Legal Commentary

So Doug Kmiec has endorsed Obama. But the number of such Obamacans is less than one might predict, given Obama's appeals for such support.

One section of the GOP seems ripe for the picking -- the Northeast-New York section of the Republican Party. These are the Ur Republicans -- the descendants of Federalists and Whigs like Hamilton, Adams, Daniel Webster, forming a Northeast-New York faction once ruled the Party up until, say, Dewey?s defeat by Truman. Teddy Roosevelt, Elihu Root, and Henry Cabot Lodge once epitomized what it meant to be Republican ? namely, to be for ?sound money? (i.e., the gold standard), mercantile values, and a powerful national government led by the Puritan-Brahmin-merchant elite.

These Old-Style Republicans still exist, although they now probably call themselves independents or even Democrats (of the Prius-driving, advanced degree variety). Call them the Republicrats. They are scattered in a diaspora of earnest Yankee reformers from New England through upstate New York and across the Western Reserve section of Ohio to the northern section of the Old Northwest. And Obama ? well-educated, coolly eloquent, urbane but yet morally compelling, surrounded by profs -- appeals to them. So why don?t they flock to his banner as ?Obamacans? (or ?Obamadents?)?

In a word ? unions. Unions are an important part of Obama?s coalition: Their influence might be detected in Obama?s attitude towards NAFTA. But the Old Republicans and their Republicrat descendants never were, and still are not, lovers of unions. Even Rockefeller, the most union-friendly of the breed (allying himself with Peter Brennan and the craft unions), could not abide the public employee unions like Victor Gotbaum?s District Council 37 in NYC.

Why the aversion to organized labor? The Old Republicans were always internationalists: The names of Root and Lodge are synonymous with internationalism. And modern Republicrats like to think of themselves as tolerant cosmopolitans. But unions urge cartelizing labor policies that wreck the international trading system and attack immigration in ways that antagonize our neighbors. The Old Republicans were elitists who detested ?machines? ? that is, political organizations that prevented merit-based compensation and promotion policies in civil service. And modern Republicrats love ?meritocracy? (meaning, perhaps, nothing more than rule by those with the right sorts of alma mater, magazine subscriptions, and test scores). But, to Republicrats, public sector unions are the new machines: Public sector unions wield political clout to pad payrolls and protect jobs for low-performing rank-and-file more effectively than Tammany Hall ever did. The idealistic Republicratic ?Teach for America? volunteer is not likely to become a fist-shaking unionist after being decried as a scab by AFT regulars. In the eyes of good Republicrats, prisons in California and public schools everywhere have been ruined by the intransigence of corrections officers? and teachers? unions.

So what are the ideological descendants of Root, Lodge, and TR to do? Suppose that you?d like to vote for an intelligent and well-educated President whose policies, in the main, are reasonable, whose character is admirable, and who is likely to staff the government with people like you ? academics and do-gooders. But you?d also like to vote for someone who was not beholden to organizations that endorse draconian immigration laws, Smoot-Hawley trade nostrums, and Scargill-style staffing rules in our schools and prisons.



Are you out of luck, stuck between the religious enthusiasms of the Sunbelt and the trade-bashing enthusiasms of the CIO? Perhaps there is some ground for Republicrat hope: The critical recent change in the Democratic Party that might lead the Republicrats to cross over to Obama's column this year is the rise of the SEIU as the dominant private-sector union: Being less threatened by foreign outsourcing, the SEIU is less adamant on trashing free trade. Obama's strong stance in favor of lenient immigration policies also will help assuage Republicrat Internationalists.

In any case, I'm curious to know how many Republicans reading this blog are thinking about jumping ship this year.