GOP BODY SNATCHERS

Published in POLITICO
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/opinion-scot-faulkner-jonathan-riehl-the-gop-body-snatchers-97102.html
By Scot Faulkner and Jonathan Riehl

In the classic 1956 sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, an alien race comes to Earth and begins turning humans into “pod people.” Their bodies are left intact, but their minds are regrown, rending them humanoid robots under the aliens’ command. Unrecognizable to neighbors, the pod people take over until nothing is left of human society.

At the time of its release, the film was seen as a metaphor either for communist takeover (according to conservatives) or an ironic criticism of the irrational fears of communist takeover (according to liberals). Today, we think the body snatchers conceit perfectly fits another trend: the takeover of the responsible conservative movement -- or least what is left of it. A small faction-within-a-faction -- government-decrying, religious-fanatic, anti-science -- have turned thinking Republicans into pod people.

There is growing concern that while Republicans may dominate off-year congressional elections, their ability to win a presidential election is diminishing. The crisis on the right revolves around two issues: demographic trends working against the GOP in the general election, and insanity working against the GOP in the nomination process. Extremist outliers now dominate both the public face and internal organization of the Republican Party. It is time to snatch these bodies back, and to steer the debate toward more concrete issues: America’s role in the world and the global economy; cultural divides over how to address environmental issues; our healthcare system and the costs of aging families; and bridging multicultural divisions in our country and around the globe. These are the issues the GOP needs to address head-on, with input from a wider range of perspectives.

The evidence of Republicans at war with themselves and with reality mounts daily. Even those recognized as seemingly “rational” Republican and conservative voices, both in elected office and the punditocracy, are pandering to religiously radical, inward-focused factions. The result is a GOP fixated on the roughly 10 million people who listen to conservative radio and television pundits, instead of projecting messages of inclusion and hope to 230 million registered voters.

It was not always this way. In 1988, George H.W. Bush coasted to the third Republican presidential landslide in a row. The GOP won five of six post-Great Society presidential elections, four by epic-sized landslides. In the elections of 1972 and 1984, the Democrats won only one state each, plus the District of Columbia. Up through 1984, the modern Republican Party had perfected appealing to voters across the political spectrum. Broad themes and accomplishments -- the economic growth after the Carter years, reversing the decline of the U.S. military, winning the Cold War, and generally re-energizing national morale -- neutralized internal factions and ideological differences within the Republican Party, while the Democrats were still healing from their Vietnam and Civil Rights meltdowns.

Although President Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” would eventually help lead the Democrats out of their wilderness, there were signs of the radicalization of the GOP as early as Ronald

Reagan’s second term. First and foremost, the United States and the West were winning the Cold War. It would take until Nov. 9, 1989, for the Berlin Wall to fall, but many within the Reagan administration and the conservative movement knew events were unfolding to end the Soviet Empire and free Eastern Europe, which the Republicans had made a key rallying point for years. As this happened, and with the American economy booming, core Republican and Independent constituencies lost their fervor to fight. Unfortunately, Republican leaders failed to develop or articulate a “third act.”

Into this vacuum stepped faith-based Republicans, also known as “TheoCons.” The TheoCons, including national politicians and the religious coalitions backing them, entered GOP circles during the 1978 off-year elections. Many were evangelicals who supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election, hoping that Carter’s devout Christianity would usher in policies friendly to their Christian worldview. Their disappointment led them into the Republican Party. GOP leaders and Reaganites were grateful for these additions to the larger coalition, but they were also wary of the TheoCons’ preference for big government. While the Cold War raged, Republicans told the TheoCons to “wait their turn” at policy formulation.

The TheoCons used their time in waiting to methodically take control of the Republican Party at the county and state levels. Their fervor for biblical policies and evangelical beliefs easily overwhelmed the waning legions of GOP Cold Warriors and independent libertarians. This is not a criticism of the Tea Party movement alone; the TheoCons poach from this camp as well as a separate cohort of religiously driven conservatives who have been part of the conservative coalition since the late 1970s.

Fast forward to 2012, and the Republican Party of the 21st century looks more like 16th-century Europe, when doctrinaire Catholicism and fervent Protestantism were literally fighting over hearts and souls amid the Reformation. Science and medicine were locked in the realm of superstition. Absolute dictators ruled everywhere. It would take another 100 years before the beginnings of rational thought, scientific inquiry, and liberal democracy took root.

That is the fundamental problem of today’s Republican Party: Its philosophical “outliers” have become its activist core. This has infected Republicans at all levels, from the state house, to the Congress, governors, and the presidential contenders. Virtually any Republican candidate who wants to run and hold office, must at least give lip service to an activist government based on biblical imperatives. We know from personal experience, over recent years, that in some circles, in order to obtain the GOP nomination, raise funds, and attract campaign volunteers, Republicans must not only embrace biblical creationism, but also go on the record supporting the concept of a “young Earth” -- the creationist belief that our planet was formed in seven days, starting on March 18, 3952 B.C. (though dates vary). They must also agree to expand the size of government to enforce biblically based policies, like the absurd anti-sodomy debate going on in Virginia.

For GOP leaders, officeholders, and candidates who are afraid to confront the TheoCons, the dilemma is no longer about how to put this genie back in its bottle but how to placate this faction internally without broadcasting the fragmentation to the broader public. The TheoCon body snatchers have turned a Party of the Enlightenment and liberty into the pod people of science fiction movies. Many meetings among Republican fundraisers, caucuses, and party leaders have enforcers -- local activists -- ready to alert their fellow pods to heresy. Shrinking numbers and electoral defeat only strengthens the pod people’s hold on the party. More and more Republicans fall asleep under their spell, only to awake and join them.

The invasion of the GOP body snatchers is not just hurting the legacy of the Republican Party and conservative movement. It is hurting America’s ability to conduct a civil and sensible national debate. When the process of positive political dialogue is invaded by pod people, it ceases to be possible. Everyone has an interest in fighting the invasion.

Scot Faulkner was chief administrative officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and director of personnel to President Ronald Reagan. Jonathan Riehl is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations, a former speechwriter for Luntz Research, and instructor in communications at Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, N.C.

Whither CPAC?

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) begins today.  Ironically attendance has skyrocketed while the quality and diversity of discussion has plummeted.  It is as if the movement that vanquished the Soviet Empire has adopted the Soviet Comintern model.

Diversity of opinion is prohibited. Tired old leaders are favored over new experimental thinkers. Ideological purity, not intellect, is the requirement for admission. Empty slogans are shouted to the uniform applause of rooms of people who strangely seem to all look the same. Down with Obama! Up with the Tea Party! Down with the climate change hoax! All hail Limbaugh! Down with the lies of the Lame Stream Media!

CPAC was formed in 1973 as a forum for geographically and ideologically diverse conservatives to exchange ideas, and build an ever expanding network of activists to eventually prevail on the major issues of the late-20th Century. Members of Congress, and their staff, attended to report on legislative ideas at the national level while learning about successful legislative ideas at the state level. Networking turned new ideas and energy into creative ways to govern and to shape dialogue on emerging issues.

Cold warriors, libertarians, values voters, economic conservatives, and traditionalists heard the icons of their movement as well as the up & coming leaders. The conservative movement was born in the Enlightenment, forged during the American and Industrial Revolutions, and launched as a counter balance to an ever expanding federal government and the external threat of Communism. CPAC was designed to grow this movement through learning and applying new ideas, and attracting new allies, to core principles. This was an expanding intellectual universe and it was thrilling to attend.

The CPAC that gave traction to the Reagan Revolution is long gone. Conservative organizers seem to now be taking meeting tips from the Communist Chinese Party Congress on how to further stifle innovation, democratic exchange of ideas, and how to alienate a nation. TheoCons, NeoCons, and Tea Partiers are using CPAC to perfect ways to build ever smaller tents for their movement. The true conservative legacy is in dire peril.

Of course the Chinese, and the Soviets before them, didn’t care much for debate anyway; they were after all single-party regimes. We would point out to the organizers of CPAC that people have a rather clear historical tendency to reject this kind of governance. Stifling debate in favor of ideology does not shore up a movement. It destroys it. The Soviets learned this the hard way in 1989; we hope the Chinese will learn a similar lesson sometime soon.

The analogy to the Communist system goes further. What we have been witnessing in the GOP ranks over the last several election cycles even uses the old Soviet term: “Purge.” This is what Stalin did after Trotsky; what Khrushchev did after Stalin; what Mao did during his Cultural Revolution; and what Deng did after Mao.

CPAC’s ongoing meltdown was highlighted again with the snubbing of Governor Chris Christie, probably the most popular Republican office holder in the country today. This decision is illogical in the extreme to anyone not sufficiently indoctrinated. A group of gay Republicans, GOProud, has also been shut out, making a mockery of the noble conservative tradition of personal freedom. This is proof positive that the movement’s hard core is more interested in biblically inspired government intervention than defending individual rights. Just like the old Central Committee, they are so insular that their eventual crash will come as a complete shock.

As a coda, we recall that in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 convention speech, he stressed that conservatism values proven ways, "not because they are old, but because they are true." CPAC is turning its back on traditions dating back to the Enlightenment where truth is not announced, but arrived at through an evolutionary process of debate and exchange. The current rejection of empiricism in science mirrors the closing of its doors to those with differing ways to apply conservative principles. We doubt Barry Goldwater would be invited to CPAC today, or would want to go even if he were.

It is a sad day for those of us who have been part of the conservative movement, and no less so for those who study it and respect its legacy even if disagreeing with its favored policies at times.

Scot Faulkner attended twenty-one CPACs and spoke at three of them. He was Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Riehl, J.D., Ph.D., is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations and former speechwriter for Luntz Research, and instructor in Communications Studies.

Republicans Partying Like Its 999

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” is one of the great Monty Python sketches.

The bizarre utterances by Missouri Republican Senate Candidate Rep. Todd Aiken were unfortunately very predictable. It is what happens when Republicans allow big government Democrats to hijack their party.

It all began 36 years ago…

On January 19, 1976 legions of pro-life Democrats helped Jimmy Carter win the Iowa Caucuses. They embraced Carter’s general remarks about making pro-life and faith key priorities of his Presidency. The day after this unexpected win, Carter aides Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell sat down with these pro-life Democrats and told them Carter’s remarks were taken out of context. These activist Democrats felt duped and misled, but the Carter train had left the station, barreling toward his November victory.

In January 1978 several of these pro-life Democrats knocked on my door in Fairfax County Virginia. They were very open about their big government Democratic Party affiliations. However, they were also open about their motives. They wanted pay-back for Carter’s Iowa treachery. Their vehicle was to help enough conservative Republicans win in the 1978 elections to hobble the Carter presidency. If that worked, they were willing to help defeat Carter in 1980. All they asked in return was for the Republican Party to commit to limiting or reversing the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.

Their meeting with me, and their subsequent meetings with other members of the Richard “Dick” Obenshain for Senate team, put into motion an historic tilt in the Republican Party. During the hard fought U.S. Senate nomination battle the pro-lifers delivered both in pro-Obenshain telephone calls and in massive turn-outs at county conventions. They helped the most conservative candidate win the nomination. On August 2, 1978, a tragic plane crash ended Obenshain’s life and campaign, leaving the door open for moderate John Warner to prevail.

The Obenshain campaign was only one test bed for pro-lifers and a broad collection of Christian activists. That same year, “big government” pro-lifers toppled the leadership of Christian Voice, and in 1979 founded the Moral Majority. The Christian Voice was part of a faith-based movement built with libertarian Christians who wanted to stop the federal government and activist courts from restricting freedom of religion and pressing a left-wing social agenda in public schools. Howard Philips and other faith-based leaders called for “defunding the left”.

However, while these big government Christians were willing to support “defunding the left”, they also wanted to fund and expand a faith-based activist government. During 1979-1980 this philosophical battle played out in weekly “Library Court” meetings under the auspices of Paul Weyrich. Howard’s sister, Susan Philips, and I were assigned the task of facilitating this group in the hopes of channeling the energy of these Christian activists into dismantling the liberal state not constructing a new theocratic one. We failed.

During the Reagan Administration, these Christian activists uneasily took a back seat to toppling the Soviet Empire and assailing big government. Instead, the TheoCons methodically captured state Republican organizations by the same methods they used for Obenshain and Reagan – they made countless telephone calls and turned out their legions to dominate Republican caucuses and conventions. By 1988, large swaths of the Republican Party’s field operations were run by big government Christians.

It was only a matter of time before all Republican candidates and office holders had to at least give lip service to the Christian agenda. Eventually, true believers, who actually wanted to expand government based upon their interpretation of the Bible, were in office at the state and local levels with sufficient numbers to aggressively move their agenda. This agenda included eliminating all abortions under any circumstances (including “Personhood” bills that limited contraception), legislating morality - especially anything to do with homosexuality, and bringing a faith-focus to public classrooms - especially anything that promoted the “young earth” version of creationism (the belief that the Earth is just 5,000 years old and that a literal interpretation of Genesis is the only accurate history).

The true conservative movement, and its core within the Republican Party, was driven underground. Being branded an abortionist or pro-gay was a political death sentence. The TheoCons pushed their activist agenda until, like Lenin, they “hit iron”. They never did. Emboldened, the more radical TheoCons began pushing blatantly anti-women policies and know-nothing science and still they did not encounter opposition within the Republican Party.

This race to the 10th Century culminated in Rep. Aiken’s making his obtuse statement and the Republican Party being pulled into a vortex of its own making.

Some Republican Leaders have finally pushed back, but is it too little too late?