DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

The death of radio commentator Paul Harvey closes out the career of another conservative who found himself with no place in the 21st century Republican Party.

With a wide and deep radio audience, it didn't much matter to him, but not all conservatives, much less moderates, have that advantage. Two years before his death, Barry Goldwater got together with Robert Dole and joked about how they'd become outcasts in the GOP. "We're the new liberals of the Republican Party," Goldwater said. "Can you believe it?" In Nevada, rightist GOP leaders are trying to isolate longtime party fixtures like William Raggio.

Some Republican leaders like Jack Kemp have found their careers and presidential candidacies no longer viable because they believed in working with Democrats and did not meet some kinds of litmus tests.

All this becomes more important this year because of the public's outspoken wish to see Republicans and Democrats work together once again. If Republicans do so, they are in danger of being denounced by Coulter/O'Reilly/Limbaugh-type figures. When they listen to those figures instead of more tolerant voices like Paul Harvey is anyone's guess.

The way social conservatives and libertarians read people out of the party has narrowed the party's base so that it is having the kind of difficulty Democrats had in the 1970s and 80s scraping together enough votes nationally to elect a president. (A reactionary blogger in Nevada who seems to believe that social conservatism refers to the religious right last year called me a religious bigot when I used the term, so I think I'll define it here: Social conservatism is a moral or political ideology that holds that the government should enforce traditional supposedly values. There's nothing inherently religious about it.)

But the problem of the shrinkage of the GOP base goes beyond the presidential race. Every citizen has a stake in political parties that are viable and can function as partners in scrutinizing public policy. In addition, the inclination of social conservatives to label some Republicans (such as Kenny Guinn, Brian Krolicki, and Bill Raggio) as Republicans in name only (RINOs) further give the party an image as narrow and elitist. Here in Nevada, former lieutenant governor Sue Wagner in 1996 considered running for the U.S. House but could not stomach what politics generally and Congress in particular have become. She had built her career in the Nevada Assembly and Senate on an ability to work with members of both parties.

It also reduces the number of Democrats willing to serve. A couple of weeks ago I asked former Nevada governor Richard Bryan about a rumor that he retired from the U.S. Senate because he was fed up with today's politics. He said, "I mean, you know, you run for office as I had over the years with -- hey, look, I'd like to accomplish something, I'd like to work with people to compromise and see what we can do. And that seemed to be less a part of the political arena as the years went on. I think it's even worse now ... so, yes. I mean, the idea of spending all night, not all night but into the evening, you know, over something that didn't amount to anything because there was some partisan bickering and squabbling, I have less and less patience for that. So, yes, that is certainly part of it."

The sharp decline in Nevada's GOP voter registration leading up to the 2008 presidential election had more to do with the Republican Party's unwillingness to be a welcoming forum than with Barack Obama's personal appeal or issue stands.

Truth to tell, the social conservatives who wield the RINO label against others are themselves the real RINOs. Their loyalty is not to the GOP except as a vehicle for their ideology. It's one of the reasons they abandoned the party in such large number when its candidate was John McCain.

In Congress, the great bipartisan teams are gone or going -- Dole/McGovern, Hatch/Kennedy, Kemp/Gore, McCain/Feingold.

The Washington Post last weekend reprinted a 1998 profile of Paul Harvey that noted he distanced himself from the Republican right and its intolerance. Maybe that's why his audience kept growing while the GOP's declined.