A National Party No More?

Does Sarah Palin represent the future of the Republican Party? Well, yes and no.

First, Palin speaks to the right constituencies. For the Republican Party to flourish, it needs to speak to the aspirations of working-class voters in general and to women in particular.

You might say that John McCain is the candidate of the first half-hour of the Today Show--the hard-news gruel that most viewers simply endure as they wait for light entertainment--while Palin represents the softer focus of the rest of the program. That is the same terrain occupied by Mike Huckabee, who spoke more forcefully and intelligently about fighting obesity than about fighting radical jihadists, and Barack Obama, who has already become a cultural icon in the Jack Kennedy vein.

Moreover, Palin’s deft handling of her trial by fire this past week suggests that she has a steely determination that will serve her well. Her address at the Republican National Convention was greeted with thunderous applause and, more importantly, a television audience that fell just shy of Barack Obama’s. Barring disaster, she will be a conservative folk hero for decades to come--and actually, it is entirely possible that an electoral disaster will only reinforce love for Palin among the conservative grassroots, who are nothing if not loyal.

Palin was a Happy Warrior, hitting back at her critics with wit and charm and also a hint of venom. And then, of course, there is the symbolism of her selection as McCain’s running mate.

We know that Palin is an ardent social conservative, one who practices the pro-life values she preaches, much to the alarm of some of her most ferocious critics. Yet she is also a crusader against public corruption and is loathed by many in Alaska’s Republican establishment. As a working mother, Palin represents a critical constituency for Republicans, and, as evidenced by her speech, she has a gift for translating the case against big government in appealing, accessible language.

Imagine what might have happened in St. Paul this week had McCain named Joe Lieberman, independent Democrat of Connecticut, as his running mate. Chances are, we’d have seen an open revolt among pro-lifers, whether or not McCain and Lieberman made a one-term pledge or assurances to appoint anti- Roe judges. In fact, those assurances would only serve to underline the party’s deep social conservatism to swing voters in the suburbs.

The non-conservative press might have made favorable noises regarding McCain’s maverick move, yet it is far more likely that they’d highlight Lieberman’s hawkish stance on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drawing attention to an issue that is a vulnerability for Republicans almost as much as it is a strength. There would undoubtedly be serious agitation for a minor-party challenger from the evangelical right. The Palin nomination, in contrast, has had an almost magical effect. It has erased all of the conservative ill will that has long been directed against McCain--an extraordinary feat.

But while there’s no doubt that Palin can, and will, fire up the base, it is by no means obvious that she can expand the Republican tent. The McCain-Palin ticket is unusual in that neither Republican hails from the Old Confederacy, the demographic heart of today’s party. Yet we have no reason to believe that the McCain-Palin coalition will be any less narrowly southern than those who barely elected George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

When Zell Miller wrote A National Party No More, he was referring to the Democrats--but when you consider Republican defeats across the South in special elections, when you watch northeastern Republicans edge toward extinction, you wonder if it is the Republican Party that will become a regional rump.

Palin’s culture-war appeal won’t make the GOP America’s majority party--an aggressive new agenda on health care, education and jobs will. During his lackluster speech on Thursday night, McCain floated a wage insurance proposal, clearly designed to draw in voters in the big industrial states of the Midwest. That's a step in the right direction.

But such proposals can’t simply be tacked on, and they can’t simply serve as a Band-Aid designed to heal the wounds caused by industrial need. Rather, they need to be carefully woven into a pro-growth narrative, one that outlines in rich detail how Republican policies can materially help stressed-out moms and dads leap ahead economically.

There was one candidate who came close to doing exactly this for a very brief period of time: the much-derided Mitt Romney. Sadly, Romney has reinvented himself as a right-wing caricature, while McCain looks too fondly to America’s past. Sarah Palin could be the future of the Republican Party--but only if she can connect her gut-level personal appeal to a meaty economic agenda.