MyDD :: "Republicans are in Denial"

"Republicans are in Denial"

by Dracomicron, Tue May 27, 2008 at 03:23:10 PM EST

While eating lunch today, I found the front page of the WSJ in the cafeteria, and figured I'd look to see what the other side had to say. Generally I'm offended at their slams of Democratic candidates, but the two major columns were surprising: One was a dissection of how Bush mishandled selling the Iraq war, and the other was from Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) with some grave words for the Republican party:

Republicans are in Denial

Now, Mr. Coburn is no friend to Democrats. He is fundamentally religious and tows the party line on just about every issue, from abortion to zinc (I'm not sure what the Republican party line on zinc is, but I'm sure he's in favor of it). He and Barack Obama did form a partnership to bring transparency to government spending with the Google for Government project. (see that site here: http://www.usaspending.gov/ ). Thus we establish Mr. Coburn as the Coke Classic of Republicans: honestly pro-small government, low taxes, etc.

Let's have a look at what he has to say...

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Now, by "Behave like Republicans," he's not talking about getting caught doing cocaine off of gay prostitutes or even gerrymandering districts to create a Permanent Republican Majority, he's talking about going back to their roots.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn't good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

As we've seen in the special runoff elections, a Democrat is fully capable of co-opting the social levers that have defined the Republican strategy of portraying Democrats as gun-stealing gay abortionists; when you take away these wedge issues, the Democratic brand is much, much more appealing due to its populism. While I'm a bit concerned at how broad the Democratic tent is getting, I'm willing to take the risk of fracture down the road if it breaks Republican power now.

Mr. Coburn agrees:

While the K Street Project decimated our brand as the party of reform and limited government, compassionate conservatism convinced the American people to elect the party that was truly skilled at activist government: the Democrats.

The Republicans never came through on their promises of small government; lower taxes without restrained spending merely translated into debt and now jeopardizes our economy.

Coburn advises refusing new spending and "tearing up the 'emergency spending' credit card." He wants his party to return to being Americans before being party members.

Regaining our brand is not about "messaging." It's about action. It's about courage. It's about priorities. Most of all, it's about being willing to give up our political careers so our grandkids don't have to grow up in a debtor's prison, or a world in which other nations can tell a weakened and bankrupt America where we can and can't defend liberty, pursue terrorists, or show compassion.

Bravo, Mr. Coburn. What he's saying is that Republicans need to be willing to live and die politically on the strength of their vision for America; that growing fat, complacent, and corrupt will only hurt the country in the long run. This is good advice for Democrats, too, as we stand at the verge of vast wins: don't become too much like the enemy, thinking that you're entitled to punish your foes and jury-rig the system so that it favors you from now on. We don't want to end up like the hapless 1994 Democrats, right?

In any case, that's the long run. Coburn seems to think that McCain is the only Republican who will be able to win in this environment, but I'm skeptical. Maybe Mr. Coburn's words, like Moses, will lead the Republican party to the promised land. But I don't think it'll be this year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121184690228421415.html

Tags: Tom Coburn, John McCain, Barack Obama, general election (all tags)

Permalink :: 8 Comments :: Post a Comment

Boy, that is for sure (2.00 / 1)

"We don't want to end up like the hapless 1994 Democrats, right?"

Or the Carter era Democrats or the 2006 Republicans.

by lombard on Tue May 27, 2008 at 03:47:40 PM EST

Exactamundo (2.00 / 2)

A lot of people are talking about how we need to just destroy the remaining Republicans after the election. Lock them out of every level of government.

What makes them think that that will work for us any better than it did for Abramoff, DeLay, and company?

Listen to Republican ideas, I say, and co-opt those of which that work, the things that Republican theory is good for: Coburn's take on fiscal responsibility, for example. We can run a large, compassionate government and still be smart about it.

If we take the Republican ideals that work, it steals some of their platform for when they return from the wilderness and make a play to return to dominance.

In this avalanche, the pebbles get to vote.

by Dracomicron on Tue May 27, 2008 at 03:53:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Senator Tom Coburn has bad news for Republican (2.00 / 3)

Good diary. It's worth remembering that conservatism can be an honorable position--it's the political parties that corrupt and distort. I happen to think the Republican party has distorted conservatism more than the Democratic party has distorted progressivism (although it's a close call).

I have a post on my blog about this issue: the Republican party has become unmoored from conservatism, to the extent that conservatism can be defined as limited government, federalism, and personal responsibility. The Rove strategy of micro-messaging directly to different factions and ignoring the contradictions has resulted in an unwieldy party that tries to serve homophobes, tax-cutters, warmongers, isolationists, libertarians, corporate welfare queens, and Christianists in equal measure. The base's disillusionment with Bush and clear discomfort with McCain are evidence of how the GOP can't sustain the weight of its own contradictions.

If you're interested, there was a great soul-searching debate over at RedState not too long ago about the meaning of "conservatism" in these troubled-for-Republicans times. I don't have a link anymore but the upshot was precisely that nobody could agree--the SoCons, DefCons, and FisCons were at each others' throats about the meaning of the word and whether it could be applied to McCain. Fascinating to watch their coalition come apart at the seams.

What is The October Protocol?

by Koan on Tue May 27, 2008 at 03:55:14 PM EST

I'll be paying more attention to that stuff soon (2.00 / 1)

The next frontier is conservative bloggers. We have work to do re-uniting our party, but once that's done, there will be missionary work elsewhere on the web to do... not as the dishonest changelings that we see here every day, but as true Democrats willing to talk to the enemy and hash out what people actually want for their country.

In this avalanche, the pebbles get to vote.

by Dracomicron on Tue May 27, 2008 at 03:59:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "Republicans are in Denial" (2.00 / 1)

I think in general too much is being made about the Republican crack-up, just like too much was made after 2004.

The fundamental 'problem' with the country has always been that we have in essence a two-party system. Either one party is primarily in power, or the other is. Large swings in the prevailing political climate -- caused by the prevailing political party -- are what cause the large shifts we have seen in the past -- 1860, 1912, 1932, 1968, 1980, and 1994.

Republicans are in denial to a certain extent about being Republicans, but they are more in denial about what caused these problems in the first place -- President Bush. And although you can't lay all the blame on him (a lot goes to Congressional Republicans), you can lay most of it on him.

This is in tangent to a point I keep making which is that 2008 will not be a cakewalk for the Democrats as many seem to believe. The fundamentals still say Democrats should win, but I don't think it will be the case that it's going to be a landslide. Republicans for all their defects have nominated someone who is widely seen as of the Republican Party, yet apart from it.

And the theory of split government appeals to a lot of people as well. They may not have liked George Bush, but this doesn't automatically mean that they don't like John McCain. There's a reason why McCain is competitive against both Clinton and Obama. Unlike others, I don't see this as a ceiling, but as a floor. All of the political oxygen has been with Obama/Clinton. Once Clinton officially withdraws, the election will begin in earnest and we'll see what happens from there. Let's not forget that in 1980 Democrats still held a majority in the House, even after the Reagan landslide. Split government has long been the preferred mode of government for this country, and only during the 1930s/1940s and the period following the Civil War has this not been the case.

Bottom line -- the presidential election will be close either way. Congressional elections, however, will probably yield greater Democratic majorities in both houses.

"If we can't live together... we're going to die alone."

by VAAlex on Tue May 27, 2008 at 04:11:39 PM EST

Split government hasn't been that great for us (2.00 / 2)

I understand that it's used to serve a purpose in making change hard to come by, but I'm one of those that thinks that the concessions made to the Republicans during the Clinton years, such as the Defense of Marriage Act, were seriously problematic for the nation at large.

Split government should be more about finding solutions that both sides can get behind rather than triangulating "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" politics. That's been sorely lacking in the last 16 years.

In this avalanche, the pebbles get to vote.

by Dracomicron on Tue May 27, 2008 at 04:19:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I want the Republicans to get back on track (2.00 / 1)

We NEED the Republicans. We need them because a one-party state, or even a near one-party state never works well.
The problem with the Republican Party today is that it has bought into a truly anti-American philosophy. It really has: corrupt, selfish, incompetent assholes are seen as the savios of the U.S. by many Republicans. Even today, how many congressional Republicans are willing to stand up to Bush? Not too damned many.
They believe that widening income and wealth gaps in this country are A-O.K., and that running us into trillions of dollars of debt is just siffy, as long as the milluionaires don't have to pony up anything to help keep up this country and society that have been SOOOOO good to them. They believe that it's not just all right, but downright righteous to start wars built upon lies against small despotates that don't hreaten us, and to torture people. They believe that we should send young Americans to fight and die and come back wounded, but that when they get back, we should throw them away like trash.
They believe that unreconstructed racists are just fine to build a party with.
They are about the definition of what America is NOT and was never meant to be. And I pray that they purge these scummy bastards from their party and start behaving like a party that understands what so many Americans have worked and fought and even died to make this country stand for.
I don't think I'd ever be a Republican; I hope they come back healthy and oppose the Democrats vigorously, and I don't want them to be just like us. We need competing parties that work for progress by following different paths. As long as the end is just, I can deal with not seeing eye to eye with Republicans on how to get there.
But we need them back--the sane, decent ones, at least.
Let's pray that the Bushes and Cheyneys and Gingriches and Frists and Helmses and Giulianis and Sessionses and Santorums Vitters and and the other amoral creeps who just plainly hate all the things our country stands for and was built upon end up getting marginalized, as they should be.

ÞÞÞ

by Mumphrey on Tue May 27, 2008 at 04:52:43 PM EST

Here, here! (2.00 / 1)

Well said.

I would be a lot happier with more Republicans like Hagel, Lugar, and Coburn... still ideological rivals, but honest ones.

Also they need to learn how to break ranks more often. Their lockstep positions have been damaging to the country.

In this avalanche, the pebbles get to vote.

by Dracomicron on Tue May 27, 2008 at 05:01:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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