If there's one thing Democrats envy about Republicans above all else, it would have to be the Republicans' ability to be unified. This occurs in large ways and small, from congressional votes to language; once a new moniker for something is coined ("death tax," "Obamacare," etc.), everybody on their side uses it. The Democratic party is more ideologically diverse and more unruly, and it just can't muster the same degree of organizational coherence and message discipline. Ordinarily, that gives the Republicans a small but meaningful advantage in whatever debate we're having at a particular moment. But that unanimity has its down side, as they're now finding out. When Paul Ryan released his budget, he decided, whether out of conviction, or staking out a bargaining position, or as a means of shifting the debate, that he was going to go whole-hog. Not only was his budget going to slash social programs and cut taxes for the wealthy, but it would propose privatizing Medicare, turning it from an insurance program into a voucher program. Ryan surely knew that Democrats would criticize it, but he nevertheless decided that the political cost was worth pushing this longtime conservative goal. And here's where the unity problem comes in. Ryan is the GOP's new star. His budget immediately became the Republican budget. The party's natural preference for unity kicked in. All but four Republicans in the House voted for it, some no doubt reluctantly, because their leadership told them that they had to. No Republican thinking of running for president opposed it. And when Newt Gingrich criticized the Ryan Medicare plan, it was almost as though the party had to punish him. Had he said, before the Ryan plan existed, "I don't think we should turn Medicare into a voucher program; there are other reforms I'd prefer," it wouldn't have been a problem. But once the Ryan plan became the Republican plan, no heresy could be tolerated. So now, Newt is being savaged by those on his own side. But what they're defending is an incredibly unpopular plan, one that is going to haunt them from now to the 2012 election. There isn't going to be a Republican running for any office anywhere who won't find him or herself on the defensive for supporting the destruction of Medicare. This doesn't happen because of some conspiracy; it isn't as though an edict is delivered from the RNC. That's both the strength and weakness of the system: it locks in an idea or a policy position as holy writ with incredible speed, and responsibility for policing transgressions is distributed throughout the conservative movement, from politicians to talk show hosts to activists to a guy shaking Newt's hand in a hotel lobby. But when that system locks in on a politically unpopular position -- as has happened now -- it can pull the party down with a momentum nobody has the power to stop.
