Comments Posted By Stephen Daugherty
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As a Democrat, my advice is to ditch the spin for substance, the hysteria for reliable reason. If people are scared about Republicans, it's mainly because the policies of that party have become starkly separated from what many other people see as reality. Worse, it seems many of the most visible republican glory in this separation, glory in offending and alienating those they disagree with.
The author of this entry gets it right when he says that parties cannot win by subtraction, only addition, and the trouble with the Republicans currently is that they're trying to purify the party of anything else but a hard-right brand of Conservatism.
When metal gets too hard, too inflexible, it breaks easier. The Republicans, leading up to 2006 and 2008, left themselves few alternatives to the party's main message, it's main philosophy. When the mainstream of its party was rejected, there was virtually no-one else to put forward who could appeal to a broad cross-section of Americans. There was no bend, no give in the party. Even a candidate who ostensibly could appeal beyond his party, like Senator McCain, was forced to take hardline positions inconsistent with his record. Tim Pawlenty and others suffer the same fate.
The Tea Partisans now seem to lead the party around by the nose. They're the only folks who seem to have energy in the party, yet their behavior is scary and their points gravely lacking in substance. They spout absurdities and continually spin and spin and spin everything to declare the current problems a product of liberalism run amok.
Whether you think as I do, that modern conservatism is a dead philosophy in need of replacement, or as the author probably does, that it needs a fresh start, free of craziness and internecine bloodletting, it's to the modern Republican's benefit to emphasize substance over style, good government first, and then less government if it can be managed, because no conservative will be able to sell people on small government if it means a replay of the events of the last eight years. And part of what caused the last eight years was a lack of willingness on the right to entertain other points of view, to have people to call BS on lousy ideas, to have people who would stand up, when it's not popular, and say no to things like a tax cut that doesn't have spending cuts built in with it, or to decry a massive spending program or failures to look out for the taxpayer when it was a Republican responsible.
Republicans failed to govern wisely, instead choosing to govern in a kneejerk expression of campaign promises and party dogmas. If they had engineered their policy with function more than purism in mind, they might still be in charge.
Comment Posted By Stephen Daugherty On 3.11.2009 @ 14:25
