Which Faction's Pull Inside The GOP Is Strongest-- The Libertarians Or The Religious Nuts?

Rand Paul and Sharron Angle… what could possibly go wrong?

David Frum-- your grandpa's version of a Republican-- is worried that those nutty Libertarians are making inroads into his party again. Last week he took issue with Robert Draper's assertion that Rand Paul is the solution to the GOP's demographic problems. "What he wrote was not true. But it felt true to him… Draper’s wrong," he insisted, "emphatically wrong. Young voters are not libertarian, nor even trending libertarian. Neither, for that matter, are older voters. The 'libertarian moment' is not an event in American culture. It's a phase in internal Republican Party factionalism. Libertarianism is not pushing Republicans forward to a more electable future. It's pushing them sideways to the extremist margins."

Libertarianism diverges from ordinary conservatism in many ways, but perhaps most fundamentally in this: Whereas ordinary conservatism emphasizes the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of government action, libertarianism presents government as alien and malign. When Rand Paul rose early in 2013 to deliver the longest talking filibuster since Strom Thurmond battled civil rights in 1957, he did so not to oppose some new bureaucracy or tax. No, Paul rose to denounce the supposedly looming danger of lethal drone attacks on ordinary law-abiding Americans. “I will speak today until the President responds and says no, we won't kill Americans in cafes; no, we won't kill you at home in your bed at night; no, we won't drop bombs on restaurants,” he said. Repeatedly, Paul insisted that he was not accusing President Obama of plotting the murder of American citizens. Equally repeatedly, however, he made clear that he considered the danger of presidential murder of people like himself real and imminent.

“There's something called fusion centers, something that are supposed to coordinate between the federal government, the local government to find terrorists," Paul said at one point. "The one in Missouri a couple years ago came up with a list, and they sent this to every policeman in Missouri. The people on the list might be me. The people on the list from the fusion center in Missouri that you need to be worried about, that policemen should stop, are people that have bumper stickers that might be pro-life, who have bumper stickers that might be for more border security, people who support third-party candidates, people who might be in the Constitution Party.”

The claim that the president might at any moment order death from the skies upon people whose only offense was to paste a pro-life bumper sticker on their car might once have seemed laughable to Republicans. Since 2009, it has become credible. That is the emotional basis of the “libertarian moment.”

…Until recently, a mainstream conservative might yearn for lower taxes, lighter regulation, and privatization of government services. But mainstream conservatives also championed effective policing and strong national defense. Mainstream conservatives had made their peace with some forms of social insurance. They had absorbed the Keynesian idea that governments could and should act to counteract recessions and depressions.

Yet since 2008, those differences have blurred. The libertarians interviewed by Robert Draper talk about their movement’s exciting, bold ideological vision. Yet the true secret to its post-2008 appeal is just the opposite. Those conservatives who succumb to libertarianism do so in despair, not hope. Instead of competing to govern the state, many now feel that their only hope is defend themselves-- with arms if necessary-- against an inherently and inevitably hostile and predatory state.

Conservatives who still want to compete, win, and govern must trust that this despair will pass. The “libertarian moment” will last as long as, and no longer than, it takes conservatives to win a presidential election again. Unfortunately, the libertarian moment is itself the most immediate and the most difficult impediment to the political success that will be libertarianism’s cure.

But libertarianism is certainly not the only "phase in internal Republican Party factionalism" pushing Republicans not forward to a more electable future but "sideways to the extremist margins." Leaving out the violent fringe elements the GOP has had to cope with for decades-- the KKK, armed right wing gangs calling themselves "militias," supporters of domestic terrorists from Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman to, more recently candidates like Jody Hice and Mark Walker, Know Nothings and xenophobes-- now the evangelicals are whining that no one is paying attention to their Bronze Age world view any more. Evangelicals, it turns out, "say they feel politically isolated as the country seems to be hurtling to the left, with marijuana now legal in Colorado and gay marriage gaining ground across the nation. They feel out of place in a GOP increasingly dominated by tea party activists and libertarians who prefer to focus on taxes and the role of government and often disagree with social conservatives on drugs or gay rights." And women's Choice. And they're not enthusiastic about any of the GOP potential presidential candidates. Still putty in the hands of well-practiced, professional charlatans, social conservatives-- a term they prefer over "primitive religious nuts"-- are getting as cranky about the direction the Republican Party is heading as David Frum is.

The disconnect between social conservatives and the GOP has become a “chasm,” said Gary Bauer, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 and is now head of the Campaign for Working Families. He pointed to the party’s two most recent presidential nominees, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, as examples of candidates who were touted initially as having broad appeal to centrists in the general election but ultimately never inspired evangelicals and lost.

“Values voters have been treated as the stepchildren of the family, while the party has wanted to get on with so-called more electorally popular ideas,” Bauer said. “The Republican base will not tolerate another candidate foisted upon us as a guy who can win.”

Discontent among evangelicals could have implications for the GOP next year as campaigning for the presidential nomination escalates in early-voting states such as Iowa, where social conservatives are a major bloc. Their presence could complicate matters for top-tier candidates such as Christie and Paul who want to remain viable in a general election but will feel pressure to appeal to religious voters. A surge of support for more fiery contenders such as Carson or former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) could turn candidate debates into a spectacle while pulling everyone to the right, affecting the party’s image more broadly.

…The feelings of disaffection are a decade in the making. Social conservatives, who make up about 40 percent of the Republican electorate, according to polls, fell in love with George W. Bush in 2000. They mobilized for Bush’s reelection four years later after he endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. But many activists felt Bush’s team did not push hard enough on moral issues in his second term. Since then, evangelical Republicans have not coalesced enthusiastically around a viable contender for the presidency.

Meanwhile, disenchanted Republican voters could do them some damage in the party's attempt to capture the Senate in November. The Libertarians are running David Patterson against Mitch McConnell and the 5% that he's been polling is greater than the margin separating McConnell and Grimes. Sean Haugh is running his North Carolina Senate campaign on tips he gets as a pizza delivery guy, but he's got the Libertarian line and Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis is so universally hated that Haugh is polling an average of 10% on recent polls-- enough to guarantee a victory for Kay Hagan. And both Libertarian Mark Fish and Alaska Independence Party candidate Vic Kohring will make it even harder for any of the fractured and bitterly divided Republicans-- Dan Sullivan, Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller-- to beat Democratic incumbent Mark Begich in November, despite the flood of cash the Koch brothers and Rove are unleashing on the state. Meanwhile, two Republicans running as independents in South Dakota-- 3-term former U.S. Senator Larry Pressler and former state Senator and Tea Party leader Gordon Howie-- would certainly win that race for Rick Weiland if DSCC chair Michael Bennet wasn't undermining Weiland's campaign. If the Democrats lose control of the Senate, they should make Bennet sit on a stool in the corner with a dunce's cap for the rest of his miserable career.

Hey… it worked for James Franco, didn't it?