Sure, 91 House Republicans finally voted to pass a tweakedversion of the financial bailout bill Friday. But for the GOP's bighonchos, last Monday's defeat in the House of Treasury SecretaryHenry M. Paulson Jr.'s plan was still the most stinging humiliationthey've suffered in years. To unlock the mystery of the earlierbill's stunning rejection, consider two numbers: 82 and 0. The firstis the percentage of retiring Republican representatives who votedfor the bill. The second is the percentage of Republican freshmenwho did.
Think about that for a moment. The GOP's retirees, the people whofinally no longer have to make anybody happy, went overwhelminglyfor the bailout, but a grand total of zero GOP freshmen agreed toback the plan that their party's president, Treasury secretary,House leader, whip and ranking member on the Financial ServicesCommittee all begged them to support. John Boehner, the Houseminority leader, even teared up before the roll call as he chokedout the pleading words, 'Vote yes.' It's basic math: If Boehnercould have controlled his freshmen, the bill would have passed. In apolitical season overwhelmed with claims to audacity, it was oneheck of an audacious coup.
What the GOP's next generation did Monday was the politicalequivalent of a family's babies shaking off their daddy and theirmommy and their grandpa and every elder within eight branches of thefamily tree. But their gesture of defiance was bigger than a $700billion bailout bill. It was the big reveal to a question we've beenasking ever since the GOP flubbed the 2006 midterm elections andembarked on a journey of reinvention: What will the RepublicanParty's new guard look like? The answer lies in that most extremeand uncompromising of numbers: zero. The new guard is fiercelystubborn, gutsily insubordinate, drama-loving and -- compared withthe 82-percent-for-compromise old guard -- unadulteratedlyideological. And it could take the GOP off an even higher cliff thanthe one the party lurched off two years ago.
Therapists often say that hitting bottom can be a blessing indisguise because it gives you the chance to redefine yourself. Andin the aftermath of 2006, when the Democrats retook both houses ofCongress in the midterm elections, downtrodden Republicans had bigdreams of redefinition. Some held onto that old-time Reaganreligion. But the scribes at National Review imagined a RepublicanParty repackaged around pragmatic voters prone to 'talk more abouthealth care than about the budget.' Washington Post columnist andformer Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson hoped that the Republicanbrand could become more compassionate.
The 2007 presidential primary promised to provide a swiftsurvival-of-the-fittest test for the competing new visions. WhenSen. John McCain prevailed, it seemed that the winning philosophywas one that, in the main, dumped Republican orthodoxy in favor ofsolutions-oriented practicality. (In case you've been living in aspider hole this year and haven't heard, McCain likes callinghimself a maverick, a doer, a wooer of independents, a post-partisan.)
But McCain's triumph actually hid the fact that, at the lowerlevels of the party, the emerging center of gravity is moreconservative, not less. In the House, such young members as JebHensarling (Tex.), Mike Pence (Ind.) and their ideologically puristsoulmates on the Republican Study Committee (which absorbed most ofthe GOP freshmen) began to influence the party's agenda from theright, clamoring to make pork-busting the GOP's focus, demandinglegislation to lower taxes and even mounting a prank revolt on a war-funding bill in May, just to flex their muscles. 'The Americanpeople thought Republicans weren't acting like Republicans,'Hensarling explained.
Across the Capitol, Hensarling's ideological allies in theSenate, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma,hauled their own caucus rightward, forcing appropriations freezes,waylaying an intelligence authorization bill that required theadministration to report on its secret CIA prisons and killing themoderate immigration reform bill backed by Bush and McCain. DeMintrecently launched a political action committee that donates only tosenators who have their right-wing bona fides in order. Over thelast two years, these new-guard conservatives -- all of whom wereawarded a perfect '100' rating from the American Conservative Unionin 2007 -- have arguably fashioned themselves into the mostlistened-to Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The bailout bill was the new guard's biggest show of force yet.Hensarling's Republican Study Committee ('The Caucus of HouseConservatives,' proclaims its Web site) gave those GOP freshmen thepolitical cover to buck their leadership. They made it clear thattheir revolt was more over principle than over details, a stand onbehalf of what one GOP Hill staffer calls 'true, rock-ribbed, hard-core conservatism.' Hensarling derided the bailout as the 'slipperyslope to socialism,' while his ally Tom Feeney (Fla.) insisted thatthe crisis was actually produced by a failure to adequately veneratederegulation. Another young Turk, Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), evencompared the bailout to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. (I supposethat makes George W. Bush a communist. I told you these guys wereaudacious.)
Not every Republican is happy about the rise of the newconservatives. Washington Post political reporter Dan Balz wrotelast week of 'a veteran of a past Republican administration' who'could barely spit out his contempt Monday for the actions of theHouse Republicans. 'They would rather be right in their views -- that ideology counts more, that ideology is crucial in any decision -- rather than making incremental progress.' '
But Republicans like that guy will have to get used to thegrowing influence of the conservatives. They have enthusiasm anddemographics on their side. Moderate Republicans are getting offedall along the Eastern seaboard; eager grassroots activists arenominating right-wingers such as New Mexico's Steve Pearce andVirginia's Jim Gilmore in Senate primaries; and the AmericanConservative Union's congressional ratings dramatically show whichway the wind is blowing. The Republicans who are retiring this yeargot an average ACU rating of 78 in 2007, placing them squarelybetween conservatism and centrism. But by my calculations, theRepublican freshmen -- the vanguard of the generation that will bereplacing these fleeing moderates -- got an average rating of 97.
If you're a true, rock-ribbed, hard-core conservative, you'reprobably happy about all this. As a card-carrying moderate weenie,I'm not, obviously. But it's not just the policies of the GOP's newguard that spell trouble; it's the attitude. What these young Turksdo share with McCain is a taste for the grand gesture and theattention-getting stunt, the determination not to go gently intodefeat and the psychological pleasure derived from creating a wholelot of political Sturm und Drang. After their May revolt on the war-funding bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)challenged Mike Pence about why on Earth his faction had bolted onwhat was supposed to be bipartisan legislation. 'Never stopfighting,' Pence replied.
But all this drama, fun as it is, doesn't make you look likeyou're ready to be at the governing wheel. (See McCain, John, andrecent polling.) And it's this attitude -- the thrill of doublingdown on ideology, of damning those torpedoes -- that helped getpeople such as Pearce and Gilmore nominated in states that obviouslywon't support their degree of conservatism. They'll probably lose inNovember, and Republicans will be two Senate seats closer to beingideological irritants rather than the Democrats' serious rivals.
If the GOP's ultimate goal is to take down the Democrats andregain power, then I'll let Jeb Hensarling make the case against hisnew guard's strategy in his own words. After the 2006 defeat,Hensarling laid out how he thought the GOP should proceed: 'Likemosquitoes in a nudist colony,' he said, 'Republicans will have morethan enough opportunities to show the voters we deserve ourconservative brand back.' It's just the strategy of ideologicalirritation and provocation he went on to undertake.
An attack of mosquitoes in a nudist colony would, quiteliterally, be a frightful pain in the bum. But who thinks thatnudism will meet its end because of mosquitoes?
evefairbanks@gmail.com
Eve Fairbanks is the New Republic's congressional correspondent.
