What Now For The GOP?
Posted: 7 November 2008 Filed under: News, Politics, Society | Tags: Conservatives, Giuliani, Jeb Bush, Palin, Party politics, Republicans 2 Comments »First of all, looks like the Reagan era is over! The next great conservative movement will be back to the future type of government, more Goldwater-esque. Smaller government, less spending, government out of private lives, etc….but the question will be…who will lead the new GOP?
I look for the likes of Romney, Giuliani, Jeb Bush and Palin fighting it out for control of the Party. I feel that Romney and Jeb Bush wioll come out of the battle with the control. Palin will be marginalized, but a heavy hitter. She will most likely become the Huckabee of the next election.
After this past election, take a long hard look at the map, the red states in particular, The GOP has become the party of white rural America and a party of the South. To play in the rest of the US it has to find a new direction. This coming battle for control could become the political story of the next 4 years.
The GOP has to find a new message that will appeal to Americans, a new direction and a new face. They may deny it, but the GOP voting was along racial lines, to discount this is to deny the obvious.
The Republicans have a number of problems.
Younger voters favoured Mr Obama by a big margin. So too did Latinos. Both groups represent major parts of the electorate in the coming years.
The executive editor of the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes, argues that two things have gone wrong.
“The first is the party’s image, which has suffered because of an unpopular Republican president, scandals in Congress, and a party the media claims is too conservative.
“The other is the sour political mood in the country caused by a weak economy, the financial meltdown, and the feeling the nation is headed in the wrong direction.”
A possible Republican response to its problems, Mr Barnes suggests, “might be to elevate moderates to positions of leadership”.
It is a huge umbrella group of social-conservatives – whose primary policy goal is the protection of the unborn; fiscal-conservatives who wish the party instead would focus on tax rates; neo-conservatives who advocate military pre-emption abroad; anti-immigration hawks who helped turn off the Latino vote.
The battle, some believe, will be between economic conservatives and culture warriors.
Ms Palin may lead the cultural conservative faction’s efforts to control the party in 2012 in a battle with Republicans seeking a more centrist approach.
“Is the Republican Party finished? No, and even though it will go through the typical agonizing post-train-wreck re-appraisals, the party’s remedy might be far simpler than it now appears. The Republicans are just one compelling leader away from being back in the game.’” Now the question that needs to be asked is: Who will that leader be?
Aaah, yes, I can also bet that Palin will be next election’s Huckabee. The GOP definitely needs a new face. Even as a minority within their generation, a “Young Republican” movement has been surfacing in colleges around the country, and they are the next generation who may help bring forth and create a bandwagon for a new leader. It’s got to be someone smart though (i.e., not Palin).
(Looking further into the future, beyond 2012…) I wonder about these “young Republicans.” This generation (“Generation Y”?) is a lot like their parents (Baby Boomers) and they’re going to want power in the next couple decades and I promise they’ll screw things up, even the “liberal” ones. They will become an increasingly fiscally-conservative generation but at least (I feel/hope) there will be less and less religious indoctrination within our govt. I think the culture warriors will slowly die out… I hope.
I agree….the evangelicals now seem to be more worried about war, Darfur, stuff like that so they are moving away from the crap of the past–at least for now. We can only hope that it continues. I need caffeine.