Which way forward for the GOP?
Before the GOP figures out where they need to go, they need to take a long look at where they stand today.
The electorate is changing and the party needs to acknowledge that. They have become a regional, rural party dominated by older white voters. Some think the party needs to go right, become more conservative and focus on the core social and moral issues that have defined the party for the past quarter century.
I try to make the arguement that the party needs to open up, to accept those who agree with them 75% of the time. Politics is not a debating society where the purity of your positions is the deciding factor. What matters is developing the broadest possible coalition. What the GOP needs is new leadership and new ideas. They need to connect with younger and minority voters by demonstrating how their platform enables them to realize the American dream.
We got a lot of good calls, the mix was pretty even. This is going to be an interesting conversation for some time to come.
UPDATE: Don Luskin says this is the BEST OPENING LINE EVER IN A POLITICAL COMMENTARY, from PJ O’Rourke in the Weekly Standard,
Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye.
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November 9, 2008 11:14 pm 
The GOP needs to get back to its basic principles of liberty, economic freedom, less government, etc. Let’s face it: under 8 years of a Republican president, the budget deficit has ballooned to an unbelievable extent. Bush allowed Alan Greenspan to inflate the credit bubble by lowering interest rates, etc.
With Republicans like this, is it any wonder the GOP is lost in the wilderness right now?
We need to rid our schools and society of perverted principles of sexuality, as well.
HOMOSEXUALITY IN AMERICA, PART TWO: THE JEWISH PERSPECTIVE
People don’t usually associate Judeo-Christianity with sexual revolutions but Dennis Prager does in this article: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/PragerHomosexuality.shtml.
It’s fairly, and needlessly, graphic but very relevant to this series on homosexuality in America.
Essentially, Prager, an ardent Jewish writer and commentator, contends that Judaism and Christianity served to tame the male libido, chanelling it into monogamous marriage and thereby making the rise of Western Civilization possible.
The Freudian Id could no longer run amuck and its force was re-directed toward advancement and accomplishment via marital stability. As Prager writes, “This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society.”
Voila! Progress!
Notwithstanding his own two divorces, Prager makes a valid point although if he himself had been more monogamous he would be more credible. (The same goes for the “teachings” of Rush Limbaugh, by the way, whose four divorces undercut his conservative philosophy.)
Prager’s other point is that, “The one continuous exception [to interchangeability of sexual partners] was Jewish civilization — and a thousand years later, Christian civilization. Other than the Jews, ‘none of the archaic civilizations prohibited homosexuality per se,’ Dr. David E. Greenberg notes. “It was Judaism alone that about 3,000 years ago declared homosexuality wrong.”
“And it said so in the most powerful and unambiguous language…
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)
Agreed,
Some of us social progressives still believe in (TRUE) conservative economics.
That doesn’t mean flat taxes, tax cuts only for the rich, no-regulation, environment be damned, no-government spending, ect.
Smart, conservative capitalism needs to take in reality and boot the ideology. Adam Smith foresaw the pitfalls of unfretted Capitalism; but you wouldn’t know it by talking to the current GOP.
(It’s one of the reasons the talking points of this election ran hollow to the public at large)
Furthermore,
Conservatism seems to be selling a a feel good story that works well when people are doing fine, and they just don’t have to worry about anything. Stop the culture war, and stop the hollow branding.
They need to change to selling a useful product that works, that people enjoy, and will continue to use.