G.O.P, not G.O.D.

John McCain’s win in the South Carolina presidential primary was important for plenty of reasons – in a race where four different candidates could conceivably seize the nomination, surely every state counts. Most importantly to me, it represented the triumph of one part of the Republican party over another. \nIt is not always easy to categorize the different interest groups, ideologies and movements that make up America’s two political parties in ways that are both insightful and useful, but I have always been fond of seeing the Republican party as having both a Southern evangelical half and a Western libertarian half. It is not that difficult to pick out which sides John McCain and Mike Huckabee, the preacher-turned-politician who battled McCain for South Carolina, represent.\nAnyone who has read my columns before should have an easy time guessing which side of the party I support more.\nBut this column is not about my personal feelings about the evangelical movement. Rather I would like to point out that the disarray of the current Republican party is largely the fault of its evangelical branch. \nThe evangelical movement has its pet issues such as abortion, “protecting” the traditional family and preserving the role they think Christianity has played in this country. The pursuit of their goals in these areas has not taken place in a vacuum.\nEvangelicals voted for Bush in droves in 2004, endorsing the kind of incompetence that led us into Iraq on the basis of less than spectacular intelligence while botching the war itself. At the same time, evangelical proselytization of our foreign policy makes a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – which generates so much animosity towards the United States across the Arab world – almost impossible. \nHuckabee’s win in Iowa seems to suggest that some evangelicals would like to see one of their own lead the party at the expense of sensible economic policies. After all, the man regularly derides the effects of free trade while calling for American self-sufficiency in food (sounds like political speak for farm subsidies.) His Fair Tax plan, which calls for the replacement of the income tax with a steep national income tax, has so many problems that if it had a chance of passing, which it does not, America’s economic future would be cloudy at best.\nThis isn’t to suggest that American voters should not vote on the basis of their moral or religious beliefs. I am forced to admit that they have that right and that the practice probably won’t be going out of fashion anytime soon. This is, rather, an accusation against values voters of sinking their own party. It is also a hope that economic conservatives, and yes, perhaps even foreign policy conservatives (neoconservatives excluded) will take back control of their own party. \nAlas, they would probably have to start talking pretty loud to be heard over all the sermonizing.