Student analyzes GOP battle among candidates

By Hampton Ballowe

Everyone knows about the coming presidential election as well as the current GOP presidential primaries. Many people awaiting the next election want a change to the current government. According to the Winthrop Poll, 60% of people believe the government is going in the wrong direction, and several polls show that Obama has an approval rating below 50%. Generally, this gives Republicans a lot of enthusiasm and strength going into the election. Too bad for the GOP they could be battling more than just Obama in the national election.

There is a power grab happening in the GOP between the old guard moderate Republicans and the very conservative young guns in the Tea Party. Whenever a third party starts to form from either the Democrats or Republicans it steals some of the old party’s members. When the Tea Party started forming from the GOP, Republicans quickly started backing the new party and quickly tried to engulf the new conservative faction. Alas, the GOP only had a few congressional members that were actual conservatives or good enough politicians that they could easily switch over to being more conservative. So, in 2010 when big name conservatives and moderates were elected to the House, conflict was inevitable. 

Whether you like Nancy Pelosi or not, one can not say that she was bad at being Speaker of the House. Congress Woman Pelosi was great at mobilizing Democrats to get bills passed and work together to get things done. She united her party in the House, which is what her job called for. 

John Boehner is not as lucky as his predecessor. Boehner is not just trying to unite one party, but two parties hastily crammed together, to ensure victory in 2010. True, Republicans won the House, some seats in the Senate, and many state governorships as well as state legislatures. But look at the job they have done when they had to work together in the House. When the government had to pass spending bills to ensure that there would not be a government shutdown, Republicans had trouble agreeing on bills that  Boehner put up to legislation. 

The young guns of the Tea Party claimed that the bills did not cut enough spending. While initially some moderate Republicans did not oppose the idea of increasing taxes, they quickly rose against the idea out of fear of being called un-conservative by the Tea Party. When it came to voting for the spending bills, Republicans still had to get help from the Democrat minority of the House to pass bills.

Furthermore, Boehner has tried to pass more than one bill that would once have been considered conservative. For each of these bills the Republican majority of the House was split because the Tea Party half believed the bills were not conservative enough. More than once has Boehner had to take his own bills off the House floor because there was not enough support, despite his party having a large majority in the House.

Since the start of the GOP presidential primary the rift between the old guard Republicans and Tea Party republicans is clear. Members of the GOP keep looking for another candidate besides the moderate old guard choice, Mitt Romney. It is not because of his Mormonism that people are shying away from him. Polls have shown that more and more Republicans are starting to care less about the differences of Mormonism and Christianity. The reason they want another choice is because Romney is one of the Politicians in the GOP that has flip flopped on some of his views to appear more conservative.

Even though there are still three conservative alternatives to Romney, he is not out of trouble yet. Rick Santorum has the best chance at beating Romney in the primaries. As long as Santorum wins six or seven of the eight Midwestern states. Santorum has already won two Mid-western states, Minnesota and Iowa, and is thought to win a third in Michigan. This would be a huge set back to Romney who was born in that state, and his father was also governor of Michigan. 

But Santorum aside, Romney is still strongly favored to become the GOP Presidential candidate. Even that is not refreshing when you look at the reason why he has lost states like Colorado, or how he has not won states as well as he should have. Romney has had lower voter turnout in many states, showing a lack of enthusiasm in the GOP as a whole about Romney and the other candidates. So when, or if, Romney becomes the GOP presidential nominee, he will have to deal with a lack of conservative voter turnout, and possibly even a third party candidate from the Tea Party. 

When Representative Weiner left the House in New York, there was a small election that could be an interesting foreshadowing of a Romney versus Obama election. In the New York election, a Tea Party backed candidate ran against the Republican and Democrat candidate and the Republican ended up winning. However, the format of New York’s county is different from the format of the Nation. If a Tea Party candidate ends up running against the Republican and Democrat candidate in the National election, it will be much easier for Obama to split the south and win the election. Even though Independents are starting to shy away from Obama, if Romney is the Republican candidate then he will inevitably vie for the big conservative votes. That is what Romney has always done, and that is what he will always do.

The GOP is currently undergoing a power struggle and American progress is caught in the crossfire. If America had a GOP led government then it would suffer from political stalemate, indecision and infighting. Who the victor of this intra-party struggle will be is unknown, but one thing is for sure: the GOP is unpredictable.