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

[swanie]

I just left the "R" party last year and am now a registered Independent.

Fixing the "R" party is relatively easy. Get rid of the right-wing demigods, evangelicals, and the other bigots who have destroyed the party over the last 40 years, and come back to its roots - minus all the hate, invictive, and one sided positions on almost everything from health care to defense to the environment to caring for one another, and on and on.

The ONLY way for the "R" to come back is to be dismembered, and all the really bad parts thrown away. It will take a generation or two, but eventually it could work.

But they won't The idiotic leaders are still in it to get everything they can and to hell with everyone and everything else.

Good riddance "R" you are finally reaping what you have sown ! ! And good riddance.

BTW I am a WASP, a retired military officer, and happily no longer a "R".

[PissedOffProf]

I am a registered Democrat for my entire life, but if I had to classify my political philosophy, I would be closest to what used to call Rockefeller Republicanism. Their platform is very similar to the Eisenhower theme that Mr. Borosage proposed, but more social progressive. The cornerstone is fiscal conservatism. You pay as you go. Deficit spending mortgages (and unfairly compromises) future generations. To pay for social programs, there must be sufficiently high tax rates. Tax rates are progressive, consistent with the idea that the highest salaried have benefited the most from America and should give back to society; so corporations and the rich pay their fair share.

Domestically, Rockefeller Republicans support Social Security, infrastructure projects, public education, significant research and arts grants. I would add to that national health care. They believe that the best way to counter foreign threat is by sponsoring economic growth of other counties through foreign aid, a la Marshall type plans. Strong military is favored for defensive purposes, but military budgets are controlled.

Rockefeller Republicanism is true compassionate conservatism, and not the sloganeering type of Bushco. A true mix could be a strong platform today if adopted by either party.

[hmmmmmer]

It is hard to save someone that is drowning and fighting you at the same time. The party needs some new ideas, not just fresh faces espousing the same old rhetoric, starting with the fact we need to do something about relying on Saudi Arabia for oil and for the Chinese to finance that oil. Drilling isn't the answer, the answer is alternative energies. We should be able to drill here and can work that out, but drilling here is not the solution for a long term. We need to think about our children's children, and I am afraid that is one thing the Republicans can't do, they are too busy worrying about abortion, something I find terrible, but we all have a free will, and sometimes crap happens that we just can't handle. It is time for them to lighten up and quit worrying about evangelicals and their base and work for a new base.

[navalvet]

Eisenhower was not a "movement" conservative and he was even considered a possible Democratic candidate for president. Essentially, Eisenhower had no quarrel with the New Deal, at least no great desire to roll it back, which suited much of Main Street and much of Wall Street, of that day. He won a showdown with the Taft wing of the party, which did want to undo the New Deal, but Eisenhower did not fundamentally alter much of the party. Four years after he left the presidency, the Republicans ran Goldwater rejecting Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and returned to their old ways. Twenty years after he left the Presidency, the "movement" won with Reagan.

A stunning victory by Sen. Obama and congressional Democrats might actually change the Republicans but they are slow learners. The current group may look back to McKinley and not to TR but their incompetence and inherent corruption should keep them out of office for a long time.

[stageplay]

I was a Republican. No more. My party has been hijacked by people who put their own nitpicky interests and people who put big corporations and big money above their own country's interests. They don't give a damn about the average American. They busted the unions. They kowtow to religious extemists, while their real god is actually the almighty dollar. They have become a party riddles with greed and corruption. They have trampled the United States Constitution, which Bush once said "is just a piece of paper". They put their party and their party's interests high above the interests of this nation. They have done damage to our country that is going to take a long time to repair, if it is reparable at all. I will never vote for a Republican again. They represent the zenith of hypocrisy and they are a danger to the future of America.

[Retrofuturistic]

My feelings exactly.

[USBrit]

I am right there with you having voted for Reagan the first time, but after I realized what a liar he was I became an Independent. But once I saw GW coming I decided that was it. Never again will I vote Republican. And I have zero interest in seeing them recover from this debacle. Let instead two or more competing parties rise that represent more granular groups - this two party system really has not worked very well in a very long time other than to keep one of the two in power and stifle real change. We deserve much better. But for the moment there is no choice I see but to vote Dem and hopefully see the final bullet be fired to kill off the Republican elephant.

[darker]

Thank you for clearly telling it like it is. Good job.

[smith9898]

Why bother saving the REP party they do not want to be saved. The are arrogant,liars and cannot deal with the truth or facts cause they are about the BIG LIE. My concern is to make the effort to make the DEM party better than what it is. That means of course forming coalitions that are progressive in nature. At the same time let the REP party die on the vine.

[Geoark]

If the Republican Party wants to save itself and our country's future it should be proposing the same thing the Democrats SHOULD be proposing: The Environmental Tax Shift. (Please feel free to google this).
In other words, let us shift taxes off our true private property, our labor and the fruits of our labor. Instead, local, state, and Federal governments should charge user fees on OUR natural resources. This would include charges for pollution (a carbon tax to start), extraction (on imported barrels of oil and anything extracted in this country) and the exclusive use of land sites.
Only by "taxing waste, and not work" will we be able to meet the challenges of climate change, peak oil, and movement toward an ecologically sustainable economy and planet.

[Roci]

The "Party" system in this Nation is badly broken. It has been splintered by the "win at any cost" mentality.
Scott McClellan is right about that much in his book. The truth is that everyone is campaigning, all the time. It's become a mindset and a way of life. Politicians are to worried about polls to think about public service. For all his flaws. LBJ was a master politician. He knew the art of the deal, and for good, or bad, things got done, most often with Sen. Dirksen on board. Government worked, sort of.
That changed with Nixon who put politics and personal loyalties above government­.It's been that way pretty much ever since. Too much money, too much vitriol, and too much personal power rather than service and goals have infected our politics. Ideas drown in a sea of greedy politics and media. No one has all of the right answers all of the time. The original idea of American Democracy was consensus thru constructive opposition of ideas. That is gone, and its no wonder that our freedom now stands in danger.-Ro­ci

[JohnnyBoyyy]

Let's keep it simple. Go back to the guiding elements of our Constitution starting with a complete separation of government and religion.

Hopefully the "low information" voter will get some interest in the political process this year. They could fire up that old computer they only use for gaming and porno and read some sites like the Huffington Post. By reading the blogs AND the comments we all depend on for making OUR political decisions, they will be better informed citizens. And they just might be shocked to learn what every American should know about our candidates and the issues.

Let the Republican party die the death it's "leaders" have bestowed upon it. Obama, as our next President, will go a long way to show every American that we CAN do this. He will bring some much needed morality, family values and decency in the White House.

Also, 3 or 4 parties, all on a spending budget for their campaigning, would be another good idea.

This is OUR Moment - This is OUR Time.

Obama '08-12!

[FlyerX]

"Can this party be saved? And if so, how?"

It wasn't that many years ago when people were asking the same questions about the Democrats. You have to take these elections, from the presidency, through Congress and to the state level, one at a time. Recruit better candidates, run better campaigns and win them. This expands the talent pool to move up the ladder.

The country is still essentially conservative, but is pragmatic, not dogmatic. That's where the GOP has dropped the ball.

[thinklib]

You speak the truth.

[ZsaZsa]

First, Republicans have to define what conservatism really means. Like it or hate it, liberalism has remained pretty much the same since the days of FDR. Conservatism, not so much.

Being conservative used to mean keeping a balanced budget. Now it means loads of deficit spending on defense. Being conservative used to mean not using our military for nation building. Now it means using our military for nation building. Being conservative used to mean not creating big government bureaucracies. Now it means creating a bloated Department of Homeland Security.

The Republican Party has become a motley crue of interest groups, each of which claims to be the real conservatives, and whose goals are fast becoming irreconcilable. Consider their slate of candidates in this election: McCain the Neocon, Romney the fiscal conservative, Giuliani the security statist, and Huckabee the Christian fundamentalist. Each candidate's supporters had problems with the other candidates, and the result is that not many Republicans are terribly enthusiastic about McCain. They need to figure out what it really means to be conservative, and toss out all the fringe yahoos.

[molomolo]

The first thing necessary is to un-deify (if such a term exists) Ronald Reagan. I was a long time Republican, seldom casting a Democratic vote for President. After Reagan, I saw the handwriting on the wall and stopped that behavior. Unfortunately the majority of the Republican leadership have not done the same. Until we quit talking--and thinking--about Reagan, there is no begining point for the attempt to return Republicanism to sanity.

[xkp]

Another idea might be to have a different republican parties based upon the platforms of the three major successful Republican presidents­/administr­ations, that being Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. At least history has defined what these men thought were important ideas and what their vision was for the Country. I suppose you could be a bush or reagan republican, although their ideas have proven to be failures, but you could still support the principles, as many still do.

[hardlyhikin]

You're spot on on this one. Republicans like to beleve that Reagan ended the cold war with his Berlin Wall speech but I think differently.
I remember, from the 50's on, how every week you'd read something in the newspaper about Russians lining up for blocks to get bread or toilet paper or whatever when it became available.
I remember stories of Russian diplomats wives freaking out the first time they got a chance to go to an American supermarket because there were so many products available; they'd fill a shopping cart with beef because "it won't be available tomorrow" and how they were always amazed that it always was.
A system like that, no matter how repressive, was bound to fall under the crush of its own weight and it did. Maybe Reagan's increased defense spending was the final factor that pushed them over the edge, maybe it was his call to "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall", maybe not, but I've always believed the Soviet Union was on its last legs when Reagan was President and it would've soon fallen no matter who was President.

[digger624]

The best thing Republicans can do is to ignore most of the extreme media bias and stick to thier core values.

Democrats have a much worse problem in a party that instead of having a core value system, they rely on many different groups of people that need appeasing. In pleasing everyone, you ultimately get little done.

There is a misguided attitude among Democrats that everything that is done by a Republican is wrong and deserves extreme ridicule. The Democrats even chase off leading members if they are out of step with party lines. How can someone who is an acceptable VP candidate in 2000(Joe Leiberman) be thrown to the wolves by his own party, only because of his stance on the war? Even in the comments of this website, hate and polarization is the norm, not the exception. Democrats should honestly look at the leaders in thier party and hold them to equal account. Start with Nancy Pelosi.

What needs to happen is both parties fighting on equal terms, suppporting ideas with facts, and not venom. If you dont approve of the other parties plan, come up with a different plan, don't just ridicule them and do nothing yourselves.

In summary, I think Republicans are on the right track. Let the Democrats hate Bush, and when Mccain and Palin debate Obama and Biden, you will see who the better candidate is. But only if you can stay objective.

[dswagz]

As an "Extreme" (to use your word) example, say, a corporation owns a TV station and maybe also has a division that makes airplane and jet engines for the military, or, let's say -just for laughs- a corporation owns a TV station and also owns an amusement park.
Since the corporations first and foremost bottom line IS the bottom line, would it make sense that maybe they filter the news you get on their TV station if that news would hurt their military airplane engine division, or stifle some negative news about a certain group of politicians if that same corporation is Looking To Those Same Politicians for a large tax break in the State where it's amusement park is built?
Is that a possibility that a corporations interests may not be healthy for them to broadcast because people may object, and prevent the corporation from meeting it's goal of maximizing profits and capitalizing on opportunities???
One good way to avoid this would be to keep labeling the media "Liberal", passing out that Kool-Aid so that people start to believe that the media has a liberal slant. Anytime a story shines a negative light on the people who have sold out our country to corporate paymasters, then you end up saying it's a media problem -because The media is Liberal -Just like they keep telling you it is....See the irony, here Digger624?

[WASProtoplasm]

Fix the Republican Party?
Although the analogy is inexact, I find it useful to compare the GOP to a party of addicts—a group of people who have indulged themselves in a self-destructive, 8 year orgy of hubris which has hurt those around them. The only one who can fix an addiction is the addict him/herself; it’s inappropriate for the rest of us to try.
Time for Republicans to embark on their own 12-step program, I think. They can go a long way toward expiating their guilt by admitting to themselves that their President is a crook (or worse) and acceding to a much-belated impeachment on whatever charges seem to Congress most likely to stick. Nothing short is going to make me or the American people believe they’re sincere in their wish to reform themselves.

[savconsulting]

Why bother trying to save the GOP. They're not worth saving. They have been hijacked by their Wacko God Base and are more like a church or cult than the party of Eisenhower and Lincoln. The original party platform was "We'll stay out of your wallet and out of your bedroom." I ask you, has it changed much?
You betcha. It is now the party of non caring prosperous religious fanatics who quote scripture rather than the tenents of the constitution. They are joined by the easily impressed sheep that respond to fear, lies and hollow promises.
Based on John McCain recent pick of unvetted Sarah Palin and the loads of embarassing information that has already emerged and will contine to do so confirms very clearly that John McCain is not fit to serve.

[neoprimordial]

They're Americans. They're human beings. They're worth saving.