THE REPUBLICAN WHO GOT AWAY!

By Edwin Cooney

Sometimes it’s hard for even me to believe, but I was once a devout Republican.  From about age 10 through age 30, my political heroes were primarily Republicans.  Throughout that twenty year period, I witnessed the ups and downs of Dwight Eisenhower’s, Barry Goldwater’s, Richard Nixon’s and Jerry Ford’s Grand Old Party.  Finally, feeling abandoned by what I regarded as Republican blindness in the presence of an unnecessary and costly Vietnam War and upset at the domestic political crimes and Watergate cover-ups which were committed, I left the Republican Party to join Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Democratic Party.

Modern politics is bedecked with the stories of leaders who have abandoned their original political party affiliations.  Their names are very prominent and even legendary.  They include Abraham Lincoln who left the Whig party along with just about everyone else in 1854 to join the newly created Republican party and Teddy Roosevelt who temporarily bolted the GOP in 1912 for the Progressives or “Bull Moose” party when the Republicans refused to nominate him for president.  In recent years, former Texas Governor John B. Connally, an old Democratic ally of LBJ's, became a Republican in 1973.  New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay switched to the Democratic Party in 1971. Some time after being an honored guest at Harry Truman’s 1949 Inaugural festivities, actor Ronald Reagan followed his newfound sweetheart Nancy Davis into the Republican Party -- and the rest is history.

What’s so staggering about the president’s rather impressive popular and electoral victory is that Republican leaders and financiers had been assuring America since February 2009 that Barack Obama would definitely be a one term president.  Men such as Grover Norquist, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, and Rupert Murdock (not to mention the Koch brothers and Joe the Plumber) promised us -- they crossed their hearts and hoped to die -- that this wicked, black, Marxist, socialist, foreign sympathizer (if not foreign-born “internationalist”) would be forced to pack his bags and depart 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by Sunday, January 20^th, 2013.  Somehow, it isn’t happening because something went very, very wrong.  What was it?

One of the healthier aspects of a free society is that, in order to be successful, political parties necessarily reexamine themselves in the wake of defeat, especially when that defeat spells political embarrassment as 2012 surely must. This was a party determined to unseat the man many Republicans regard as historically America’s worst president.

A month or so after President Obama took office, the GOP decided that its major goal was to insure that Barack Obama would be a one term president.  The best way to bring that about they reasoned was not to cooperate with him.  For the first two years of his administration, when Democrats had majorities in both houses, this strategy seemed to work.  After all, Obama and the Democrats were clearly answerable for whatever they passed and signed into law during 2009 and 2010, be it healthcare, banking reform or a job stimulus package.

However, in 2010, Republicans asked the people to give them control of the House.  Simultaneously, they retained control of most of the state governorships.  Thus the House of Representatives and many of the GOP state governors decided that obstruction of whatever President Obama wanted to do was their best possible domestic policy.  Just as the House led by Newt Gingrich did in 1995, the Republican leaders sought to bring government to its knees if they could.

In addition, there is the all out attack Hispanic families have felt emanating from the Republican Party in the name of ending illegal immigration.  The fact is that hard working, family-oriented, and generally anti-abortion Hispanics are rather natural cultural Conservative allies.  Up until the administration of George W. Bush, most Hispanics focused on the anti-Castro, anti-Communist policies of the GOP.  Since 9/11, with the GOP’s obsession with protecting America against the possible infiltration of "dangerous" and hostile dark-skinned, non-Christian, and anti-western immigrants, hardworking family-oriented Hispanics have felt increasingly picked on especially by reactionary Conservative elements within the Republican party.  Hence, Hispanics are far more comfortable with the leadership of a man, who, like them, has risen above suspicion and discrimination to the top of the greasy pole of American politics: to the presidency of the United States.

Perhaps post 2012 election soul searching will enable Republicans to realize two important political realities: First, continuous demonization of the activities and motives of ethnic groups, however legalistic, patriotic or well-intentioned, will never win their votes. Second and even more important, perhaps the leadership of the GOP finally understands that a party that merely obstructs is a party that ultimately fails to serve!

Ronald Reagan always insisted that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, but that the Democratic Party left him.  As for me, the story is quite the opposite.  The Republican Party didn’t leave me; I got away clean.  The damndest thing about my getaway is that the Republicans didn’t even look for me!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY