I doubt anyone would deny that at the moment, the Republican Party takes a harsher view of apostasy than their Democratic counterparts. This is partly because they represent a narrower ideological spectrum of constituents and officeholders, and partly because the party's conservatives recently discovered that they had a good deal of power to purge, which serves not only to get candidates more to their liking but also to make everyone else in the party live in fear of them. The Politico tells us that there's a potential problem in this area for some 2012 presidential candidates:
On the campaign stump, in books, speeches and nationally-televised commercials, aspiring GOP White House candidates such as Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have warned in recent years about the threats from climate change and pledged to limit greenhouse gases. Some have even committed the ultimate sin, endorsing the controversial cap-and-trade concept that was eventually branded "cap and tax."
Now, as they prepare for a wide-open primary season, many of the Republicans are searching for ways to explain themselves to a conservative voting base full of hungry tea party activists and climate skeptics who don't take kindly to environmental issues so closely linked with Al Gore.
"They're in an odd place," Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told POLITICO. "They better have an explanation, an excuse or a mea culpa for why this won't happen again."
And what is the "this" to which Norquist refers? It's having dabbled in something that ends up on the growing list of disqualifying issue positions.
It's not their fault -- after all, cap-and-trade started out as a Republican-friendly idea, using the power of the market to bring down carbon emissions instead of simple government mandates. But then the ground shifted under them, and now they're going to be required to pretend they were drunk or something when they took a position widely embraced within their party at the time. But in what has to be one of the great PR coups of the last few decades, the forces opposed to any kind of action on the climate -- most notably energy companies -- have succeeded in pulling the GOP back from the position it had moved to, which might be characterized as, "Climate change is occurring, and I'm very concerned about it, and eventually we should do something about it, but not now of course." Today, even saying that will get Republicans looking at you like you're a hippie elitist America-hater.
Democrats have their bottom lines too, of course, but they don't seem nearly as strict. In 2008, Hillary Clinton had to do a lot of explaining over her support of the Iraq War, but it certainly didn't get her dismissed out of hand (and recall that every 2004 contender save Howard Dean had supported the war). But if you're running for president in 2012, you're in big trouble if you ever considered such previously Republican ideas as cap-and-trade or an individual mandate for health care. And heaven forbid that in the face of deficits you were even tax-curious. Reminds me of this 1992 debate parody:
Jane Pauley: Honestly now, don't you feel some kind of tax hike will be needed to reduce the deficit?
George Bush: Jane, the answer is no! I will never raise taxes again! Never, ever, ever, ever.. never, ever again! And I mean never, ever, ever, ever, never ever..!!
Jane Pauley: Thank you, Mr. Presi..
George Bush: Never, ever, ever!
Jane Pauley: Mr. President, please..
George Bush: Ever, ever again!
I expect we'll be seeing something similar from at least one or two of these guys. Should be an extremely dignified race.
-- Paul Waldman
