It's My Party (29 page)

The GOP may yet go into retreat. Lord knows it has experience at losing. But for now it looks as though the GOP’s principles
of self-reliance, limited government, and respect for the Judeo-Christian moral tradition have invested it with continuing
appeal. Whenever the GOP seems old, fusty, and hopelessly WASPy, I remind myself that this fall it might sweep into power,
winning the White House and both houses of Congress. It might. It really might.

A love affair? With the Republican Party? Strange to say it, but yes. The GOP has commanded the loyalty of my family for as
many generations back as I was able to check. It stands for principles that I myself share. I figure that somehow or other
I owe it a little emotional involvement. And the more I think about it, the more I recognize that my relationship with the
GOP bears all the marks of an affair. This is a bizarre notion. I admit that. But I can’t shake it. You see, sometimes I find
myself thinking about the Republican Party in the middle of the day (when I wonder what Ronald Reagan would have made of the
struggle between George W. Bush and John McCain). Other times, I find myself feeling so irritated with the GOP that I want
to break off our relationship (last year, when the House Republicans enacted their specious tax cut), but somehow I never
do. The bad times are bad (the presidential campaign of Bob Dole), but the good times are good (election night in 1994, when
I swilled champagne while watching returns come in showing that the GOP had won control of the House of Representatives for
the first time in four decades). The GOP has led me on, like an old love, proving more fascinating the better I’ve gotten
to know it, without ever losing its capacity to annoy, gall, infuriate, and exasperate me. It’s my party.

G
allivanting around the country to talk to Republicans is a good way to max out your credit card, and I am grateful to those
who permitted me to pursue this folly without starving. I wish to name in particular the John M. Olin Foundation and its president,
William E. Simon, and executive director, James Piereson; the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and its president, Michael
S. Joyce; the New Citizenship Project and its chairman, William Kristol, executive director, Gary Schmitt, and former director,
Kenneth Weinstein; and my friend and guru, Roger Hertog.

Needless to say, I am indebted to everyone who took the time to speak to me about the GOP. Most of them appear in the text.
I hope they are content to see that as their reward. But several who do not appear in the text offered me invaluable help
as well. These include Clark Judge, Steven Man-acek, and Chase Untermeyer, close friends who provided frequent encouragement,
which I needed; Richard Wirthlin, who provided polling data and—this is the tricky part—helped me to understand it; William
F. Buckley Jr. of
National Review
, Martin Anderson, John Cogan, Jerry Dorfman, John Ferejohn, Morris Fiorina, and Shelby Steele, of the Hoover Institution,
Nelson Polsby, of the University of California at Berkeley, and Jeffrey Hart and Charles Stinson, of Dartmouth College, all
of whom provided insights born of minds more rigorous than my own; and John McGraw, who merits a special word. Chairman of
the California Republican Party, John got me into Republican events, told me the difference between what seemed to be happening
and what was actually happening, and explained what each of the factions in the GOP wants. Without the grounding in Republican
politics that John gave me in California, I would have been even more baffled than I was when I turned to the rest of the
country.

My assistant, Susan Schendel, contributed immeasurably to the project by being two things the author is not, meticulous and
serene. Searching for facts, my research assistant, Sam Abrams, proved prodigious, turning the Internet inside out. Barbara
Sedonic of the White House Writers Group joined the project in the final weeks, double-checking all my assertions. The editors
of the
Atlantic Monthly
permitted me to base the maps in this book on maps that I first came across in the pages of their magazine. I am indebted
to them all.

As I have noted elsewhere, my agent, Richard Pine, suggested the idea for this volume. My editor, John Aherne, proved congenial,
which is good, and skillful, which is even better. Colin Fox, who also worked on the book, made several superb suggestions.
I am grateful to each. As for my publisher, Jamie Raab—well, there really is no way to account for all that Jamie did to bring
this book into being. There is also no way to thank her, although it has crossed my mind to walk up Sixth Avenue on my knees.

I reserve a particular expression of gratitude for the director of the Hoover Institution, John Raisian. John took a deep
breath when I told him I wanted to write this book. Then he told me to go ahead. He’s the best boss I’ve ever had.

Which brings me to the five people who endured the most while I was composing this volume. To my wife, Edita, and our children,
Edita Maria, Pedro, NicolÁs, and AndrÉs, a promise. Next weekend, I’ll put up the basketball hoop.

^*
GOP stands for Grand Old Party. I’ve looked at every political dictionary I could find to learn where the term originated.
Nobody seems to know. It simply begins popping up in newspaper accounts in the late nineteenth century. I happen to like the
term—it conveys both warmth and a certain amusement—so I employ it throughout this volume.

^*
My publisher is squeezing the schedule as much as possible, but I’m still having to compose these words almost six months
before the book will appear.

^*
Since the federal government enacted the welfare reform of 1996, welfare rolls across the country have dropped 40 percent.
Although Democrats now associate themselves with the reform, the measure has a telling history. The Republican-controlled
Congress passed the measure three times before President Clinton finally signed it.

^*
The 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas amount to another neat demonstration of the effect the
press has on voters. During the hearings, you’ll recall, Anita Hill, who once worked for Clarence Thomas at the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, charged that Thomas had subjected her to sexual harassment. Thomas denied the charges. Polls showed
that a majority of the public believed Thomas, not Hill. In the months that followed, the press treated Thomas skeptically
and Hill as an injured heroine. The polls began to shift. One year later, polls showed that a majority of the public believed
Hill, not Thomas.

^*
In each election, the remainder of the Jewish vote went to third party candidates, chiefly Ross Perot.

^*
Since racial preferences were abolished in the UC system, black and Hispanic enrollment has indeed dropped at certain schools,
including the two most selective institutions in the system, Berkeley and UCLA, but it has increased at other schools, including
UC San Diego. As the black conservative Thomas Sowell writes, “it was virtually inevitable that minority students would redistribute
themselves among institutions. But the black and Hispanic students who no longer went to Berkeley did not disappear into thin
air or fail to go to college at all. UC San Diego is not chopped liver.”

^*
Giuliani has only managed to bring down the crime rate, his opponents often charge, by using police brutality. The charge
fails to withstand scrutiny. In 1999, for example, New York City experienced only eleven fatal shootings, the lowest incidence
since the city began keeping records.

^*
Strickly speaking, the GOP never counts its members. It can’t. There are roughly 29 million registered Republicans, but
they all live in the twenty-eight states that permit citizens to name a party when they fill out the paperwork that entitles
them to vote. That leaves an indeterminate number of Republicans living in the other twenty-two states. Surveys suggest that
among Americans who are old enough to vote, about 30 percent consider themselves members of the GOP, a statistic that would
place the number of Republicans at some 61 million. But who knows?

^*
The tax cuts were enacted after Kennedy’s death.