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

[mfinley98]

The real problem of the GOP is that it is inherently committed to tiny government and short-term thinking at a moment (global warming) that requires the very opposite.

[ProgressiveQueer]

I agree. However, I would add the following that I think speaks to the heart of an assumption that both Ms. Huffington and Mr. Borosage leave unexamined.

If the Republican party fails or disbans, that will not be the death of American Democracy as we know it. Rather, it might provide an "in" for other parties (Greens, Libertaria­ns...).

I am going to go on a limb here and say that Democracy can, in fact, thrive with a single party at the helm. Are you willing to tell make the case that a NY Dem is the same in ideology and voting record as a Southern Dem?

[mfinley98]

Minneapolis is the next town to the left. The site of the RNC is St. Paul.

You wouldn't say Queens if you meant The Bronx.

[rogead]

Actually, The convention is in "Minneapolis-St. Paul". While the gavel-to-gavel business is taking place in an arena within the city limits of St. Paul, the majority of other events are in Minneapolis. Of the 56 delegations to the convention, 26 are headquartered in Minneapolis. 18 are in Bloomingto­n... with only 5 in St. Paul. The RNC headquarters is also in Minneapolis, as are virtually all of the unofficial gatherings (a.k.a. parties). The convention is a cooperative effort amongst many communities within the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area. St. Paul is a wonderful city, and I'm glad to see it get some of the spotlight; but the city's civic inferiority complex to Minneapolis is beginning to wear thin.

Last time I flew into New York, I landed at Newark International. The airport is not located in New York City-it isn't even located in New York state!, but it's understood to be a part of the urbanized region referred to as "New York"

[TheProverbialMan]

From a policy standpoint, I agree with most of the posters here. As a Moderate Democrat, I think conservatives have good fundamentals that have been lost. A return to form is in order:

Fiscal Responsibility
Restore Constitution
War Free foriegn policy
Free Trade
True Freedom of Choice (Kill the BS Nanny statism: Abortion, Drugs, Religion, Immigration)

The problem is, Obama has been a proponent of a lot of these causes, espeically the First 3...Obaman­ism may undercut the potential wings for the conservatives. If he is effective as FDR, it's going to be a long, long time before the conservatives catch up.

[Indubio]

It would be nice if the GOP readapted the values of Eisenhower but this fails to recognize that the modern GOP represents a response to 1950s Eisenhower politics. Goldwater's presidential campaign and embarrassing loss in 1964 proved one thing: Republicans practicing true conservative politics cannot win general elections because as most political scientists recognize, Americans are by and large centrists (as was Eisenhower) and true conservatism is radical by comparison. Republicans want to be the majority party but after 1964, they recognized they could never win the majority if they campaigned on pure conservative ideology. Beginning in 1968, they began using wedge issues as a means of diverting voter attention and dividing the opposition. If Republicans couldn't win elections on issues they could win by dividing Democrats and confusing voters. Does Borosage or anyone else believe that authoritarians like Norquist and the rest of the radical right leadership irrespective of their flavor have the slightest interest in being a permanent minority party? This is the real problem for Republicans: They know they can only win general elections by slight of hand and obfuscation.

[StillAmused]

How about a "Going Out Of Business" sale? Might as well ask what could've been done to salvage the National Socialists in postwar Europe.

[TheProverbialMan]

I think the 3rd party Libertarians are essential in helping the Conservatives realign themselves properly. Disaffected conservatives should jump onto their ship until the Libertarian party becomes the 2nd party, or they are absorbed into the Republican party.

I think we have a real chance now to get a 3rd party into the system, with the republicans breaking between true Conservatives, and corporatist NeoCons, they can shed all the BS that has been absorbed into their name.

Think about it, Liberals no longer use the word "liberal" we call it progressive. That name got bogged down into the mud with the failure of the overly planned statist days of the 60's and 70's. When Clinton was elected he never used Liberal, but centrist. At the core, we still beleive the same stuff, equality, progressive taxes and diplomacy before war. We just use a new name to disavow ourselves from the old failures.

I see a point in the near future when conservative as a word may become as poisonous as liberal became.

[Freesia2]

How can you save your party?

By losing the election in November.

The GOP needs to hit the proverbial rock bottom. Putting McCain in office will only continue your denial of just how bad things have gotten.

Lose the election, start your rehab. Step back from the peer pressure of the religious right, wean yourself from addiction to oil company money. In the meantime, down ticket candidates will benefit from the perception that the GOP has decided to clean up its act and get healthy.

The Republican party needs a 12 step program. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

[James53R]

The Republican party will survive the election of 2008. But if it is to grow at all it
needs to drop the abortion issue. Roe vs Wade has been upheld numerous times
overturning it is a lost cause. Another thing the Republicans can do is to help the
labor unions in America.

[SlithyTove]

This is Exhibit A of a storm in a teacup.

There is no quick fix that will instantly rejuvenate the GOP and put the bloom back on its rose within the next election cycle. Let's can the punditry and get off this instant gratification jag...I swear, the mindless trivia we so frantically get caught up in, whipped up by breathless professional talking heads.

I hate to break it to you, but this nation will go about its business no matter how the GOP's situation plays out.

Evolutionary changes will occur at an evolutionary pace within both parties; awareness and reform may even lead to a (gasp!) truly viable third party that finally upends this dull duopoly.

I'll drink to THAT.

[eolivas]

Excellent commentary, what will happen will happen, and parsing every minute comment or fact won't change the global picture that individual, average voters will form on their own, without punditry, to deterime our electoral future.

[Stencil]

Great article, however, in reference to this:

"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."

have we really set our standards for what Democracy is so low that one aggregated voice is lonely and two is a democracy? One party would provide a lot of efficiencies to lobbyists and corporations, as they would only have to buy out one candidate instead of two for each seat.

I don't really think we know what democracy is anymore; we live in more of a veiled oligarchy where we as citizens have the ability to vote on talking points surrounding a candidate.

What saddens me is we actually have the technology now to be a true democracy, or at least provide more political power to the general population, though short of a revolution, it will never happen.

[RagingJerseyBoy]

Why should we want to save the Republican Party? Let it implode, amid chaos and recrimination, reduced to a trash heap, as the American people turn away from a failed ideology.

[iphelgix]

The GOP should fracture, is what they should do. This is the only way to accomodate the fiscally conservative, socially liberal base along with the fiscally conservative, socially conservative base and the fiscally liberal, socially conservative base they find themselves contorting to court. When faced with groups that are at their core mutually exclusive, this is the only way forward.
Certainly, they'd have to abandon ( somewhat ) a unified front in both houses and may not in the short term find themselves in the White House. Giving up the hope of absolute power for the reality of some power is a good option. If they were to do this sooner than later, they would also position themselves well for the day the dem's fracture too.
Perhaps it's just wishful thinking on my part, but i'm getting a sense that the two party system's days are numbered. The growth of independent registered voters, I believe, supports this opinion.

[Indubio]

You left out the Neocon base... there are at least three distinct brands of conservatism today:

Social conservatives (religious fanatics)
Fiscal conservatives (closes to libertarianism and the parties 1950s roots)
Neoconservatives

There is some overlap in the area of fiscal conservatism but not enough to permit smooth integration of ideas: Neocons for example detest social conservatives and fiscal conservatives detest both social conservatives and neocons but each branch is usually willing to subvert their pure ideals to win elections since winning is all that matters to them. The one aspect that unites each branch: They represent brands of authoritarianism or neo-protofascism. If conservatives wish to remain viable within the American democracy they must shed the authoritarianism that permeates their leadership. It has a distinctly unpleasant oder and that won't change even if the party breaks into three distinct elements.

[neoprimordial]

Reforming the Republican Party, in order of priority, most important first:

1. Remove the pervasive, underlying sense of fear that taints or poisons every action the Republican Party makes.

2. Remove the racial stigma of the party.

3. Remove the religious exclusivity of the party. Make it the party for all Americans regardless of their religion, not just the party predominantly for Protestants.

4. Have the utmost respect for and actively promote the good will of all the people, especially the inalienable rights of men and women to decide how they will raise their families, live together, survive, and thrive in contemporary American society.

5. Have the utmost respect for and be ruthlessly intellectually honest about science and knowledge overall.

6. Fully accept, support, and defend the fundamental principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, and truly comprehend that those principles are not fungible, nor is the expression of those principles to be easily amended.

7. Forget about the idea of small government or a limited federal government and refocus on the notion of government that expands and contracts to address the needs of its citizens (and not the needs of its elected officials), avoiding excess.

8. Resist by any and all means necessary the urge to make penny-wise and pound-foolish decisions regarding the economy, in particular runaway tax-cuts and actions that further America's dependence on fossil fuels.

[icechaos]

The US has become a one party state. This has been the plan of the elitist parasitic group that took over this country after World War II. The 'left' won; the 'right' has become the 'left.' The US is doomed!

[Monsoonrider]

Can you maybe elaborate on how the "left" has won? The Democrats are not the left - far from it actually. The "left" is anti-war. The "left" is flower power. The Dems are centrists at best.

[realpolitic]

"and begin once more to offer America a sensible alternative, not an extremist nightmare.­" Yes, today's Republican party has morphed into an extremist nightmare. The Republican party of old that valued balanced budgets, almost an isolationist tendency in foreign policy, small government, and distrust of large institutions and concentrations of power, would not recognize the Republican party of warmongering neocons, fundamentalist science-deniers of today.