Yes, it's that bad for the GOP

The debate inside the GOP over the next few years should be about how to change the party. And if done right, this can be a healthy process.

At the moment it is unhealthy. There are too many voices like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney automatically ruling out ideas. To attack folks right now for critiquing the party seems only to undermine the party.

The problem is the loudest folks in the party believe the answer to the GOP’s problems is to win the debate or win the argument, not to step back and examine what’s not working. No one is having a debate about whether Ronald Reagan’s mantra is still right, the idea of whether government is part of the problem or part of the solution. I happen to believe this single issue is what divides the establishment wing of the party from the grassroots conservatives whom turn to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck for their news and commentary.

Every single Republican leader should be taking some responsibility for the problems facing the GOP. It is amazing to me that few key leaders of the past 10 years are accepting any blame. Instead, most point to where they believe they were right, but weren’t listened to.

The excuses sound awfully familiar, like those we’ve been hearing from the financial sectors on the current economic crisis. No one is stepping up and accepting any responsibility. The public only sees a bunch of cowards afraid to take responsibility.

The Specter factor
It’s easy to write off the Arlen Specter party switch as nothing more than a craven, power-hungry senator desperate to survive. But just because Specter’s desperate doesn’t mean everything is hunky-dory for the Pennsylvania GOP.

Just look at all of the Republican Congressional Districts in that state following the 2002 election versus now. The GOP controlled the redistricting process in 2001, which led to a massive advantage – 12 to 7 – in the 19-member Congressional delegation. Just six years later, that advantage flipped around, still 12 to 7, but in favor of Democrats. And Democrats managed this with a Republican map.

This is hugely significant. Most of the Democratic gains were made in the Philadelphia suburbs where Republicans stopped identifying with their party.

Arlen Specter left the GOP because it is a lot easier to win in Pennsylvania as a Democrat than as a Republican. It is that simple. For folks on the right to brush this off as some sort of “good purge” is extremely naïve. The suburban issue confronting the Republican Party has been ongoing for 20 years.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush carried the ultimate suburban state of New Jersey. Now, not only is New Jersey not a Republican state, it’s barely competitive. In fact, it’s possible that despite incredibly poor job ratings the current Democratic governor, Jon Corzine might actually win re-election. The fact that he’s even competitive says more about the weakness of the Republican brand in New Jersey than it does about Corzine or the Democrats.

And this same suburban issue appears all over the map, not just in the northeast: see the I-4 corridor in Florida, the Denver area and its suburbs, Northern Virginia outside of Washington, D.C., and so on.

All this suburban flight from the Republican Party mirrors another key demographic flight from the party: college educated Americans. Education level is becoming an easier and easier predictor of political allegiance. This is not something Republicans should feel good about. Why? Because the number of voters who have some college education is growing; and at the same time, Democratic performance among these voters is growing. And the suburbs have a good chunk of college-educated residents.

And I haven’t even delved into the problems Republicans have appealing to minorities and younger voters.

Time for a re-branding
Bottom line: Demographic trends from the past 10 years, and the erosion of Republican support on a number of levels, indicates the GOP desperately needs a re-branding campaign.

They also need to refine their principles. Be conservative, but become common sense conservatives. Become the so-called ‘competent’ managers of government; become a party of solutions.

Jeb Bush seemed to have it right when he indicated his own party didn’t have anything to offer up against the Democrats’ “something.” In this case, that something is a bunch proposals conservatives may label as big government ideas, but they are ideas.

Republicans aren’t offering ideas, just an argument and a philosophy, but not concrete alternatives which seem innovative or different.

Ironically, Mitt Romney did seem to come up with innovative ideas regarding health care in Massachusetts, yet Romney now runs from those very ideas.

The party needs hundreds of efforts like the one Cantor is offering, not fewer. The party needs to learn how to talk to voters without sounding anti-intellectual. The party needs its governors to start experimenting again: to come up with conservative solutions, to figure out public-private partnerships that work. They need to steal a page from Bill Clinton’s playbook about looking for the right answer. President Obama is running circles around the Republicans on this front, and he has the bully pulpit, so it can seem easy for him to do.

It is ugly right now. Republicans shouldn’t sit back and wait for the pendulum to swing. Democrats tried that and it didn’t work. Just ask Bill Clinton. He didn’t make the changes he wanted to. And he didn’t have an entire party buying into him the way Democrats are now buying into Obama.

To truly succeed at governing, the party needs to create a foundation that has voters believing Republicans want to govern again, not just tear down Democrats or the government.

It is time for Republicans to provide their own vision.

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