Reinvent the Repulican Party

These are my own (Michael) political thoughts. I'd actually take a moment to criticize the Republican Party. Not conservative ideals or principals, but those many Republicans who were elected to pursue those ideals and win others to its cause.

First, it has to start at the top, with Bush. I’m dissatisfied with Bush, but not for any of the reasons the cooky liberals hate him. I believe Bush to be a man of strong principal and I admire Bush the person. But as far as Bush the political leader to advance the causes of conservatism, I think largely he has been ineffective.

If I’m honest, how many things did I like about Bush in his eight years. I liked Roberts, Alito (which he nearly got wrong), some of his policy’s on the war on terror. He did get some free trade bills passed. He reversed some of his protectionist tariffs he imposed. There are probably some more that I’m not thinking of.

What I am not satisfied with Bush: Government spending. This is a big one. Rumsefeld should probably not have returned as Secretary of Defense, in the 2nd tern. I credit Bush’s loyalty, but it took him far too long to realize “Clear, Hold Build” was the correct strategy to pursue in Iraq. Lastly, the inability to sell conservative ideals. If you lay out conservatism and liberalism side by side, look at the past to be your guide as to which is better, conservatism wins, but I think Bush did poorly at helping the average person see that.

In some ways I think Bush’s failed leadership is to blame for our current situation. To put in perspective of just how bad our problem is, look at our presidential candidate. Most strong conservatives weren’t even for McCain. He’s been considered as a VP on a democrat ticket. What does that tell you of the state of our party.

Next there’s Palin. I think Palin is a great conservative. I’ll have to concede though, I do like my candidates to have a bit more time under their belt to prove their effectiveness. The Republicans need to do a better job at identifying their up and comers and start exposing them to the nation. Obama’s not any more qualified, the difference is the democrats have been parading him around for 4 years now, so people are used to the idea of him being President. How would it be, if Palin spoke at convention as just a regular Republican, and we parade her around for 4 years and then put her on the ticket.

Another problem with the Republicans,are the Republicans who voted for Mike Huckabee. I like Huckabee, but you have to know he has no appeal outside of the South. He could never win the Republican nomination, much less the White House. These are the people who vote based on Abortion only. Granted this is an important topic, and we don’t have to sacrifice this issue when getting a good candidate, but our base needs to have a bit larger criteria, and not have crazy pastors telling them things like you can’t vote for a Mormon.

A few positives in our sitatuation as I see them.

When the Republican base gets energized we can get our party to perform. We weren’t happy with Harriet Myers, and we got a better Judge as a result. We as conservatives have pretty good watch dogs on the democrats. I don’t believe very much substantive stuff doesn’t get reported by Rush, Hannity, et al. What we need more is a watch dog of our own party members. When we have Republicans adding in pork to bills, wasting time on the floor with meaningless resolutions, taking bribes, and most importantly not fulfilling the mandate in which they were elected to fill, then we need Rush and Hannity to get the Republican base as mad at them as they get us about the Dems. Really, what should make us more upset, crazy Democrats who we didn’t elect doing crazy things, or Republicans who we did elect doing crazy things and further hurt our party’s chances to make a difference.

I believe this upcoming super majority Democrat White House and Congress will be the catalyst for the Republicans to reinvent themselves. Think back to the RNC, when we felt excited for the Republicans and we had a huge boost in the polls. I believe we got our message out in the convention. Sadly we weren’t able realize many of these ideals in the previous four years and were lucky that Joe the Plumber is helping us get back to that message. Republicans will have to get back to conservative roots—limited Government, low taxes, religious freedom, traditional values. In short, they have to stop behaving as democrats. Here’s looking forward to 2010, and hoping we don’t have a lot of bad policies to undue by then.