Off the Shelf

What can be done to salvage the Republican Party? Even Gustav is more of a haunted reminder of Katrina than a do-over. It's presidential candidate openly scorns the party's corruption. Sarah Palin was elevated to cater to the evangelical base, but her primary asset is that she challenged the cronyism of the party's leaders in Alaska. It's leaders obsess about what they call the decline of its "brand," in itself a mark of a party invested more in marketing than in principle. Rep. Tom Davis, former head of its congressional campaign committee, concludes that, "If we were a dog food, they'd take us off the shelf."

Few will admit this in Minneapolis, of course. Gustav has helped the made-for-TV show, giving the failed president and vice-president a reason to stay out of town. 10 incumbent Republican Senators already had decided that absence was the better part of valor.

And the reality is even worse. Democrats will win stronger majorities in both House and Senate. 28 Republican legislators have taken a look at the race and decided they'd rather quit than fight. Corporate money is buying into Democrats, picking the stock hat is on the rise. Democratic registration is up nationally, while Republican registration is down over a million since 2004. The Millennium generation - larger even than the boomers - are voting Democratic in overwhelming numbers. The Republican southern strategy has created a regional, whites only party - with even that southern bastion is now being challenged. Democratic control of state houses and legislatures is on the rise. On issue after issue - from the Iraq War to Katrina, from contraception to consumer protection, from health care to fair trade - a growing majority of Americans have turned against Republican positions. The new center is progressive, not conservative.

So what can be done? In the best tradition of circular firing squads, Republicans are sniping at one another for the debacle. The fundamentalists blame the neo cons; the country clubbers deride the evangelicals; the corporate core scorns the supply-siders. And each of them is justified, for every strand of the Republican party contributed to conservative misrule. The neo-cons led us into the debacle that is Iraq, while shredding the Constitution. The evangelicals shocked America with the Schaivo grandstanding, and the efforts to enforce morality through radical right judges. The supply-siders really did practice "voodoo economics." And the corporate cronies descended into corruption and plunder shocking even by Washington standards.

How do Republicans recover? Rove's theory of imitating McKinley and ushering in a new Gilded Age exploded with the financial crisis. McCain's wistful invocation of Teddy Roosevelt is a far remove from what the modern Republican party could stomach. The bright young conservative, Ross Douthaut, suggests that Republicans imitate Democrats, and compete for the votes of workers on the basis of bread and butter issues. The old guard, like former Rep.Mickey Edwards, calls for a return to limited government and the Constitution. Grover Norquist enforces allegiance to starving government. Virtually all invoke the sainted memory of Ronald Reagan as lodestone for their recovery, without being able to agree on what Reagan represents.

This debate shouldn't be left to those who have helped drive the Republican Party to the verge of bankruptcy. Democracy requires at least two parties to thrive. If the Republican Party disintegrates, it will only have to be reinvented. So perhaps it would be good to invite the readers of the Huffington Post to join this discussion.

What can be done to save this party? How can Republicans - having failed so ignominiously at home and abroad over the past eight years - recover?

To start this discussion, let me offer my own modest suggestion - a return not to Ronald Reagan who helped start them down the road to bankruptcy, but to Ike, the Republican Party of Dwight David Eisenhower. Eisenhower reflected the common sense, country club values of a Republican Party that represented Main Street. He insisted on fiscal discipline, and was willing to raise taxes if necessary, even as he championed smaller government. To balance the budget, he put a lid on military spending, letting the services fight among themselves on how to divide the kitty. "We -- you and I, and our government," he warned, "must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

As a former commander of US forces in World War II, he was sensibly cautious about using military force abroad, preferring diplomacy to war. He brought the Korean War to a close. He scorned those who wanted a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and was skeptical of the schemes of the neo-cons of his day eager to rollback the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

Ike understood the dangers of crony capitalism that might plunder Washington. He warned us to "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. He reminded Americans that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

He preached balance - in government, in society, in corporations. In his day, executives sought to expand their companies, not dismember them or ship them abroad. They shared the benefits of rising productivity with their workers. They didn't not wage jihad against union organizers.

As a lifelong military man, Ike didn't loathe government. Just as he understood its limits, he understood its purposes. So he accepted the core New Deal reforms - Social Security, financial regulation, labor unions. He understood the need for a modern infrastructure, funding the interstate highways that provided a strong stimulus to a mobile America and a more efficient economy.

In public at least, Ike and Mamie Eisenhower seemed to personify the small town morality of America. The 1950s was a time of a growing middle class, moving to the suburbs, raising families. Sure it was boring, suffocating, and hypocritical, and helped spark the cultural revolution of the 1960s. But Ike's Republican Party came closer to reflecting the values it preached than today's rack and ruin Right.

No need to romanticize Eisenhower. He let McCarthy spread hate and division far longer than necessary. While he appointed Warren and Brennan and Stewart to the Supreme Court, he was complacent about segregation. And he presided over a CIA that was running covert operations across the developing world. But he was a sensible, relatively moderate conservative who provided adult supervision for the ideologues on the Right.

Still, small government, fiscal discipline, a lid on military adventure and spending, investment in vital infrastructure, acceptance of Social Security, Medicare, financial regulation - this might go a long way toward allowing today's Republicans to recover from the lacerations left by the New Right marauders, and begin once more to offer America a sensible alternative, not an extremist nightmare.

But please, join the conversation. Can this party be saved? And if so, how?

Comments

[RangerGordon]

It is well and good for a party to rein in the excesses of government., advocate for fiscal responsibility and keep an eye toward maintaining a strong national defense. The Republican Party failed America when it betrayed all three of those functions.

One thing the GOP must do before it can recover is to give up its fetishism of privatization. The magical hand of the free market may serve economists and business interests, but it cannot and should not be expected to solve every societal problem. Sometimes the public good is hindered by the presence of a profit motive.

If Republicans could develop a realistic sense of the way corporate interests can sometimes work against valid and virtuous societal goals--and recognize that government has a valid role in regulating some corporate activities--the GOP might immediately begin serving the country's interests instead of tearing us apart.

[3rdEye]

Simply put, the Right seems to disingenuously segregate itself from the rest of the country as the "True Americans." I take offense to that, and many others (even in their own party) disagree with the partisanship and hypocrisy that exists in the Republican party. I, like many others, support some socially conservative values, but are turned off by the idea that you have to agree with them on every issue, or you're un-American or wish this country's demise. Try appealing to those of us without 7 houses, or that believe in choice for our women. Also, convince us that smaller government, private everything, and small town values doesn't mean greater power to the priviledged, corporate influence, and culture wars - respectively. Let us know that the values you espouse are for the whole country and not just the few who look and think just like you.

[RAStewart]

First of all, I agree with OneTruePatriot's observations below. The Republican Party is not in any danger of going away; rather, it has proved its ability to hold onto and expand its power in the face of overwhelming evidence that its leadership cares nothing about ordinary Americans or the Constitution and that its policies materially harm most of its supporters.

You do raise some questions I've been thinking about. I know the dangers of one-party rule very well--including the dangers of Democratic one-party rule: I live in Cook County, Illinois, specifically Chicago. 'Nuff said. But how can I support the survival of a party that has clearly demonstrated its unfitness to rule, that has indeed proven itself at the national level to be little better than a criminal enterprise?

[swkidder]

And finally, #5 & #6:

5) Don't think "small government," but rather government of the appropriate size for the problem at hand. Some things are best done locally, and others require a national solution (healthcare, disaster response) Some really are best done by faith based organizations and philanthropies - as long as the recipients of their good deeds don't need to be of a certain faith to qualify. Some are best done by private enterprise " Prius. Some are not " Blackwater, Halliburton.
6) And finally, you can be tough and still be kind. You can protect your own self interest without being greedy. A national investment in an educated workforce yields amazing dividends. And for God's sake, let's get off Oil.

P.S. But you may need to come up with a different set of suggestions " I think Barack Obama is already doing all of the above?

[swkidder]

Suggestions #3 & #4:

3) Fiscal responsibility in its larger sense. That implies environmental responsibility and support for a "real free market." The environment represents our collective resources, and the corporations we create must learn to use its assets responsibly. That means no more stealing from the public domain and off-loading your legitimate costs of production back into that public domain - if you can buy the legislation to permit this to do this. The regulatory system represents the voice of the public, and protects the Commons. It has a legitimate role in defining the parameters within which corporations may compete without harming the public. It is something neither to be feared nor "gamed."

4) While we're talking about "business models," learn to operate in both the public and private sector in the approach that those of us who are sane know to be the one that works - you take your assets, add value, and build a healthy corporation. Stop operating in the model used by corporate raiders, i.e. plundering something of all its assets before throwing the carcass in the trash. One builds for the future by investing wisely - not evaluating every decision according to how much money you could make this quarter by lying to your customers or stealing from the public. Henry Ford as the model for 21st century business " make a car which everyone can afford to buy and pay my workers enough that they can afford to buy the car they're building.

[swkidder]

Suggestions #1 & #2:

1) Learn to look at both this country and the world - the way they are and not the way you would prefer them to be. This does not imply acceptance or agreement, but you can't change anything if you don't understand where you are at the start of the journey. No more "we create reality and you guys just watch us do it" " we all know how that"s actually worked. And remember the quotes about "bumping up against reality - generally on a battlefield?" And, "Nature bats last?"

2) See how things are connected " many times you simply can't solve one "problem at a time," because it's inextricably entwined with one or two others, i.e. "We're borrowing money from China, to buy oil from the Middle East, to cook the Planet." Solution: Shift to renewable energy - solve all 3 problems. "Immigration," "Global trade policies," & '"Homeland security" Solution: Begin to deploy our foreign aid strategically, people remain with their families in the villages in which they were born because they can feed those families, and they actually end up liking us. In a "wired," "flat" world things are fundamentally connected, and good solutions generally do not lend themselves to "sound bites." Take the "Bernie Sanders" approach, and spend the time to educate the people you want to govern instead of trying to keep them "stupid" with fear and lies.

[ViperVera]

I don't think one has to even go back as far as Eisenhower. When I first registered to vote after college there were Rockefeller Republicans and I was one of those.

They were exactly the type of Republican Borosage describes.

BTW once GHW Bush embraced the religious right in 1988 it was bye bye Republican registration for me. Proud Clinton Democrat ever since.

And like Hillary said at the convention:

No Way!
No How!
No McCain!

[OneTruePatriot]

News of the Republican party's imminent demise is, I fear, greatly exaggerated. Let me discuss the current configuration of the Republican party and then I will explain why this configuration is quite healthy and stable.

I see the Republican party as essentially a three headed beast. First there are what I like to call "true republicans". As a form of short hand let's just say that these are the folks that know how much they paid last year in capitol gains taxes. You know who I'm talking about, they like to say things like 'I sign my checks ON THE FRONT!' Second there are the evangelicals. Again, a well defined group of people voting on the anti-abortion/anti-homosexuality rhetoric spewed daily from the republican noise machine. Lastly there are what I lovingly refer to as the bamboozled. These are the nascar dads and soccer moms we have read so much about, the voters who have been sold on various bits of nonsense such as 'the democrats will take your guns away'. These are voters who have been successfully targeted by the Republican GOTV apparatus.

Of the three distinct types of Republicans I have identified I don't see where any major changes have occurred. In the absence of some game changing reconfiguration I see no reason why one or more of these groups will begin changing their votes in any great numbers.

[RallyGrrrl]

While democracy does need at least two parties to survive, those two parties may no longer be Democrat and Republican. Dems faced a long bitter battle this year and some revelations came out of it (New Democratic Party is already being carved out of the warring factions - made up of Feminist Dems, Green Dems, socially liberal Dems and anti-Iraq War Dems).
Protests and rallies continue to be on the rise, and more people are becoming more involved, actively and passively, in political campaigning. The fiscally conservative Republicans should think about joining the Dems, and let the progressive leftists migrate to the New party.

[supervoter]

HuffPost's Pick

I have voted Republican most of my life. Lately, I've been asking myself: What the hell happened? The Republican Party used to be the party of fiscal responsibility. The Republican Party used to be the party that kept its nose out of my personal business. The Republican Party, so help me, used to be the party of gentlemanliness.

And then, bitter over having been out of power for so many years, the Republican Party sold its soul to the right wing Christian coalition to acquire an organized base that would put them back in power. They can't blame the right wing for coming to collect.

But it was never about power. It's about serving the nation. It's about seeing that everyone has health care while being neither coerced nor beggared by it. It's about ensuring that every child gets a good education. It's about bridges not falling out from under going-home traffic. It's about not sacrificing our children in trumped-up wars. It's about ensuring rule of law instead of rule of men, as in extreme rendition (also known as kidnapping) and extreme interrogation (also known as torture).

I think the Republican Party is past saving, and I think I'm not staying around to watch it flush itself down the toilet. In the Federalist papers Alexander Hamilton warned us about the tyranny of minorities. It's a pity the Republican Party has forgotten how to read.

[ashcom]

I think that the religious right has been used and abused -- even hoodwinked -- by the "anti-any-tax" -- "dismantle-government" right.

[ccpostman]

"What the hell happened?"

A Bush fire sale of the country for the last eight years!

I keep on think of that Genesis song.

"Selling England by the Pound"

[AshleyH]

Neat question.

First, go back to the Constitution and get rid of these ridiculous Presidential Elections by mass suffrage. Local officials can be elected by vote (also not required in Constitution but a good idea), and also perhaps Governors and others on the State Level. But national/federal level leaders are picked by the elected leaders themselves.

Second, change the entire tax code such that the federal share by law is no more than a certain percent of GDP with the additional guideline that it go something like this, whether via income or sales or whatever taxation method, namely: 10% to the Feds, 30% to State and 60% to local. This will keep Federal Govt the right size, which is minimal and mainly for federal legislation, the Federal Courts, Diplomacy and a Central Military command that coordinates State Militaries. Of course all foreign bases are dismantled. More importantly, such a tax structure would ensure more emphasis is placed on immediate community life such that conservative principles can be lived and expressed fully where they rightlfully belong: in communities. And with more revenues on the local level, various different types of local and regional cultures will naturally evolve. America will become a real Republic again, one with extraordinary diversity - which is the hallmark of health in any complex system - and with each element having vibrant self-identity, rather than attempting to create a franchised mush which devolves into utter dysfunction, as we are beginning to see nowadays.

[mariannea]

I'm not a Republican, but have been wondering where the "normal" Republican voices are, howling for their party back. I am a fan of Lakoff's book, "Don't Think of An Elephant," in which he explains how the Progressive wing gave way to Conservatives. I see the Republicans splintering before our eyes--they have lost any sense of consensus about what will bring people together.

Meanwhile, the Democrats finally have our own Great Communicator. Like with Reagan, it's not about qualifications so much as voice. Obama is allowing Americans to unite around core concepts like change, participation and responsibility--things we always cared about and are rediscovering. Things you don't have to be a Democrat to get behind. And, he is giving Republicans a place to play, like Reagan did for "Reagan Democrats. It's about creating a big enough space for people from many persuasions to still find room on the new bus. That's why 38 million people watched Obama speak. (BTW I used to say the EXACT things about Reagan that Republicans are saying about Obama--"He's got nothing. He just gives speeches. One of these days people will WAKE up and realize how incompetent he is!!!") Ha.

Remember Reagan? He drove the sunshine bus, and Republicans and Dems both climbed on. "The Surge worked" is not sunshine. Anti abortion is not sunshine.

Republicans: read the Lakoff book. Better yet, don't!

[ashcom]

Prior to attending my Republican caucus 2 years ago, I searched the internet for information on liberal Republicans. I considered myself moderate, but the party has been getting increasingly conservative. Since I couldn't find any local Republicans to support, I decided to resign as a precinct leader, charged with getting out the Republican vote.

I agree with your comments about Eisenhower. He was the Republican I identified with in my pre-voting-age youth. As a kid, I really got caught up in "I like Ike." Although, like many, I grew very dis-enchanted with McCarthy as I matured.

Watching the Republican party from within, it is my opinion that those who have risen to the top in the party have been slowly eroding the power of grassroots - while appearing to appeal to the grassroots.

Primaries and mail-in balloting diminish people's opportunities to discuss, debate, study and THINK through and about the choices. The vetting of nominees and candidates by ordinary citizens has just become a kind of lipservice to sound bites in 30-second ads. The Republican party needs to invite dissent, listen, and discuss positions and issues at the grassroots level with every level -- before making decisions.

I am going to watch Cspan coverage of the Republican convention. Most definitely I will be voting Obama/Biden. Whether or not I remain a Republican, however, remains to be seen.

Just a glimpse of one person's thought process. (I just cut 149 words -- good ones, at that!)

[Marksalot]

The Republican Party doesn't deserve to be saved. Ever since Reagan came into office, greed, divisiveness, a win at all costs mentality, and arrogance have collectively worked to discredit this nation, while destroying the middle class, and the chance for millions of Americans to retire comfortably. I think this is a perfect opportunity to build a viable third party. The two party system is broken. If America is ever going to recover from the "Reagan Revolution" and Newt's Contract On America, We need a strong third party that can form coalitions and compromises that will break the stranglehold the two parties have had for far too long, resulting in gridlock, too much corporate influence, and ineffective governing.

Hello, Green Party? Are you listening?

[OnceLost]

The problem with the Republican Party is that they just don't get it. People are losing their homes, the state of healthcare in America is abysmal, every week you see where companies are laying people off by thousands, and the Republican Party cannot relate. You aren't going to convince me that a man who owns seven houses knows how a farmer in Iowa is feeling when he loses his only home.

Bush, Chaney, McCain - all of them have not a clue about the majority of people who make up this country's citizens. They are all so out of touch.