If
these
posts are any indication, the amount of Club for
Growth-bashing on the right is going to increase in the wake of
Arlen Specter's defection. I share the
skepticism that 2010 was the greatest time to risk a Senate
seat by settling scores with Specter. But let's keep things in
perspective.
Arlen Specter left the Republican Party for two reasons. One, he
admits, is
that his own stimulus vote "caused a schism" with conservatives
"which makes our differences irreconcilable." The second reason
is that his base had already defected to the Democratic Party
before him: "Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in
Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats."
These Republicans were not kicked out of the party by the Club
for Growth. They
tell pollsters they left because they did not like Bush-era
Republican leadership. They claim to disagree with Republican
policies pretty much across the board, but it was the last eight
years that finally moved them to bolt. There is nothing like a
sustained popular perception of a failed presidency to send
nonideological supporters of a party streaming toward the exits.
You can plausibly blame the Club for Growth for three Democratic
House seats: Maryland's First Congressional District, Michigan's
Seventh District, and Idaho's First District, two of which the
Club-backed Republicans were able to win in the tough 2006 cycle.
The Democrats have picked up over 50 House seats in the last two
elections. Iraq, Katrina, and the economic crisis have cost
Republicans far more seats than the Club.
Pat Toomey didn't fail to locate the weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, he didn't commend Brownie on doing a "heckuva job" in
New Orleans, and he didn't preside over a financial meltdown or
mortgage crisis. To the extent Toomey can be linked to these
things at all, it is precisely because conservatives didn't spend
the last eight years being disloyal Republicans. Instead they
were loyal and partisan to a fault.
So yes, if the Democrats get to pass nationalized health care
they should erect a statue in a certain Republican's honor. That
Republican's name is George W. Bush.
