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The Republican wing of the Republican party
BY ADAM REILLY
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2004, NEW YORK -- Some Republicans worry that their party is moving too far to the right. Other Republicans monitor their party for any sign of leftward drift and strive to prevent it. During the Republican National Convention in New York, the psychic epicenter of this latter brand of Republicanism can be found a block away from Madison Square Garden, on the third floor of the New Yorker hotel, in the convention offices of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. Richard Engle, the babyfaced, smooth-talking Oklahoman who runs the NFRA, calls his group (a la Paul Wellstone) the "Republican wing of the Republican Party." The NFRAers regard themselves as Ronald Reagan's spiritual heirs, and the group demonstrates a devotion to Reagan that approaches infatuation. The first thing you see when you walk into the NFRA hospitality suite is a towering photograph of Reagan's bronze statue in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame; a miniature version of the same statue stands a few yards away, and two more photographs of Reagan dominate the left wall. Despite the Reagan-centeredness of the décor, there are other accoutrements as well, including a big banner reading "Government is Not God" (courtesy of the Government is Not God PAC) and a small bookstore where books panning judicial activism and the abiding tie between blacks and Democrats are available for purchase. All week long, the NFRA has been hosting morning prayer meetings and evening "Afterglow" sessions at which staunch conservatives outline the virtues of the Right and the vices of the Left. Earlier this week, William Murray (son of eminent atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair and author of My Life Without God) cautioned that John Kerry's wishy-washiness is symptomatic of a grave ethical shortcoming. It's not just Kerry's problem, Murray added; it's liberals in general. "Nowadays, instead of liberals and conservatives, more and more you're seeing a godly party and a party that thinks they get to make up the rules," he warned. "This is why you see the flip-flops of John Kerry. Where there is no core belief, you just kind of make up your scripture and your beliefs as you go along." Then, through a baffling leap of logic, Murray linked the Liberal Mindset to A) the Holocaust and B) the persecution of Christians in Canada. It's no surprise that the NFRA -- which intervenes in Republican primaries to endorse right-thinking candidates -- is aggressively anti-abortion and opposed to any deviation from the "traditional family unit." Less obvious, perhaps, is the group's conviction that the Constitution has divine origins and requires protection from godless enemies. As the group's statement of beliefs puts it, "[T]he Constitution was written by wise men under the inspiration of God and…[T]he original intent of the Founders is as valid and binding today as it was in their day…[T]he Constitution was written to govern a moral and religious people and it is being destroyed by those who are neither." It's tempting to dismiss the NFRA as an assortment of marginal, far-right extremists. But Engle is confident that the Republican Party and America in general are ready to follow the group's lead. Not that the convention has been a total success: Engle laments the absence of true-blue conservative speakers like Alan Keyes, and is still annoyed by one key part of Arnold Schwarzenegger's much-ballyhooed address to the delegates. "He had to throw in the rather unnecessary line, 'We don't all agree on everything,' which is an obvious slap -- 'Hey, I'm pro-abortion and all of you are pro-life. He could have just shut up about it and moved on," Engle complains. But thanks to September 11, he adds, the conservative dream of a federal government shorn of superfluous elements like the Departments of Education, Commerce and Energy is closer than ever to being realized. "To take advantage of what happened here in New York with 9/11 would be thoroughly inappropriate," Engle says. "But nonetheless, I think people generally -- not just Republican voters but voters at large -- have realized the need for the federal government to protect us. And when you reprioritize your understanding of the federal government, understanding that it exists to protect us from this kind of attack, then you diminish the importance of the federal government doing these other things the Constitution never calls for it to do." As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.
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