A GOP in Disarray?

As much as I hold today's GOP in contempt, the party has come back somewhat in generic polling after the debacle of the government shut own.  And the rocky roll out of the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act has certainly given the GOP some legitimate basis for criticism of Barack Obama. Criticism that resonates with those unwilling or too stupid to understand that they are already paying for the uninsured through sky high medical costs that are grossly inflated to recapture all the write offs for treatment of the uninsured that hospitals and other providers must endure.    Despite this toe hold, the GOP lacks a unified message and intra-party warfare remains the norm.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this continued disarray.  Here are excerpts:

If only the GOP had a message.  There is one proposition on which the party’s warring factions agree: “We don’t like Obama’s Affordable Care Act.” But there is a lack of consensus, to put it mildly, on how this visceral dislike of a president and his signature policy initiative should translate into concrete political action.

For Republicans — to invert a classic George W. Bush bon mot — Obamacare has somehow become a divider, not a uniter. In a year when the GOP may have a legitimate chance of capturing the Senate, several primary contests appear likely to devolve into bloody battles over Obama’s health-care reforms — not whether to oppose them, but how.

In Georgia, for example, one of the leading candidates to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss is Rep. Jack Kingston. He has voted repeatedly — and fruitlessly — with his House Republican colleagues to defund the Affordable Care Act. But when he suggested recently that to “just step back and let this thing fall to pieces on its own” was not “the responsible thing to do,” opponents quickly attacked Kingston as some kind of quisling who was waving a flag of surrender.

Republicans are going to have to decide whether to collaborate in making the Affordable Care Act work better — or risk being seen as working against the nation’s best interests.

On a range of issues, this is the party’s essential dilemma. Ideologues want to continue the practice of massive, uncompromising resistance to anything Obama tries to accomplish. Pragmatists want the GOP to demonstrate that it can be reasonable and trustworthy, on the theory that voters want their government to function well and won’t put a bunch of anti-government extremists in charge of running it.

The question of how the GOP should proceed really should be a no-brainer. But after cynically taking advantage of the huge jolt of energy provided by tea party activists, the Republican establishment is finding that these true believers don’t necessarily listen when they’re told to go sit in a corner and shut up.

The no-compromises GOP base is fertile fundraising territory for potential presidential candidates, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and for pressure groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth. So these provocateurs can be counted on to keep far-right anger and resentment at a rolling boil — and resist the establishment’s attempt to lower the temperature.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is expected to spend up to $50 million to ensure that the Republican Party chooses no extremist “loser candidates” for Senate races. As Scott Reed, the chamber’s chief political strategist, told the Wall Street Journal: “That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.”  Wanna bet?

The reality, the Frankenstein monster in the form of the Christofascists/Tea Party base remains impossible to control.  Sadly, the GOP establishment did not think trough the long term consequences of surrendering the party grassroots to those who extol ignorance and are most motivated by racism and religious extremism.  The monster will prove difficult to kill.