Almost Georgetown

January 29, 2009, 11:42 am

From A Liberal, With Love...

A friend of mine went to a party last night hosted by Rebuild The Party, a group that is taking the Republican Party to task over its recent electoral failures and promising change. This younger, internet-based group of conservative activists have put forward their own plan, and I promised him that I would provide some ideas about how I think the Republican party can once again be a force in American politics.

As someone who started college a conservative and graduated a liberal, I have a unique perspective. I didn't change my mind because of some voodoo magic, but because facts were presented to me and our President behaved so badly that I simply couldn't justify supporting his party. But I'm not immune to good reason, and I like many of the ideas regarding self-sufficiency. So here are my ideas, in no particular order.

Adopt some humility. The biggest problem America had with George W. Bush was his unapologetic approach to things. It was his way or the highway; that's not how it works in the real world. Six years of a Republican President and Congress together produced both some of the most lopsided legislation in history AND the longest string of bills ever to be presented without a veto by the President. Was this string because there were no Democratic ideas in those six years? No; it was because leaders like Bush and Tom Delay refused to accede to Democratic demands, creating a toxic congressional enviornment and angering the liberal base enough to rise up - the effects of which you saw in your crushing in November 2008
It has got to be about community. In good years, it's hard to sell people on the need for national service or for community involvement. This task becomes easier in lean years, but in all years it is important. For a long time the Republican party has stood as the party for less government and more self-reliance, but has missed a critical aspect: the community. Republicans have long ignored the fact that people are not an island but a member of a community and that the power of the community is greater than the power of the government to effect change. Self-reliance only works when you give people a safety net - that has typically existed in communities but in an increasingly interconnected but isolated world where people know others in foreign countries but not their own neighbors, fostering community becomes essential.
It has got to be about helping people. A recent expose in the New York Times faulted the Bush administration for failing to remember that people needed to be able to afford their homes, but it missed one of the most compassionate things Bush ever did: he made home ownership possible. Bush may have failed dramatically at making continued homeownership possible, but he did believe (and I think correctly) that a large part of self-sufficiency was having an asset, like a home. Why didn't he sell this better? Conservatives have always had a hard time explaining how their policies will help people. Usually they explain it in abstract terms, requiring a complex understanding of economics or the Federal regulatory structure to understand. But Americans understand things like making it easier to buy bread or own a home or go to college. They understand those things. Rather than presenting things in abstract terms ("reducing regulation on lenders will lead to new lending products") why not put it in terms people get ("reducing regulation makes it easier to buy a house.")? But one caveat...
It must both be slow change and it must work. The Bush administration was famous for ignoring experts who predicted things they disagreed with. Most famously is the crisis we're now in, and what spelled disaster for your party. Bush rushed to deregulate the government but the rule-changing was not done with any sort of acceptable rule that would prevent the meltdown we're experiencing. Change must happen, but it must happen with caution and it must be proven to work before going full speed.
Experts are not bad people. From the enviornment to health care, the Bush administration chose ideology over facts and provable statistics. Don't do that. People are smart, and especially the people you need to convince to vote for you. You know the type - middle class, middle-of-the-road voters that actually elect you to offices (your base isn't responsible for that, so stop pandering). There's no fear in taking something from an expert and understanding it and then deciding that a policy you were pursuing was wrong and changing course - and then telling people that.
Drop the social issues for goodness sake!
It's about governing, not winning. Remember when you put John Murtha's war resolution to vote? You know, back when you controlled Congress? The smug smiles you wore said that you were really pleased that it crashed and burned. You even got large numbers of Democrats to vote against it and used that as a reason to beat him up on television and the morning shows. But you know something? That really didn't work out well. Americans were starting to sour on the war; now more of them oppose it than originally supported it - and you have only yourselves to blame. Americans want leadership. They want people who are going to debate the tough issues, not hold a sham vote preceded by a sham 20 minutes of "debate." Winning the vote is not governing. And Americans know better. Instead, be willing to talk about the hard issues, debate the tough stuff. You may win, you may lose, but that's governing - making tough choices.
Stop cutting taxes. Start cutting spending. Republicans love tax cuts. But they hate spending cuts. The truth is that deficits do matter. They matter a lot. Ignoring this fact makes you look stupid. And cutting taxes is pretty much an economic theory that most economists will disprove in about 45 seconds, so that angle doesn't work either. So let's try this: get spending cuts. Get spending cut so that the government has a surplus. THEN tell people that they've overpaid the treasury - and what would they like you to do with it? Chances are they'll ask for it back. In the form of - you guessed it - tax cuts! How can Democrats oppose giving people back their money? But they can oppose running huge, irresponsible deficits that will force tax hikes later on. And that's where you're losing the battle.
Liberal isn't a bad word. Being a liberal doesn't make you a bad person or a freedom-hating bastard. It just makes you think differently. It's your job to point out that it's okay to think government solves all problems - and then to prove it wrong. With facts. And evidence. This is where you erred for so long: you painted the opposition as a bunch of wusses, incapable of standing up to a flea let alone terrorists and recessions. But I think America saw through that smokescreen. Democrats may not have their fingers on the trigger button but it was a Democrat who led us through World War II. Keep that in mind.
Stop running douchebags. Seriously now. You need to start running some people who actually make Republicans sound intelligent, compassionate, and responsible. Moose hunters from Alaska are bad choices. So are people who run ads in Georgia accusing World War II veterans who lost limbs of terrible things. Norm Coleman makes my skin crawl and that's before I hear him speak. You need to run guys like Michael Steele who was a great candidate for Senator in Maryland. I disagree with his record but he was warm, inviting, and friendly. You need to find people that speak to the core of America, sound intelligent but inviting, and most of all, don't conduct themselves like brutal dictators. Sure, behaving that way might win you elections, but only because you make the other guy look impossible. The second someone true comes along, you're done.

Nobody knows what the future holds for America. But one thing is certain: if Republicans don't start acting like people worthy of government roles, they'll keep losing them. Republicans have made their bed for the moment, and for a while now they're going to know what it feels like to be on the wrong side of election night. But if they do some true soul searching, they can return as a force to be reckoned with. And that's not all bad.

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