Make Way for the Bulls
By Clay Risen

Ralph Nader. Global Exchange. Seattle, Washington, Prague. The Greens. Sweatshop protests. Finally, after a long hibernation, things are looking good for Left-wing activism, to the obvious dismay of Al Gore.

Not to be outdone, the Republican Party has its own version of a youth movement: The Bull Moose Republicans. Unlike their counterparts on the Left, however, the BMRs are not looking to break away from the mainstream, but rather to make the party more inclusive.

As Jonathan Freiman, director of policy development for the BMRs, said, "many everyday Americans feel that their voice is not heard in the political system or the party. We need to return the political process to the average American voter, rather than the wealthy and the special interests that currently have politics in a stranglehold." Even the name, a reference to the splinter party formed by Teddy Roosevelt, is meant to resonate with voters who feel like the Big Tent still isn't big enough.

The group was formed in March by three young men, Chuck Devine, John Sims and Freiman. Devine and Freiman are in law school; Sims is working on an MBA. In the months since, 148 people representing 33 states have joined via its web page. Sims noted that a number of politicians and candidates have also expressed interest in the Bull Moose, although none has formally signed on and "a lot of work remains before we can turn those casual conversations into working relationships."

According to Freiman, the organization hopes "to work within the party as an umbrella organization, to work with other GOP organizations and to grow the party by bringing our Republican message to those who have not traditionally felt welcome within the party."

This, of course, sounds a little vapid in the wake of the Philadelphia Convention and Bush's push for "compassionate conservatism." And yet the BMRs claim that there is still more to be done. Along with general calls for campaign finance reform and "inclusive" politics, they are pushing for a change in the Republican National Convention rules, specifically Rule 31, which gives more delegates to states with small, homogenous populations than to large, heterogeneous ones (so for example, Wyoming, with its mostly white, conservative population, gets one delegate for every 3,697 Republican voters, while Michigan gets one for every 27,280).

"Rule 31 makes it much more difficult for candidates who appeal to diverse parts of our country to win the Presidential nomination," the group's Web page says. "Many argue that only those candidates who appeal to the homogenous states with disproportionate nominating power can win the Republican Nomination."

There is something oddly fitting in the contrast between Black Bloc anarchists and anti-WTO protesters on the Left calling for an overthrow of capitalism and the BMRs on the Right calling for an overthrow of, well, an obscure convention rule. For liberals, it may take a village, but for conservatives it may only take a change in wording.

But at the same time, the BMRs seem to have learned a thing or two from their compatriots on the Left. While you won't see them waving banners in the streets or smashing up Starbucks, you will hear them using a lot of the same rhetoric of grassroots activism.

For example, their Web Page reads: "to ensure this outreach is a sustained effort, we also will train others on how to continue the effort to reach out to new voters. This effort involves both listening and advocating. It involves trying to tear down walls that have been built over a number of decades." In other words, the Republican Party needs to get out of the boardrooms and into the streets.

Reading the Bull Moose literature, the group sometimes comes off more like a fraternity than a political organization. One Bull Moose member wrote that at the convention "I was constantly sweating. The weather didn't always cooperate. I never slept. And I had a great time. It was just like camp."

Camp is probably not the way George W. Bush wants it put, but then he's already old school. The underlying message of the BMRs seems to be that it's not too early to start thinking about the next generation of voters, the wired-in, new-economy types who don't share the racial, gender and sexual hang-ups of their parents.

At the same time, though, one wonders just how narrow a line the BMRs can walk before they begin to sound like the Democrats. Besides boilerplate lines like "The Bull Moose Republicans believe most Americans support the ideals of a smaller, more efficient government and the equal opportunity for all to pursue their own version of the American Dream," their literature reads a lot like anything you might here coming from a New Democrat.

Not that the BMRs would agree. Sims argued that "Bull Moose Republicans and centrist Democrats disagree more than one might think — and the election this year is highlighting some of those differences, especially in domestic policy. Those differences revolve around 'core' Republican ideology, such as individual liberty, support of capitalism and the role of government."

The point, he added, is not that the BMRs have a particularly ideological focus — "In fact, there are both moderates and conservatives in our group" — but that its members share a common interest in making Conservatism itself better communicated.

Like Bush and the "compassionate conservatives," the BMRs look to recent innovations by Democrats as inspiration. But whereas Bush and his crew model the ways the Democrats have been able to co-opt some of their opponents' core issues, the BMRs are looking to the ways the Democrats have consistently presented themselves as the "party of the people," the party of unions and minorities. The BMRs hope to expand the Republican base not by widening its ideology, but, in Sims' words, "by bringing the Republican message to areas where it hasn't caught hold, such as America's inner cities."

That this begs the question "will it play in Compton?" is not something the BMRs are concerned with. For them, the failure of Republicans to attract minorities and labor is not a failure in a message, but in the medium. Change the medium — allow more diversity at conventions, create grassroots chapters to spread the Republican word more effectively — and people will get the message.

Of course, the more pertinent question is whether it will catch on with the rest of the Republican Party. Somehow, inexplicably, George W. has done an amazing job in the political center merely by pretending to be moderate and all-inclusive. Whether he wins or loses, it seems likely that the BMRs will have a hard time convincing the rest of the party that it needs to shape up its image. At the same time, although it may seem esoteric and fraught with technicalities on the surface, the Bull Moose charge is no less idealistic than that of the resurgent student Left. And like on the Left, it is up in the air whether these Young Turks can change an idea into a movement. But ironically, whereas the problem for the Left is how to transform populist, often disparate interest in social change into a coherent, unified whole, the problem for the Bull Moose Republicans is the exact opposite — how to take a highly insular party system and make it populist.

E-mail Clay Risen at risenc@yahoo.com.