Shortly after the November election, Newt Gingrich disputed the notion that Sarah Palin had emerged from her losing campaign as the new face of the Republican Party, declaring that "she’s going to be one of 20 or 30 significant players. She’s not going to be the de facto leader."
A few months later, the former House Speaker seems to have had a change of heart. Discussing the 2012 G.O.P. race at breakfast meeting on Monday, he called the Alaska governor "very formidable" and noted that she’d have "a substantial advantage in Iowa."
Of course, Mr. Gingrich himself seems interested in the ’12 race, so he could have his own motives for saying this. But the seeming shift in his attitude also speaks to a post-election reality that could be denied in November but not now: Mrs. Palin actually is the de facto leader of what’s left of the national Republican Party.
The latest bit of evidence came on Monday – two days after Mrs. Palin once again worked her way into national political headlines by jetting across the country to attend the annual Alfalfa Club dinner, a marquee event on the D.C. social calendar where the attendees included President Barack Obama – with the release of a Rasmussen Poll that found Republicans, by a better than two-to-one margin, want their party to be like Mrs. Palin and not her old running-mate, John McCain.
To brand Mrs. Palin the front-runner for the ’12 nomination, as opposed to calling her one of several top-tier contenders, isn’t a stretch at all. But don’t be fooled: this status has nothing to do with anything Mrs. Palin’s done since November and everything to do with what the Republican Party has become. Her improving odds of winning the next G.O.P. nomination are a symptom of the party’s rapidly shrinking base – not of an expanding appetite for Mrs. Palin among the general public.
Ever since Barry Goldwater’s forces beat out Nelson Rockefeller and his Eastern Establishment backers for the 1964 G.O.P. nomination, the core of the Republican electorate has been defined by its conservatism. But, as Goldwater’s horrific showing in the ’64 general election established, a party must be inclusive and expansive enough to welcome voters who aren’t so ideologically rigorous.
Beginning with Ronald Reagan in 1980, the G.O.P. managed this imperative impressively, pacifying its base with talk of school prayer and abortion bans that infrequently translated into action. This sent a message to less strident voters that the G.O.P. and its leaders (whether Reagan or George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush) were simply saying what they had to say to keep the base happy and didn’t really mean any of it. It was the kind of balancing act that, for instance, allowed the elder Mr. Bush to carry socially liberal New Jersey in 1988 by almost the same margin by which he won conservative North Carolina.
But that uneasy marriage between the hard-core base and middle-of-the-road voters, is over, mainly because the Bush era convinced voters, many of them self-identifying Republicans, that the party’s leaders actually were serious about the sweet nothings they’d whisper to base voters. This has sapped the G.O.P. of its "soft" supporters – non-ideologues who identified with the party despite some misgivings and whose support made the difference between a Goldwater debacle and a Reagan victory.
The proof of this can be found in the U.S. House, where the Republican ranks have been devastated by the 2006 and 2008 elections. The party’s conference is now overwhelmingly comprised of members from deeply conservative districts – the sort that would have voted for Goldwater in ’64. It can also be seen in a stunning analysis released last week by the Gallup organization, which found that the Republican Party now enjoys a statistically significant voter identification advantage in just five states. For Democrats, the number is 34 (or 35, counting the District of Columbia).
It is the shrinking size and appeal of the G.O.P. that accounts for Mrs. Palin’s strong position within the party.
The old tradition among Republicans is to hand the next open presidential nomination to the runner-up for the last one. By that logic, Mitt Romney would be the favorite heading into ’12. Mr. Romney, whose cynical transformation from outspoken moderate to avowed conservative mirrors that of George H.W. Bush years ago, fits the old model of G.O.P. nominee – willing and eager to pander to the base, but equally ready to wink to "soft" Republicans and the party’s non-ideological establishment.
But the soft voters are gone, leaving a rabidly conservative base that now is the party’s establishment. These are the voters who adore Mrs. Palin, mostly because she doesn’t even pretend to be interested in what non-conservatives have to say. With soft Republicans vanishing, the influence of the base is growing by the day. This is the perfect recipe for Sarah Palin to win the Republican nomination in 2012 – and for the party to suffer a thorough defeat in the fall.
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