E.J. Dionne: GOP Identity Crisis

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070615_gop_identity_crisis/

GOP Identity Crisis

By E.J. Dionne

WASHINGTON—The great drama in American politics today revolves around the question: What is the Republican Party?

We think we know. Republicans are the party of business and of evangelical Christians, of better-off voters and people who hate taxes, the party of conservatism and the South, the party that wants to be aggressive in the war on terror.

But the instability in the Republican presidential campaign, the longing for a Fred Thompson candidacy, and the sharp split over immigration all point to an identity crisis at the end of the Bush era.

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With the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showing Americans giving the Republican Party “their most negative assessment” in the survey’s two-decade history, the party’s presidential contest has become a battle of unhappy warriors.

This disaffection explains the pure rage in many parts of the party over immigration. By highlighting the failure of border enforcement, the battle has given rank-and-file Republicans an acceptable channel for venting against the administration’s incompetence. It has also become the focus of Republican doubts about Bush-style internationalism and, especially for less-affluent Republicans, a means for expressing legitimate economic and cultural anxieties.

This could be the new Republican Party in the making: a disappointed, dissatisfied and inward-looking coalition that abandons Reagan’s hopefulness and tries to hang on by playing on fears of terrorism and anger about immigration. If Fred Thompson’s job is to restore optimism to a dispirited bunch, he faces a task that might overwhelm even Ronald Reagan.

E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is postchat(at symbol)aol.com.

Comments below the article are also worth reading.

The party of business? Hello? How many off shore businesses and off shore accounts have they encouraged? They went from hafta Nafta to Cafta to toobadfta for anyone who isn't on wallstreet or in oil.

Evangelical christians who want to run a Mormon for prez???? Court the Baptist vote??? No, these people are religious when it suits them.

The better off voters. Well let's consider this. The only reason they are better off is because most of them are crooks who DON'T pay a fair tax but whine about needing one. The only taxes they like are the ones the middle class pays for them.

Republicans from the south are two things. First, they are stupid. I don't mean they just make wrong headed decisions. I mean they are stupid. Dumb. Box of rocks. Republicans from the north depend on that stupidity and republicans from the west exploit them both.

They are aggressive about the so called bullshit war on terror----as long as neither they or their kids are involved.

In other words, the republican party and what it supposedly stands for is a sham.

The GOP is staring in the mirror of public opinion, and thinking: "maybe if I break the mirror, I'll look more attractive!"