Lost in the Wilderness

A new poll by USA Today/Gallup finds that the majority of respondents, when asked to name a person who speaks for the Republican party, could not. They could not pick a person who leads roughly half the countries population in their political views. So, that begs the question, of the 48% who were able to name names, who came in first place? Maybe Sarah Palin, Michael Steele or Bobby Jindal? Nope, number one, with 13% of respondents votes was Rush Limbaugh. Second place on the list goes to our esteemed ex Vice-President Dick Cheney. The top 5 are all old white guys with McCain, Gingrich and Bush rounding out the top 5. As one conservative activist from the article mentioned "We cannot be the party of balding white guys and hope to win anything."

I look at the political scene right now for the Republicans, and I see a whole lot of old, and a whole lot of the next big thing, but not anyone right here right now. They truly are lost in the wilderness. Now many of my friends are conservative (much to my chagrin), and they should not lose heart. I know in the past I have talked about the "Death Knell of the Conservative Movement," but I know that American politics works like a finely tuned pendulum, and conservatives will one day again have their moment in the sun. Hopefully, it will be a new kind of conservativism, one not so focused on gays and abortion, and one more focused on the historical roots of the movement. Here are three things conservatives can focus on to help swing the pendulum back in their favor.

1. Coming off the drunken sailor spending of the Bush/Obama days, fiscal restraint can be a rallying point for the conservative movement. Push a indefinite law for balanced budgets, with exclusions for time of war or economic crisis. Tell people it is going to be hard, but BE SERIOUS about doing this. Realize that you will HAVE to cut some military spending to do this. You cannot just cut medicaid and call it good. Along with this comes serious reforms of social security and medicare. I swear that whoever grasps this issue and wrestles it to the ground will earn serious votes from Americans for years.

2. Tax cuts do not equate an economic policy (don't worry, I would turn around and tell Democrats that unmitigated spending does not equal an economic policy). We need someone to tackle the long term economic conundrum. Propose long standing reforms to both the tax code (simpler,lower,fairer) and to spending (no earmarks, see remarks above). Also, and this is critical, advocate for ENFORCEABLE free trade. Right now it does no good to allow every country access to our markets when we are not allowed the same in kind. I am NOT advocating trade restrictions be used, just that barriers to free trade and currency manipulations be ended under the threat of returning the favor.

3. Steal the energy independence issue back from the left. Honestly, the Drill Baby Drill thing made you guys look pretty shortsighted. Push an effective agenda including price floor for gasoline, efficiency, development of alternative energy sources and most importantly, nuclear energy. By looking long term, and not pushing an agenda that seems to line right up with oil companies wishes, you can take this issue back from the left. The focus is not cuddly environmentalism, but rather serious national security concerns. The fight over energy/water resources IS the most important area of concern for the future.

Good Luck.....your going to need it.

The Death Knell of "Conservativism"

Remember when the term "liberal" used to be whispered around political circles like a swear word? Conservatives would keep it in the campaign bag-o-tricks to pull out in an emergency. No longer. If this election has proved one thing is that public sentiment has turned away from the classical "conservative" point of view, and has trended more liberal. All the conservative movement has left is the abortion and gay marriage arguments. These two issues are of course important to many voters, but if that is all you can campaign on you end up with a campaign like John McCain's.

Remember when the conservative movement was the champion of fiscal responsibility? Well you have to go back to Clinton, a Democrat, to get a balanced budget and deficit reductions. Obviously it looks a little funny to be campaigning on fiscal responsibility when your guy in charge for the last eight years has overseen the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR.

Remember when the Neocon's hawkish attitude looked bold and aggressive. These guys were going to go above and beyond to protect America's freedoms and interests around the world. Now we have a world where more people dislike us then like us. We have managed to squander the goodwill of the world in eight short years. Looks like the Bush Doctrine was maybe not the best idea for protecting out interests LONG TERM. Sure we would secure the goal right now, but if 15 million people in the country hate us for it, has that really advanced our interests?

Remember when tax cuts and less regulation seemed like the be all, end all of economic theory? Not so much anymore. Wall Street has taught us that unregulated markets behave like they always have in our history, as a greed inducing orge of temporary profit followed by a massive collapse. Tax cuts are great, I mean who want to pay taxes...right? We have seen over the past few years that tax cuts for the wealthy DO NOT trickle down to the lower groups. If we want to stimulate the economy, how about trying from the bottom up?

On these three critical areas, it appears what has been orthodox conservative thought has been failing the American public for quite some time. The McCain campaign has tried the "liberal" label without much result. Now they are trying to go even further by throwing around the "socialist" label. My guess is that it won't work either. It may fire up the base to yell obscenities even louder at a McCain event, but the American people are looking past the insults and fear mongering to results, and that may just mean the death knell of the conservative movement as we know it today.