Practices, not principles, hurt GOP

After being routed at the polls for two consecutive election cycles, Republicans are turning introspective, asking how the party fell out of favor so suddenly and how to correct course. That introspection includes the inevitable catharsis that exacerbates tensions within the existing right-center political coalition.

Conservatives say moderates were too squishy, especially on spending matters. Moderates say conservatives were too rigid, particularly on social issues. Libertarians say both conservatives and moderates are correct in their diagnoses but wrong in their prescriptions.

The reality again harkens to Lord Acton's admonition about the corrupting influence of power. Contrary to advertising messages in the recent campaign, Republicans are people, too, which renders them just as susceptible to allure of authority as their Democrat counterparts.

Sen. Tom Coburn, first elected to the House in the 1994 "Republican revolution," observed in his book, Breach of Trust, that former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Majority Leader Dick Armey, vanguards of the 1994 Republican revolution, quickly became too focused on retaining power rather than advancing the agenda that brought them victory.

With a few exceptions, like reforming welfare and balancing the budget, Republicans' track record proves Coburn right. Now that Gingrich and Armey have escaped the vortex of elected office, they have re-emerged as leading advocates for governance guided by conservative standards.

Similarly, George W. Bush did not win election by promising to expand Medicare entitlements or by declaring that his chief foreign policy goal would be to "make the world safe for democracy." While those policies may have produced some short-term political gain, their long-term results eroded the public's confidence in his ability and his party.

So, were the last two elections a referendum on the Republican Party's core principles or its ability to deliver?

Numerous polls taken close to Election Day confirm that voters simply lost faith in Republicans but remain strongly supportive of core conservative tenants like limited government and low tax rates.

Rasmussen found that 59% of voters still agree with Ronald Reagan's assessment that, more often than not, government is the problem, not the solution. Another survey, taken immediately after the election, found that 63% believe that tax cuts are the best economic stimulus, compared to just 20% who want more government spending.

Those tenets illustrate the challenge confronting Barack Obama who, as president, can no longer be all things to so many people, and the frustration confronting voters whose only choices were Republicans who failed to produce and Democrats who promised "change."

A Club for Growth survey targeted 12 congressional districts -- including Colorado's Fourth -- that voted for President Bush in 2004 but overwhelmingly elected Democrats in 2008. That survey found:

** 81% of voters said "Republicans used to be the party of economic growth, fiscal discipline, and limited government, but in recent years, too many Republicans in Washington have become just like the big spenders they used to oppose."

** By a margin of 66% to 23%, those surveyed preferred a candidate who would cut federal spending to one who would increase spending in order to bring home more federal pork.

** 73% said the best economic policy is giving everyone the opportunity to create wealth through their own efforts rather than using the tax code to "spread the wealth."

** 71% said government should not guarantee mortgages to help people avoid foreclosure.

** 66% want the death tax to die in two years, as scheduled; just 20% want to see it resurrected.

**61% said the highest tax rate anyone should pay is 35% or less; only 18% supported higher rates.

These positions are overwhelmingly supported by Republicans of all varieties, but somehow our leaders in Washington lost their focus.

Before Republicans spend too much time boldly pointing out each other's warts -- which persuades no one -- we must remember that the principles that unify us are also the principles that, when backed by action, have produced electoral majorities and will continue to do so.

Mark Hillman served as Colorado Senate Majority Leader and State Treasurer. To read more or comment, please go to www.MarkHillman.com

GOP must recover its North Star

(By Rep. Tom Tancredo) Barack Obama won the presidential election by making it a referendum on the Bush presidency and by making McCain look like a Bush clone. Voters decided they wanted more "change" than McCain could be expected to deliver. Whether that was a fair or accurate characterization of McCain's policy agenda is now a quaint question for historians. What we know for sure is that the voters opted for “change” without any real understanding of what kind of change they will get.

Even before all the dust has settled, there are some clear lessons for Republicans from the McCain campaign and eight years of the Bush presidency. Some of the lessons are obvious, but some are hidden beneath several layers of political correctness.

First, Karl Rove's grand paradigm for a "permanent Republican majority" built on "compassionate conservatism" was grand hype based on a grand illusion. No political victory can be permanent; each generation must fight for human liberty all over again. Bush's spending programs in Medicare, education and elsewhere succeeded only in vastly increasing the national debt without creating any new Republican constituencies. This orgy of government spending greatly damaged the "Republican brand" and left Republican loyalists dismayed and disoriented. Eight years of George Bush and the idiosyncratic McCain campaign have left voters confused about what Republicans stand for.

Second, it was neither smart politics nor smart policy to allow Ted Kennedy and the American Immigration Lawyers Association to write a Bush-McCain immigration reform plan which gave only lip service to border security. Those congressional battles alienated 90% of the Republican base and 75% of independents. Did the McCain support of two amnesty plans in 2006 and 2007 win him more support among Hispanic political groups than Republicans normally get? No. McCain could not out-pander the Democrat party and it was foolish to try.

A third lesson of the Bush presidency is that a large segment of the American news media has abandoned any serious pretense to objectivity and adopted a partisan agenda. The mainstream news media attacked George Bush for eight years through a relentless barrage of biased reporting and selective indignation: “Bush’s Failed War Strategy”… “Bush’s Oil Company Ties”… “Bush’s Deregulation of Wall Street”…“Bush’s War on Civil Liberties”….”Bush’s Approval Rating Plunges”….Some people can escape the impact of such incessant, poisonous negativism, but the millions of Americans who do not listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity could not.

The lessons of the McCain campaign mirror those of the Bush era. McCain did not run as a Republican until the final month of the election. In 2007 he launched his campaign as a "maverick," a man who was above party, a man who relished bipartisan deals like McCain-Feingold, echoing Bush’s early efforts to “rise above ideology.” This Lone Ranger theme earned him the approval of the liberal media only as long as he was running against conservatives in the presidential primary, but once he had the nomination locked up, the establishment media turned on him. "Maverick" is a style, not a program of reform and not a set of principles. By the time McCain began articulating a Republican agenda that could appeal to independents and blue-collar workers, it was too late.

McCain's campaign did not catch fire until the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The McCain operatives who now try to blame Governor Palin for the campaign's failures are both wrong and dishonest. It wasn't Sarah Palin who failed to deliver even a knockdown punch in three debates with Obama, and it wasn't Sarah Palin who forbade any mention of Obama’s association with Reverends Wright and Pfleger, the anarchist Ayers, the felon financial adviser Rezko, the PLO agent Khalidi and the vote fraud machine, ACORN.

The news media gave Obama a pass on his long association with these radicals and never subjected his tax and spending proposals to serious scrutiny. Republicans were blamed for the credit crisis despite Democrat fingerprints all over the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac scandals and Fannie Mae political donations to Obama. Sarah Palin was constantly ridiculed while Joe Biden's incoherence and frequent gaffes went unexamined.

In truth, McCain was at times his own worst enemy as a campaigner. "Economics is not my strong suit," he admitted in an interview one month before the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Lesson from Politics 101: Let your opponents discover your Achilles heel if they can, don't confess it on national television.

Can the Republican Party rebuild to gain substantial victories in 2010 and 2012? Yes, absolutely. In the first place, recovering the principles, vision and verve of Ronald Reagan will be a lot easier with Barack Obama in the White House and George Bush back on his ranch. Candidate Obama could demonize Bush, demagogue oil companies and Wall Street, and avoid spelling out his own policies in detail. But populist rhetoric must now yield to concrete legislation. After the public gets a look at the real Obama and his socialist plans for sharing the wealth across the globe—and yes, socialist is the most accurate term to describe Obama’s philosophy --- Republican alternatives will not only seem respectable, they will be downright attractive. Not everyone in heartland America drank the New Change Kool-Aid; many voters would have voted for Benedict Arnold just to poke Bush in the eye. That sentiment will dissipate quickly.

The party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan has endured a tortuous detour down the Bush Parkway and then into the McCain cul-de-sac. Fortunately, we do have a compass —a compass called the Constitution and a north star called limited government. The first step to regain our bearings is to stop talking about where we have been and start thinking about where we want to go. More than the future of the Republican party depends on our resilience and our abiity to chart that new course successfully.

Congressman Tancredo retired this year after representing Colorado's 6th district since 1998 and competing in the 2008 presidential primaries. This article first appeared in HUMAN EVENTS on Nov. 5.

For blame, look in the mirror

Tuesday at 6am I entered the precinct to open the polls. Sealed off from radio, TV, Internet, and even my cell phone, I knew nothing of the races until I emerged 14 hours later, my judge duties fulfilled. Too exhausted to join friends at election night headquarters, I turned my car for home. Alone in my living room, I watched the results with bleak resignation and feared for the future of my country. Wednesday morning with eyes cleared by eight hours of sleep, I viewed the true toll of the election in the morning paper. With cold amusement, I relived a scene from a favorite film of my youth and imagined conservatives hiding out on a frozen planet while the Empire reasserted itself across the known universe.

What in the world happened? Republicans across the country may be asking the same question. It would be easy to blame a deeply biased press, glitzy Hollywood endorsements, billionaire contributions, fraud a la Acorn, and the sheer eloquence of Barack Obama for the outcome of the election. Truth be told, however, the seeds of defeat were sown in the late 1990's when Republicans abandoned the principles of limited government and embraced the power of big government to advance its own ends.

No longer the party of constitutional limits, federalism, and individual rights, the GOP eagerly supported federal regulation, new entitlements, expansion of earmark spending, Great Society-like programs, nation building, economic planning and historic spending increases. In doing so, they lost the support of the base and the people they were trying to court. After all, why pick Democrat-lite when you can have the real thing.

For the past decade, few Republicans have been able to articulate why limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility are necessary for the preservation of individual freedom and national prosperity. Democrats, however, have eloquently made the case that big government, new entitlements and programs, higher taxes, and economic planning are in the nation’s best interest. It is not surprising that liberals managed to sway a great many in this state and across the nation to their viewpoint.

The silver lining is that leftist ideas are not in our best interest. Ideas have consequences and the change Democrats have in mind will bring economic hardship and social injustice. Just as FDR’s New Deal intensified the depression and LBJ’s Great Society programs mired generations in poverty, Democrats’ ideas have a predicable outcome. It is only a matter of time before the hope of a government-created utopia wears thin and people feel the consequences of this election.

In the meanwhile, the GOP has an opportunity to rebuild the party to be the freedom-loving, libertarian, limited government party. We need to do a housecleaning that sweeps out bumbling Me-too Republicanism and embarrassing politicians like the pork barreling Ted Stevens and anyone claiming to have a wide stance. Republicans who say they support the Constitution but in opposition to its principles, continue to advance their own programs, entitlements, and agendas will find a more receptive place on the other team.

Equally importantly, Republicans need to learn to articulate the case for freedom and why government programs encroach on the free will of individuals. Making the case for freedom can be difficult task. Free stuff is a much easier sell than freedom especially when the American people have come to believe that the purpose of government is to make them happy not to protect their right to pursue happiness. We must show them that the free stuff that Democrats promise comes at an enormous cost – freedom itself.

The consequences of leftist policies will surely make the case for us, but Republicans must be prepared to lead when the time comes.

Krista Kafer's column appears weekly on Face the State.com. Reprinted by permission.

New habits for the GOP

(Denver Post, Nov. 9) “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Did I hear that from Hallmark, my mom, or in Sunday school? Turns out the words are from Stephen R. Covey’s self-help classic on good habits. They hit me on election night. My Republican party needs self-help if anyone ever did. Some of our gripe sessions about this year’s Democratic sweep feel like a sales meeting where everyone blames the customer. There are echoes of the East German party boss who said if the people didn’t like his regime, they needed to be straightened out. I mean serious denial. Having been a highly ineffective party since 2004 in Colorado, and since 2006 nationally, drunk on excuses and worse yet in 2008, maybe the GOP should check into detox. Supervising our rehab could be the stern Dr. Covey with his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Bad habits such as credit card binging, entitlement, victimhood, and not practicing what you preach can entrap groups as well as individuals. Republicans better do an intervention on ourselves after Obama’s blowout of McCain and state Dems’ pickup of two US Senate seats and three congressmen in four years. What would the Covey cure involve?

To maximize effectiveness, according to his 1989 bestseller, one should be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and “sharpen the saw.” Let’s talk about how these might apply to the party of Lincoln and Reagan. Eavesdroppers from other parties can snicker all you want. We’re too desperate to care.

To be proactive, we’ll quit whining about Bush’s blunders, the Messiah’s millions, media bias, or anything else in the rearview mirror. GOP congressional leaders will roll out a 2009-2010 Contract with America before the new president names his cabinet. Colorado conservatives will forge a cash-rich, hydra-headed counterpart to the progressives’ amazing Democracy Alliance.

To begin with the end in mind, we’ll write a Republican president’s 2013 inaugural address and post it on the Web this coming January 1. We’ll map the states our ticket must carry to make Obama a one-termer, then target the issues to win those states. Next write a game plan for taking back Congress in 2010, as we did in 1994.

Putting first things first means a laser-focus at all levels of the party on economic recovery, abundant energy, healthy families, fiscal integrity, and national security, period. The American dream was co-opted this year by a smooth talker with a European agenda. We can unmask that ruse. Retake the high ground, team.

Win-win thinking isn’t easy for Republican individualists, the so-called “leave us alone coalition.” But without it we’re toast. Our ethic of responsibility and opportunity has much to offer women and youth, blacks and Hispanics. Get better at communicating that or prepare to be a permanent minority.

Seeking first to understand, then to be understood, is crucial as a habit-breaker for the refusal to listen that undid both the Bush presidency and the McCain campaign. This doesn’t just mean polling. It means listening with the heart. Millions more “felt heard” in 2008 by their side than ours – and voted accordingly.

Synergizing sounds like Oprah babble, but we’ll be uncompetitive until we catch up with the Dems in using social networking and Facebook to make one plus one equal three. Sharpening the saw sounds like Huckabee cornpone, but we’ll be perennial losers until we commit to habitual self-improvement and the endless campaign ala the other Man from Hope, Bill Clinton.

The political pendulum has swung left. The right can either wait for it to swing back, or we can form new habits and pull it back. I’m for the Covey cure.

Bush fatigue

I noted yesterday in a post on my blog entitled "The Morning After" that I believe Obama's victory on Tuesday was as much a product of the public's "Bush fatigue"as it was any ringing affirmation of the liberal policies that Obama will pursue as president. I argue this because Obama ran primarily as a centrist, coopting the Republican tax-cut mantra by promising his tax reduction for "95% of working Americans" and talking up his desire in general for middle class tax relief. It was a great strategy and proved extremely effective -- particularly given McCain's ineptness in arguing that the Obama plan amounts to another entitlement program. In the end, of course, we all know that with the Democratic robber barons in Congress leading the way, tax increases are coming for everyone -- and not just the "rich" folks making in excess of $250k per year. In my view there is no fundamental "realignment" in this election -- the country remains a center-right nation that wants small government and low taxes. In today's Wall Street Journal, Pat Toomey makes a very compelling argument to this effect:

"A poll commissioned by the Club for Growth in 12 swing congressional districts over the past weekend shows that the voters who made the difference in this election still prefer less government -- lower taxes, less spending and less regulation -- to Sen. Obama's economic liberalism. Turns out, Americans didn't vote for Mr. Obama and Democratic congressional candidates because they support their redistributionist agenda, but because they are fed up with the Republican politicians in office. This was a classic "throw the bums out" election, rather than an embrace of the policy views of those who will replace them."

This is exactly the point I've been making: the 2008 election -- like in 2006 -- was a referendum on George W. Bush and the Republican "bums" that the public associates with failure. It was not a ringing endorsement of "spreading the wealth around" and doesn't amount to an affirmation that wanting to keep more of your hard earned money is "selfish". This was not a realignment toward socialism. It was a rejection of Bush, pure and simple.

The poll results cited by Toomey clearly back up this position:

"Consider the most salient aspects of Mr. Obama's economic agenda: the redistribution of wealth through higher taxes on America's top earners; the revival of the death tax; raising the tax on capital gains and dividend income; increased government spending; increased government involvement in the housing crisis; a restriction on offshore drilling and oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); and "card check" legislation stripping workers of their right to a secret ballot in union elections.

On each of these issues, swing voters stand starkly against Mr. Obama. According to the Club's poll, 73% of voters prefer the federal government to focus on "creating economic conditions that give all people opportunities to create wealth through their own efforts" over "spreading wealth from higher income people to middle and lower income people." Two-thirds of respondents prefer to see the permanent elimination of the death tax, and 65% prefer to keep capital gains and dividend tax rates at their current lows."

These results read like a Conservatives dream: a focus on individual effort to create wealth, elimination of the death tax and low tax rates. Unfortunately, the voters -- in rejecting McCain as another vestige of the Bush Administration -- elected someone who stands in opposition to all of these positions. Obama is on record as supporting increases in the death tax, capital gains and dividend taxes, income taxes on the highest tax bracket, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and many other tax increases. One of the poll results that shocked me from Tuesday was that Obama won among tax payers in the $200,000 and above income category -- the very category that he was openly targeting for a tax increase. Voters seem to be against tax increases -- but they didn't vote that way on Tuesday.

This seeming contradiction is tough to explain. It is a given, of course, that many voters don't pay attention to the details, and vote on the basis of emotion and personality. On that score Obama won hands down. Many of the voters in swing states ended up voting against their stated interests and desires, by electing Obama and increasing Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The emotional wave of "change" -- coupled by an incoherent Republican opposition and a total failure of leadership -- created a Democratic wave. Caveat emptor: they just bought something that was both defective and dangerous.

How long will it take before massive "buyer's remorse" sets in? That depends on how well Obama is able to manage the massive liberal forces that will now be pushing him hard to the left. Whether it be the far-left interest groups that poured massive money into his campaign, or the Democratic leadership in Congress that wants socialism on a grand scale, Obama faces some powerful groups that want precisely what most Americans do not. Whether he can (or will) resist this and govern more to the center is unclear. Nothing in Obama's past indicates a courage of conviction or a willingness to buck his party's power brokers. If Obama is unable (or unwilling) to control these forces, he will quickly find himself with a groundswell of opposition among those who decided (against logic) to vote for him. It won't be pretty.

In the end, this election amounted to a clear signal to conservatives that the issues that fueled the Reagan Revolution -- smaller government, less regulation and low taxes -- still resonate broadly with the American people. George W. Bush was never a leader of this movement, and his prolifigate spending and lack of fiscal discipline helped to ruin the Republican brand. Now, Conservatives need new leadership and new ideas that will take the Reagan-era philosophies and update them for a new generation of Americans. Barack Obama won the presidency but he hasn't changed America.