Re-Tooling the GOP

A lot has been written about the future of the Republican Party after their apparent spanking in the 2006 and 2008 elections. The talking head shows have delivered a plethora of segments with numerous “pundits” advising everything from becoming a party of inclusion to “returning to the party of Ronald Reagan.” OK, since I’m tired of cringing at what others say, here are some of my suggestions for bringing the GOP into the 21st Century

* Stop Invoking Ronald Reagan: Hey, I loved the Great Communicator as much as any Republican. I cast my first vote for him in 1984 and grew misty eyed when he would describe America as that “City on a Hill”. He drew millions of “Reagan Democrats” across party lines much like Obama did with the Republicans in ’08 BUT he was first elected President almost 30 years ago and he was old then. We have millions of new voters who predominantly voted Democrat this election and only yawn when Reagan is invoked. It only serves to re enforce the perception that the GOP is a party of the dinosaur.

* Marginalize Rush Limbaugh: In 2006 I was discussing possible Republican presidential contenders with some GOP friends. Suddenly one of them quipped, “We shouldn’t discount Rush Limbaugh who would make a great candidate.” On the outside I quickly changed the subject but on the inside I was reeling. Rush Limbaugh?? How could an intelligent individual even suggest such a possibility? Unfortunately, there are far to many Republicans who get their news from Rush and it has only served to to make us the party of simplicity and stupidity. The fact that now he is getting touted as the defacto head of the GOP only buries the stake further in when compared to President Obama. David Frum says it best when he writes,

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

It’s time for the GOP to put Rush out to pasture somewhere.

* Retire use of the word “Socialism”: because all you are scaring are some Cold War veterans. Today’s voters, who have seen their 401K disappear, their stock investments crash, and their portfolio not worth the paper its printed on while at the same time watching Wall Street moguls and CEOs scrambling away with bonuses and bailouts, are much more afraid of Capitalism than Socialism. Heck, everytime they start railing about Obama’s economic plan being socialism I keep expecting a follow up on the threat on America posed by the Soviet Union. STOP saying socialism with the expectation people are going to care. That doesn’t mean you change your belief in a market economy, it means bring your vocabulary into the 21st Century! Which leads me to:

* Get a Universal Health Care policy: The American people want it. Figure it out…ah…no protest here…just do it!

* Bring Intellectual Conservatism back: I miss William F. Buckley! And love him or loathe him, Richard Nixon was arguably the most intelligent president of the 20th century. However the party and conservatism is presently being positioned by the Democrats as a back woods, hyper-religious, bunch of buffoons who are more to be pitied than argued with…and we just fuel the fire. Whether its George Bush’s creative vocabulary, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s childish response to the State of the Union address, or just the average Republican pundit who seems to see that the real threat comes not from a bad economy or Al-queda but from those “dang homosexuals” the GOP has been an intellectual vacuum that needs filling fast. Which leads me to:

* Higher profiles for smart Republicans : like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenergger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Everytime they speak…well, I don’t cringe and want to hide under a table somewhere…and right now for the Republicans, that says alot.

Well, I may get accused by this post of being a dreaded RINO (Republican in Name Only) but unless the GOP makes some serious changes, they will increasingly be a party in name only. I wouldn’t like that. The Democrats have serious policy and worldview flaws and so the GOP needs to do what it has been telling everyone else to do for the last 30 years, “Get off your lazy butt and get to work. It’s not our responsibility to take care of you. Your position as a national party is not an entitlement, you have to earn the right to be on the national stage. Now get to work and start bringing home some bacon.”