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Like the handful of middle-aged Republican women who planted themselves at the Peabody Hotel bar for much of the weekend, I got through the Southern Republican Leadership Conference with the help of a decent amount of liquor. (Unlike those women, though, I am going to work as a legislative aide for conservative Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper in two months.) Also, I tend not to drink Old Charter and water. But to each her own, it seemed, at this convocation of true believers and GOP loyalists. In fact, between the Bibles and the boozing, it was hard to tell at times what brought these folks together other than some abstract notion of party unity. Who pitched this tent, anyway?
You could ask Scott Magill and Darla Bradshaw. He’s an OB/GYN from Arkansas who wrote a party fight song called “Battle Hymn of the Republicans”; she, his lady friend. He decries “a bunch of loud-mouthed liberals” who are “cultural Marxists”; she seconds him and promotes his song. They give me a complimentary CD, which I later preview in my hotel room. “Glory, Glory Hallelujah. Don’t let anyone ever rule ya. We are the Grand Old Party that will save our noble land. We are Re-pub-li-cans.” And: “This is our blessed nation and we passionately shall rise, tears of love within our eyes.” You get the idea.
But if there’s room for them, there’s also room for the Quaker woman from Kentucky, who works for the government reviewing Medicaid program claims, or something to that effect. She’s dressed differently, crunchier, than many of the women here—with dangly leaf-shaped earrings, she gives off a slightly earthy vibe—and is a new convert to Republicanism, she says, after discovering the damage entitlement programs do to recipients’ independent spirit. (That, and she doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage.) She, another reporter and I sit at the bar Saturday night and rehash the weekend’s performances. She is happy with her first major conference and with her newfound party affiliation.
Velmar Bailey is enjoying himself too, although he admits that sometimes he feels a little left out, socially, at these events. (This is his first major party convention.) He’s 63 years old and black, appointed by Gov. Mike Huckabee to be something like an alderman for his West Memphis, Ark., community. Bailey is anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage and anti-criticizing-the-president-during-wartime, but he’s a congenial guy who believes in what he calls Republican values. He says God puts people in the right place at the right time, citing Bush’s presidency and his own late arrival to GOP politics. We have a nice conversation in the shadows of the Peabody lobby and then go our separate ways.
In a weekend filled with calls to stop terrorists, worship God and lower taxes, where do these people all fit in? What do the urban capitalist swilling liquor and the teetotaling fundamentalist farmer from rural Arkansas have in common? The short answer is a belief in individual freedom and the concurrent belief that a government that taxes them too much and then tells them how to live their lives is eroding liberty. But the long answer, as further evidenced by a pair of West Tennessee women who debated the merits and demerits of Wal-Mart, is that this is a group of people, like the rest of us, trying to apply some values to a complex world. A good number of them even see nuance and reject easy answers in favor of earnest grappling with real issues.
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Of course, complexity doesn’t sit well with too many of these made-for-TV politicians. When the lights are off in the Peabody’s grand ballroom, speaker after speaker pitch their remarks to an audience that sees only in black and white. These Republican candidates don’t want real voters with real problems; they want a caricature of the GOP faithful, a narrow slice who’ll get worked up when Congressman Marsha Blackburn says, “This party exists to fight the forces that are whittling away our freedom!” and is referring to Democrats who restrict school-sanctioned prayer and tax estates over a certain value. And you thought it was al-Qaeda.
Ultimately, this is a pep rally that depends on a psychological tactic designed to play up the differences between Us and Them, just like the motivational speeches commanders give to American troops before marching into battle. Demonizing the enemy is an increasingly common political tool—“Their beliefs threaten our very existence!” goes the shrill cry—but it’s misleading and dangerously undemocratic to portray America as a country under attack by other Americans. After all, liberals don’t thirst for the blood of unborn children any more than conservatives want to round up and kill all Muslims (Ann Coulter excepted).