"I'd rather have 'em inside the tent pissin' out than outside the
tent pissin' in." – Lyndon Baines Johnson
During the 2004 Republican National Convention, I was interviewed by a
college student filming a documentary about the election. I told him
one of the reasons we were going to win was that we had a bigger tent
than the Democrats, citing the fact that while at their conventions
they didn't allow pro-life Democrats to speak (see Bill Casey in
1992), just that evening the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani had spoken at
ours. While that was true of the two approaches to the conventions at
the time, the Democrats learned their lesson in time for 2006 and
2008. And perhaps more importantly for us, it wasn't very true beyond
those conventions.
The Bush Administration was notorious for punishing Republicans and
conservatives who were critical of its agenda or approach. It was
widely known that a former colleague of mine was not welcome at
Administration events because he had written too many letters
criticizing the Administration's attitudes on fiscal issues. Another
acquaintance was fired from a think tank for similar reasons (this was
in the heady days of 2004-early 2005, when the think tank's donors
were no doubt still high on the fumes of our supposed permanent
majority). It wasn't long before it was widely known in Republican
circles: don't question the Decider.
This isn't another post about the folly of forcing moderates out of
the party, although I think some of those posts are quite valid. This
is about forcing out moderates AND conservatives who didn't subscribe
to dictates from party leaders – even when those dictates flew in the
face of some of the most basic tenets of conservatism. Party
discipline is one thing; demanding complete intellectual fealty is
quite another. Much like the barber who keeps making small
adjustments until he's left with a buzzcut, the ongoing forcing out of
independent actors and thinkers running the gamut from the liberal
Chris Shays to the conservative Bruce Bartlett has left us with only
the skeleton of what was a majority party.
This isn't just important for winning elections either. The party
also will be better off intellectually for allowing diverse opinions.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend James Surowiecki's The
Wisdom of Crowds. For one thing, it's a great dissection of why free
markets work, not just as it applies to money, but also to good
decision making. Ask a random group of 100 people to guess the number
of jelly beans in a jar and the average of their guesses will usually
be more accurate than that of the world's greatest mathematician. One
of the key requirements for a good "crowd", however, is diversity. A
group of experts isn't much more useful than a single expert. For a
good result, you need a group composed of some experts, some people
who are completely ignorant, and some people in between, because they
will cancel out each other's error.
I'm taking an extra leap here, but I think a political party benefits
from a similar rationale: diversity of opinion, background and
expertise makes for a better intellectual (and electoral) result. A
party that runs diverse House candidates that are tailored to their
districts will beat a party that only runs one kind of candidate. A
Reagan-style administration that hires an array of smart conservatives
with varied educational backgrounds will be more grounded than an
administration that prefers to hire loyalists with Ivy League degrees
(I have a whole post coming on this one).
I'm not saying the party or movement should concede its principles,
but I am saying that we'll be better off if we accept that our friends
can disagree from time to time and still be our friends, or further,
that not everyone has to be our friend to be helpful. I think we used
to be that party, and the sooner we become that party again the better
off we'll be.
