A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on November 8th, 2008 in US News

Jack Cafferty is asking how we can get the GOP back in the game:

Bush damaged the brand but John McCain and Sarah Palin didn’t do much to restore it.

Republicans also enter the new year with declining minorities in both houses of Congress.

The problem is that John McCain had broad electoral appeal until he morphed into a politician who could win his party’s nomination. As I wrote yesterday, Palin is incredibly popular with the GOP base – but not with anyone else. As surely as video killed the radio star, conservativism killed the GOP.

The GOP needs to go back to its roots. When Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President, it was on a platform that promised to end slavery – an interventionary agenda that put severe limits on the property rights of slave owners, the rights of states to self-govern, and champion of the oppressed. It’s hard to see where the modern GOP would be anywhere close to backing that agenda.

In my classes, I often go over how the conservative party gained control of the GOP. After Barry Goldwater’s atrocious showing, conservatives were considered too radical to get elected, much less to govern. But Nelson Rockefeller managed to discredit himself by dumping his wife and marrying a much younger woman who happened to work for him. The moderates – Nixon, Ford, and Prescott Bush – were caught up in the fiasco of the Nixon Administration. Nixon managed to estrange Bob Dole from the moderate ranks by throwing him out of his RNC position when he got divorced (Nixon didn’t like oath-breakers – no, really). Reagan rode his sunny disposition to ascendancy as the moderates and liberals simply aged out or were eventually defeated (Chris Shays of Connecticutt may have been the last – though Leonard Lance of New Jersey may take his place).

Without any ideological counterbalance, conservatism became Conservatism: The Purity Movement. Anyone who stepped out of line with the agenda the least bit was labeled a RINO – Republican In Name Only. As new generations of leadership tried to out-conservative the last, the loose coalition built by Bill Buckley – social conservatives, libertarians, and intellectual ideologues – began to unravel and the finger-pointing began. John McCain had to pander so hard to the social conservatives – the Religious Right – that he alienated the intellectuals and the libertarians. They went for either Obama or Bob Barr.

The reaction has been predictable – House Minority Leader Boehner is promising an even more headlong rush to the right. It’s obstructionism, full speed ahead! Instead of looking to widen their appeal, the party of social conservatives is trying to simply appeal to itself. That’s fine, but it’s no way to build a majority.

Rebuilding the GOP has to happen. And it has to begin with Republicans standing up to the Religious Right and saying, “Respectfully, I disagree. And I have as much right to be in this party as you.” They’ll have to fight.

They’ll have to compete for seats in non-conservative areas. And that means respecting people who disagree. If Boehner is any indication; then they are a long way from doing that.

Sphere: Related Content