Republicans Moving to Rebuilding Mode
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Conservatism, RepublicansWe’re three days from the election, but there is already a lot of talk from Republicans about how they can reform their party. Here’s the Wall Street Journal on the matter:
The worst GOP instinct would be to mimic Britain’s Tories after their 1997 shellacking by Tony Blair, becoming a “no” party that spends so much time howling against the opposition it forgets what to howl for. It could curl up and stoke bitter cultural fights (immigration, abortion) to rev up a dwindling base. It could cede its fortunes to an unreformed old guard who will happily wait out their retirements in the minority. It would be easy to do all this; the party has already had practice.
The WSJ goes on to recommend elevating younger, more forward-thinking Republicans into the leadership and recruiting new candidates from the real world instead of from the political world. The suggestions conclude with:
Just as important, the party could again open its arms to those who should, naturally, gravitate to the GOP. Today’s ballooning Hispanic community is socially conservative, the sort of up-and-comers who would appreciate lower taxes, more opportunity. America’s YouTube generation is naturally entrepreneurial, and doesn’t like anyone telling them what to do. If Republicans could tap into these sentiments, they’d widen the tent.
Over the last eight years, the Republicans jettisoned their fiscal conservativism by bloating the government with pork and betrayed their small-government libertarianism by enacting a series of privacy-draining, freedom-leeching laws. What they have left is a discredited neo-conservativism foreign policy that’s created more international problems than it’s solved and a strident social conservativism that wrongly seeks to make one denomination of one religion the controlling value system for a diverse nation.
And yet, there is nothing like total defeat to inspire new ideas and open conduits for new energies. Look how far the Democrats have come since getting their clocks cleaned from 2000 through 2004. Don’t doubt the Republicans can rebuild just as rapidly – especially if they are willing to welcome all those Americans who may be voting Democratic this election but will be quickly be turned off if the Democrats overreach.
In a nation systematically constructed for two party rule, we could really use two viable parties. Hopefully the Republican can reform soon.
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November 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
Republicans need to bring back the image of the rugged individual, watch South Park more, and stop getting pissy when people make fun of Jesus or talk about sex.
I disagree that the Iraq war caused more problems than it has solved. This is 2008, not 2005. The war is over and we won. Think about the headache of Saddam and his sons, the humanitarian disaster of the eroding sanctions, or the threat of another emerging petrol-terror state – all off the table for Obama. Now he has an Arab country to help America fight terrorism.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am
From the Conservative blogs I read I see a lot of dissention. Many realize that Bush and company betrayed them but don’t realize that Rove used the noise machine to distract them from what the Bush/Cheney Republicans were up to. When the pay go rules were trashed and the surplus was quickly spent there should have been a Conservative revolt, but the Limbaughs kept the conversation on liberals and they got away with it. Now there is finger pointing and demands for philosophical purity, basically expelling the RINOs. Others see the need to expand the party, that purity will only result in an insignificant secondary party that will not have any effect on events. I don’t have any idea how this will shake out, I am hoping for a broader based political party that actually means what it says on fiscal responsibility but I’m not holding my breath.
November 1st, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Jimmy, that’s awesome that the iraq war is over. When did all the troops get back? I can’t wait to plan a vacation in Iraq next year.
November 1st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Jimmy, I’d say the realists bailed the neo-cons out in Iraq. But it was overstating it for me to say all the Republicans have left is neo-con foregin policies. Gates has been a quality Defense Secretary.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 am
Quote Of The Day…
“We?re three days from the election, but there is already a lot of talk from Republicans about how they can reform their party…Over the last eight years, the Republicans jettisoned their fiscal conservativism by bloating the government with pork an…