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Nathan'ette
Burdine's
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The
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Monday, October 08, 2012
Politics
Published September 8, 2011-Updated October
18, 2011
“The Republicans’ Time is Quickly
Running Out”
by Nathan’ette
Burdine-Follow on
Twitter@nbnylemagazine
The Republicans’ time is quickly running out for
them to be taken seriously. The
party’s biggest problem is that it has no center.
If someone ask a Republican, “You’re a republican because
___________?,” the line will remain blank.
The Republican Party has been broken into two factions, the Tea Partiers
and the Republicans. The different factions have resulted in a split presidential
race within the party with members such as Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry
running as Tea Partiers, and Mit Romney and John Huntsman running as
Republicans. And with the addition
of individuals who are unknown at the national level, such as Michigan Tea Party
Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R), getting into the presidential race, there is
the belief that the Republican field is wide open and loose.
The split votes are among some of the Republican
Party’s problems. If a situation
occurs whereby some of the candidates who do not win the Republican nomination
for president decide to run independently, then the votes will be split between
those members of the party. This is
similar to a body that cannot fight off an outside threat because it is spending
its energy fighting its self. For
the past thirty years, the party that has the most dissention is the one that
tends to loose the presidential election. In
fact, President Obama is a beneficiary of the Republicans fighting amongst
themselves.
During the 2008 election, the Republicans were not
unified on their choices for president as they were during the Reagan and Bush
II years and as the Democrats were during the Clinton years.
Senator John McCain had already suffered from the lethal political wounds
he obtained during the 2000 presidential race against Bush II. There were swift boat ads questioning if Senator McCain was
the biological father of his adopted daughter whose home country is Vietnam.
There were also reminders of his wife’s allege drug addiction and his
involvement in the Kelling 5 incident, which resulted in a Congressional
investigation. So when 2008 came
around, the reception of Senator McCain as the Republican Party’s nominee was
artic cold. Unlike the Democrats
who came together after they had the Obama-Clinton bout, the Republicans did not
come together and place aside their ill feelings for Senator McCain.
Instead, they decide to wait for 2012 for someone better.
But as the 1980 presidential election between former Presidents Jimmy
Carter and Ronald Reagan showed, sometimes waiting for the next election cycle
is not better.
President Carter suffered a grueling match, between
Senator Ted Kennedy, on his way to his party’s nomination.
It had gotten so bad that Senator Kennedy decided that for the sake of
the party he would concede to former President Carter.
But by that time, it was too late. Reagan
blamed Carter for the high gas prices and the Iranian hostage controversy.
It proved a successful tactic for Regan because he was able to use it as
a way to slide into the presidency, in which he would go on to serve two terms.
Bush I was able to Willie Horton his way into his first term but was
knocked out of a second term by the oil tycoon and fellow Republican, Ross Perot.
Ross Perot was often asked if he got into the race in order to prevent
Bush I from becoming the president. Perot
always answered the question no, but others thought otherwise.
A person who benefited from the allege Bush I-Perot rift was former
President Bill Clinton who, like Reagan, went on to serve two terms as
president.
Like
Clinton and Reagan, Bush II was a beneficiary of infighting within the
opposition’s party. During the
2004 election, Bush II benefited from the infighting within the Democratic
Party. Like the 2012 Republicans,
the 2004 Democratic field was wide open and loose.
Everyone from the two Johns, John Kerry and John Edwards, Dr. Howard
Dean, Joe Liberman, Dennis Kucinach, Carol Mosley Braun, and to Al Sharpton were
running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.
They fought on everything from who voted for the Iraq war, flying
Confederate flags, to who had the most expensive haircut.
Dr. Dean appeared to be the nominee for a split second, but that was soon
shattered by his “exuberant” moment after he won the Iowa Caucus.
John Kerry would eventually win the nomination but it was obvious his
running mate, the other John, was not on the same page and they would not be
able to beat the Bush-Dick pair.
The
silver lining for President Obama is that like former Presidents Reagan,
Clinton, and Bush II, President Obama is a sitting president who’s gathered
enough political stock in his party that he is the chosen nominee. He doesn’t have to take the political blows from those
within his party. So whenever the
Republican nominee, whoever he maybe, arrives in the ring he’ll be battered
and bludgeoned so that all he can do is fall out for the ten count.
Email-nathanette.burdine@thenylemagazine.com
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