The Daily Warning

So, granted, the Whig Party was only really successful for a few years, while the Republican Party has been big for 155 years now, but there are a lot of parallels.  Although the Whig Party was formed to support certain principles (modernization, protectionism, improving roads, railroads, and canals, etc.) but eventually it was just a coalition of people fighting over control of the coalition.  They initially opposed the annexation of Texas, but dropped that in order to get Mexican War Hero Zachary Taylor elected, but continued to be very split over the Compromise of 1850, which Taylor opposed and his VP Millard Filmore supported it, so when Taylor died in 1850, Filmore passed it through.  This led to slave-holding Whigs to block Filmore’s nomination in 1852, and their candidate Winfield Scott got absolutely caned by Democrat Franklin Pierce, and the party split up.  The Republican Party combined Northern Whigs, quite a few Democrats, most of the Free Soil Party and a few of the anti-Irish Know-Nothing Party, while Southern Whigs tried to form their own parties, failed, and were eventually mostly absorbed by the Democrats.A party that has lost its unifying sense of principle, split up into factions that repeatedly fight inward, allowing themselves to be divided and conquered?  Situations pushing a core issue of principle for a large faction of said party to the fore, a core issue of principle that has been ignored by the party for years?  No, I certainly can’t think of any modern parallels.There was somewhat of a hubub risen when Sarah Palin announced that she was going to campaign for small government candidates regardless of party.  It didn’t strike me as particularly odd, as she’s never been a particularly dedicated Republican partisan.  She’s been proud of the fact that her husband and son are not Republicans, she made her name for herself taking down corrupt Republican establishment types, it seems she’s a Republican in the same way that Abraham Lincoln was a whig.For a long time the Christian Right has garnered a disproportionate amount of political clout because they were able to inspire massive turnout.  School boards, local elections, special elections, anything where there typically isn’t a large turn out, those organizations got their people there, and in turn created a massive political force that played a very dominant role in Republican politics, especially over the last decade.Sarah Palin inspires that kind of response.  She leaves a lot of Americans cold, but the ones who like her tend to LOVE her.  As Patrick Ishmael explains in a piece on Hot Air, this could lead to her becoming a massive force in 2010.  Turnout is traditionally pretty low in midterm elections.  Most people either feel they don’t know enough to make an informed decision, or they don’t care.  If Sarah Palin were able to get her base to turn out for the people she campaigns for, they could prove to be quite a bit more than the margin of victory in a lot of races, she could essentially pick who wins.This works because she’s not Republican establishment.  People believe her because she’s honest, she says her piece, even if it couldn’t get RNC approval. So what if she wanted to start a new party?   According to the Cook Partisan Voter Index, out of the competitive house races, there are 43 Democrats who hold seats with a Republican PVI (meaning that the average of the last 2 Presidential elections has the district voting more for the Republican candidates).  There aren’t many going the other way, as most seats the Republicans could lose to the Democrats have already been lost.  That said, there are 2 Republican senators in Maine, which went for Obama 69-30, there are 2 Democrat senators in Arkansas, which went for McCain 57-41, there is a Democrat Senator in Nebraska, Louisiana, North Dakota, 2 Democrats in Montana, not to mention a Democrat governor of Wyoming, a Republican governor of Minnesota, Democrats are in a good position to pick up a senate seat in Kentucky, there’s a Democrat senator in Indiana, 2 Democrats in West Virginia, etc.  Granted, there are a lot of things that you could read from this, but what this says to me is that there is a large political base which is really not into either political party.So let’s say Obama wins reelection because the some Republicans sabotage other Republicans (say, they nominate Haley Barbour and northern Republicans vote for Obama, or Tim Pawlenty gets nominated and Southerners don’t show up).  Sarah Palin has massive public support, which she has used to build massive establishment support, having any number of congressmen who know they would not be in office if she hadn’t helped them and won’t be in office in the future if they appear to lose her favor.   She’s at a crossroads, she can get behind the Republican Party to save it from oblivion, but she’d have to deal with all of these elites who’ll make sure they get a piece of her, or she can start her own party, that’s about small government and common sense values.  She takes the rural and libertarian sides of the Republican Party and the conservatives from the Democrats (do you think Ben Nelson could afford to tell her no?  What about Mary Landrieu or Mark Pryor?  Chet Edwards?  Jim Webb?  Jon Tester?  Max Baucus?)  And so what’s left of the Republican party either comes over to the new party or gets absorbed by the Democrats, and we have a new party. So what do you think? 

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