B Y J A M E S C A R V I L L E
GOP DNA
Trying to hold the party together in San Diego
One of my favorite teaching lessons was on DNA. James Watson had just come out with "The Double Helix," the book describing how he and Francis Crick figured out what DNA looks like. Using a page from that book, I used to draw on the chalkboard a simple picture of the two strands of DNA as they bound together into the twisting blueprint of life. When you see the Republican Convention next week, think DNA. Thanks to Ronald Reagan, that's what the modern Republican Party looks like. In 1980, Reagan bound the two very distinct strands of the party -- what I like to call the economic royalists and the social populists -- into one interlaced whole. The result was a masterly blueprint for electoral success. What we're seeing this year is that those strands, just like strands of DNA, don't hold together too well when the temperature starts rising. As soon as Bob Dole started fading in the polls, the party started heating up. Everyone's watching now to see how much hotter it might get in San Diego. As you watch the convention coverage, don't waste too much time focusing on the fight over abortion. It's not the hottest issue -- it's just the one the media like the most. My guess is that Dole won't have too much trouble coming up with some kind of abortion language to defuse most of the trouble. In and of itself, abortion won't unravel the coalition. The abortion fight is only significant in its larger context. It's best viewed as a small symptom of the large differences between the two Republican strands. The party's social populists are big-time supporters of school prayer, and they're uniformly stacked against abortion rights, gay rights and public schooling. Though they might never admit it, they are often a lot more eager than the most liberal of Democrats to inject more government into our lives -- for example, into our bedrooms and doctors' offices. The economic royalists, on the other hand, tend to be pro-choice, but they're not strident about it. What they are strident about is taxes. You bring up the subject in the company of the royalists and they erupt into an evangelical fervor that makes Jerry Falwell look shy and retiring. I give a lot of speeches to these folks. (They're the ones who can afford my exorbitant speaking fee.) Take it from me: The royalists are convinced that taxes control just about everything but the tides. But when these people talk about tax cuts, they're not talking about targeted, family-oriented cuts that make sense. As I mentioned in my last Salon column, they're going crazy for big-time, deficit-busting, supply-side cuts. The social populists have grown in numbers, but they still are not big financial contributors in the party -- they're essentially a $20-a-check crowd. Therefore, the GOP's donor base is still heavily skewed toward the economic royalists, who are concentrated in New York and California. (Ever wonder why Bob Dole is still campaigning vigorously in California, a state he has absolutely no chance of winning?!) I cannot overestimate the power these big donors are throwing around this week. Most of them are not shy about calling a Dole loyalist like Alfonse D'Amato or Connie Mack and threatening not to give another dime to the party unless some demand -- if it's not about huge tax cuts then it has to do with regulations on big business -- is met at the convention. These people are so brazen, they might even call collect. So why don't the royalists have the obvious upper hand? Because of the impressive grassroots strength of a handful of social populists -- none of whom go by the name of Ralph Reed or Pat Robertson. The biggest by far is a Christian psychologist named James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, the richest evangelical group in the country. Dobson, who is heard daily on about 1600 radio stations nationwide, probably won't show up in San Diego. He'll be calling the shots from his headquarters in Colorado Springs. To give you an idea of the influence this guy wields, in 1988, when Congress was considering a major civil rights bill, he spouted off his objections and the same day a half-million of his followers swamped Congress with calls. Watching his masses square off with those rich royalists is going to be much more fun than watching the Olympics. As for me, I will be in San Diego with my Republican wife, Mary, and my one-year-old daughter, Matty. Seeing as I'd be like a shiny new fireplug at a dog show, I won't be spending any time in the convention hall. I'll be out on day trips -- like one day I'll take Matty to Camp Pendleton, where her daddy spent most of his time as a Marine. Meanwhile, Mary's friends in the Dole campaign will have their work cut out for them. Each one of them will feel like he's in the scene from the movie "Mission: Impossible," when Tom Cruise is dangling from the rafters, praying that the temperature doesn't rise enough to set off all the alarms. I've been there. I don't envy them.
Is the Republican Party a house that is hopelessly divided? Chew it over with James Carville in Table Talk. |
![[B]](b960805.gif){kind=small}
elieve it or not, I used to be a science teacher. Right after I finished my service in the