May 19, 2009

Contrary to popular reports by Democrats and members of the chattering class, the Republican Party is not dead—not yet.

In the aftermath of the 2008 elections, however, the GOP is hemorrhaging badly. It is dazed and confused. It is moribund, but it is not dead yet. Whether the Party of Lincoln will recover remains to be seen. Its prognosis is, at best, guarded.

Having had their heads handed to them in the last election, and finding it difficult to take on a popular president, Republicans are casting about trying to find a new direction. But news of their demise is premature. Pundits would do well to recall that in aftermath of the 2004 elections Karl Rove was predicting a Republican hegemony that would last for 50 years. What goes around comes around.

Forks in the Road

Do Republicans need to reinvent themselves? Some say yes. Many are calling for a "rebranding" of the Republican Party, as if the party's woes can be relieved by a new marketing strategy. Others—including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush—say the GOP needs to get over its Reagan "nostalgia," implying that the achievements of the Reagan years are "so yesterday." John McCain stresses the need for "inclusiveness," while others advocate evicting groups deemed unpopular in the Obama Era from the Big Tent—namely, social and religious conservatives. If the party pursues these courses of action, it is doomed to extinction.

The Root of the Problem

The Republican Party doesn't need a makeover. Its problem is not that the principles for which it has historically stood are out of vogue. The problem is that its leaders did not live or govern by these principles. The party of fiscal conservatism became a profligate. Under George W. Bush, Republicans ratcheted spending to new highs, rewarding favored special interests with unprecedented giveaways of taxpayer money. The party of traditional values abandoned those values, embraced graft and greed (a la Jack Abramoff, et al.), and tried to conceal the peccadilloes of its in-house pedophile, Mark Foley. The party of limited government embraced "big government conservatism" (an oxymoron that only morons could conceive of). Voters reacted with revulsion. Americans hate hypocrisy, and they threw the hypocrites out.

To those urging a new course, one would do well to ask just which parts of the Reagan legacy should Republicans now eschew? Less government? Lower taxes? Renewed prosperity? The collapse of Communism? Those achievements were the product of principle; they were not the fruit of pragmatism. They resulted in unprecedented popularity for the man that lived by them, and for his party as well.