be a disagreement on some issues big enough to distract the party from its mission."

This is a party that saw sure-shot Senate seats in Nevada and Delaware pissed away in defiance of the GOP establishment over nothing but Tea Party wackiness. Weigel is giving them way too much credit. Issues? Really?

It's interesting that he cites the survey data that shows more than half of Tea Partiers identifying with the religious right. Maybe I just don't see these people being as patient and calculating as Weigel thinks they'll be.

None of us can prove anything at this point but a movement feeling the need to invent aderisive term for one of their own deemed not pure enough, i.e., RINO (Republican in Name Only), doesn't strike me as a group that's going to get through the next election cycle without some seriously messy internecine strife.

I do think that Weigel is right that a general hatred for Obama is what has kept this conservative coalition together. But now that they have had some success they are going to want more and may end up being in too much of a hurry for the next conquest to tend to the niceties of getting along with each other.

Yes, for now they are more or less getting along. We'll see.