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As for the big job, Robert J. Donovan, in The Future of the Republican Party, projects Democratic occupancy of the White House through 1988, with Johnson's re-election in 1968, followed by two terms for Hubert Humphrey and two for a Kennedy. Such projections are based on a cruel reality confronting the G.O.P. It is the minority party, and it is growing more so all the time. In 1940, with memories of the 'Republican Depression" still harsh in the minds of millions, 38% of U.S. voters still identified themselves as Republicans v. 42% as Democrats. Today, 53% consider themselves Democrats, a beggarly 25% as Republicans. Such is the Republican plight that some pundits—including a few Democrats awash in enough tears to float a couple of crocodiles —have bewailed the imminent end of the two-party system. Already, wrote Richard Rovere, the U.S. has come to "a one and one-half party system."
Is some Whiggish end at hand for the Republican Party? Hardly. For its traditions include a deep sense of the role of a U.S. political party as embracer of many opinions, more pluribus than unum; and its ideological arguments can well turn into a source of intellectual strength as well as dissension; and vast changes in U.S. life are spreading out opportunities for leadership to whatever party can discern and seize them.
How to Be One of Two
In The Federalist No. 10, Madison wrote that "liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment, without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life." Historically, such liberty could have led to splinter-party chaos; the U.S. instead channeled the political urge into two institutionalized parties. In their adversary relationship, they act as delicate checks upon one another, capitalizing on the deep American fear of unrestrained power. Though few voters would switch solely for the abstract value of "saving" the two-party system, many can be influenced by a subtle sense that a particular party has achieved too much power —and that it's time for a change. This is the heart of the case for a strong opposition party. It should be challenging, creative, critical—always watching the party in power with a clear eye and offering the serious possibility of alternative government.
If a party is to be one of only two, it must necessarily be broad, a place where many kinds of people can find political shelter. In his little classic, Parties and Politics in America, Cornell's Clinton Rossiter writes of "the deep overlapping of the beliefs and programs and even voters of the parties. They are the creatures of compromise, coalitions of interest in which principle is muted and often even silenced. They are the vast, gaudy, friendly umbrellas under which all Americans, whoever and wherever and however-minded they be, are invited to stand for the sake of being counted in the next election."