Voters Flee GOP Fury Like It's 1964

Angry base has handed election to Obama, writes Cohen

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 21, 2008 10:10 AM CDT

(Newser) – Eight years ago George W. Bush made it to the White House as a "compassionate conservative," with plans to reform education and build a multiracial coalition. In 2008, writes Richard Cohen, that vision of the GOP is dead—replaced by "a mean, grumpy, exclusive, narrow-minded and altogether retrograde Republican Party." And John McCain's campaign bears a disturbing resemblance to that of another Arizona senator: Barry Goldwater.

The Democrats have problems, but you can remain in that party "without compromising basic intellectual or cultural values." But as Colin Powell implied Sunday, the GOP has become the home only of "its furiously angry base," an anti-intellectual movement celebrating a Sarah Palin vision of "drab provincialism." Powell, writes the Washington Post columnist, won't be the last Republican to abandon a party that, as in 1964, is being led to ruin by an out-of-touch Arizonan.

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (2)]

As in 1964, today's Republican party has abandoned its moderates and given in to a furious, angry base, writes Richard Cohen. (©cliff1066)

July 1964: A Goldwater girl campaigning for Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for the presidential election. (Getty Images)

John McCain shakes hands with the crowd during a rally Monday, Oct. 20, 2008, in Belton, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Colin Powell speaks during a taping of "Meet the Press" at NBC Sunday Oct. 19, 2008, in Washington. (AP Photo/Meet The Press, Brendan Smialowski)

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But just as Bush could not manage the wars, he could not manage his own party. His legacy is not merely in tatters. It does not even exist. - Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist

Those moderates willing to overlook the choice of Palin retain the intellectual nimbleness that enabled them to persist in championing a war fought for duplicitous reasons and extol cultural values they do not for a minute share. -

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Voters Flee GOP Fury Like It's 1964