Julian E. Zelizer: A Governor Who Tests GOP Strategy
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy" and a book on former President Jimmy Carter, and is editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration to be published this fall by Princeton University Press.]
With all eyes focused on how the Democrats will do this November, the story about the divisions unfolding within the Republican Party have equally important long-term consequences for national politics. And now with the Tea Party movement as an additional force in the party, Republican leaders are struggling to contain tensions between right-wing activists and fiscal conservatives.
In recent months, these tensions have been growing because new faces have emerged within the Republican Party that don't fit neatly within the Tea Party fold.
One of the candidates who has received the most buzz in Republican circles is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, dubbed "Gov. Wrecking Ball" by one columnist. How Christie fares in the coming year will be a critical test to gauging where the GOP might be in 2012....
Following the 2008 election, the conservative commentator and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, David Frum, a CNN contributor, had warned that Republicans needed to be cautious about doing things to win in 2010 that would harm them in 2012 and beyond.
The threat is to radicalize the party by moving it so far off center that future Republican candidates would have trouble winning national office. As Frum wrote in his blog post with regard to health care reform, "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat."
If Republicans want to rebuild their party, they must make room for more pragmatic, fiscally minded conservatives like Christie, who are generating excitement in famously blue states....
Read entire article at CNN.com
With all eyes focused on how the Democrats will do this November, the story about the divisions unfolding within the Republican Party have equally important long-term consequences for national politics. And now with the Tea Party movement as an additional force in the party, Republican leaders are struggling to contain tensions between right-wing activists and fiscal conservatives.
In recent months, these tensions have been growing because new faces have emerged within the Republican Party that don't fit neatly within the Tea Party fold.
One of the candidates who has received the most buzz in Republican circles is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, dubbed "Gov. Wrecking Ball" by one columnist. How Christie fares in the coming year will be a critical test to gauging where the GOP might be in 2012....
Following the 2008 election, the conservative commentator and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, David Frum, a CNN contributor, had warned that Republicans needed to be cautious about doing things to win in 2010 that would harm them in 2012 and beyond.
The threat is to radicalize the party by moving it so far off center that future Republican candidates would have trouble winning national office. As Frum wrote in his blog post with regard to health care reform, "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat."
If Republicans want to rebuild their party, they must make room for more pragmatic, fiscally minded conservatives like Christie, who are generating excitement in famously blue states....