January 8, 2009

News Flash to RNC Candidates: It’s Not Your Gipper’s GOP Anymore

News flash to the six guys running for chairman of the Republican National Committee: Ronald Reagan is dead. The Gipper’s last campaign is now a full generation ago. (I would know. I was chief writer.)

News flash two: Your party’s on life support. You got your heads handed to you by a first-term senator who out-messaged you, out-organized you, ran roughshod in your once-red states, stole all your issues and made you come across as a combination of big-business apologists, oil company and lobbyist stooges, tax-hikers, foreign policy Wrong-Way Corrigans and racist, Christian Right kooks. And that was on your good days.

News flash three: The 1980s are over. Shouting from the soap box about tax and spending cuts won’t cut it anymore. Both sides of the aisle are about to engage in an orgy of extravagance that will make Caligula look like a monk. And The Rookie is about to pull the tax-cut rug out from under you by making real, live taxpayers a permanent minority (almost like Republicans).

You wouldn’t have known any of this from the debate among the RNC Chair wannabes this past Monday. The name “Ronald Reagan” was dropped more times than the pigskin in the Detroit Lions’ season. (Did I mention that I was Chief Writer at his campaign?)

The partisans present were assured that the talk about a party at death’s door is “bunk” and that the “glass is half full.” You know that you’re in for a long afternoon when the incumbent chairman’s handout claims that “in many ways, the RNC had its most successful election cycle ever.” (Yeah, and that Iranian hostage raid was an “incomplete success.”)

We were regaled with tales of personal Facebook accounts with 4,000 “friends” and addictive Twittering.

And we were told that we must simply “elect people who know who they are and what they stand for” and “start talking and acting like Republicans again.” If we do, we can get young people excited like the Gipper did, and convince minorities that we share their values.” We can restore the “Republican Brand” to stand for – what else? – lower taxes and spending.

I was waiting for someone to pipe up with the Great Communicator’s immortal Inaugural line: “Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.”

News flash four: In 2009, you guys are the problem! Republicans have occupied the White House for 28 of the last 40 years. In the last eight, you took a budget in surplus, an economy headed for mild recession but fundamentally sound, and a nation at peace . . . and left trillion-dollar plus deficits, the longest recession in 76 years, and a divisive war that took five years to get right.

Plus, your allegedly free-market patrons not only dragged middle-class America down into one of the biggest losses of personal wealth in history, but had the unmitigated chutzpah to belly up to Uncle Sam’s bar to beg for bazillions of bailout dollars. Which you handed to them!

The Republican Party isn’t just wandering in the political wilderness because – as expressed by Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis (whom I think I really would like to ride a Harley) – you became the “bums” whom the voters threw out.

Republicans, you haven’t merely lost your compass. You’ve lost your calendar. Nearly three decades after Dutch Reagan took the oath, the American people don’t need to hear that you’re against big government (whether you act like it or not).

If Republicans want to run government so badly, America wants to hear how . . . why . . . and for whom. How you would use it to solve our problems and address our needs without breaking the bank or larding it on for lobbyists. How you will make government more convenient, simpler and easier to pay for.

America wants to know how the GOP will make health care more accessible and affordable. How you will keep our air and water clean and our energy sources secure, yet keep gas prices under the $4.00 mark. How you will make our schools top-notch, our nation safe yet respected. And how you will restore our economic standing and 401(k) balances, and ensure we can retire before 90.

For better or worse, America knows how Barack Obama plans to try to do all those things. So in 2009, 2010 and 2012, unlike 1981, it’s not about quoting Ronnie, or being against taxes or spending.

News flash: It’s about being for us. And when you get that – and can express it – you’ll get America’s votes again.