GOP in 2012: Not Enough Just to Win

This might seem like old hat to some of you, but I want to address something that occurred to me tonight while discussing politics with friends. It’s not the biggest thing in the news right now, but a lot of us Republicans are curious to see the GOP frontrunners for 2012 make their formal announcements. I still don’t know who I would support; they all seem to have their strengths and weaknesses. However, I do want to attack a premise that, contrary to popular belief, I think is actually hurting the GOP, and the conservative movement in general.

A lot of the more recent buzz about potential candidates was generated by the speeches of potential candidates at C-PAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference held in Washington, D.C. every February. People like Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, and even Donald Trump were all testing the waters. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels created some buzz with his speech. I listened to his speech, and liked most of what he said. Something he said, though, bothered me then and still does now.
He said something to the effect that, “To win in 2012, we’re going to need people who never tune in to Talk Radio.” At first, I didn’t think much of it; it seemed like a practical thing to say. This is a common belief that you have to be able to appeal to the moderates in the middle in order to win an election.

Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I was bothered by this part of his speech, especially that verb need. Let me make one thing clear: Mitch Daniels seems like an awesome governor. I’m very happy that the people of Indiana have somebody with the guts to tackle their state’s budget, like he has. So, I can’t judge what he intended to say. I can only judge his speech by what he did say.

People forget history, and sadly too many of those people are conservatives and Republicans. They forget that Conservatism works. It provides jobs at full employment (Most, if not all of the current recession we find ourselves in came from liberal, big government policies. Sadly, some of them were pushed and passed by none other than President George W. Bush—a good, principled, classy, and gracious man who still took a less than conservative approach when tackling a lot of domestic issues.), it keeps America safe from enemies abroad, and it allows Americans the freedom to live their lives in peace. And people respond well to conservatism. Reagan’s landslide elections in the 80’s, the rapid emergence of the Tea Party, and the 2010 Midterm Elections are just some examples of how well people respond. But, too many Republican leaders forget this. They either forget that it worked in the 80’s, or else they lack the confidence in its ability to work in modern-day politics.

Therefore, if Conservatism works, why should candidates have to shy away from talking or being less than conservative? A typical response to this might be, “they can’t shut off the moderates.” Well, if that is really the concern of Romney, Daniels, Gingrich, and others, why don’t they simply take the approach of Ronald Reagan-the man they’re obviously trying to emulate?

See, Reagan was a smart man. He understood how unreasonable it was to expect every member of his party to be homogenous, robot, Conservatives, who don’t think, act, and live for themselves? (Honestly, I think that is a common and at times even warranted criticism of Rush, Sean, Glenn, Laura, and others. If any Republican is less than completely conservative, he or she is branded by these talking heads as a traitor to Conservatism, as someone who cannot be trusted.) Reagan knew, as anyone knows that we are a diverse country with diverse ideas and diverse life experiences. He understood that people’s philosophical and political views are usually a reflection of that.

But, Reagan also knew that Conservatism works. And he didn’t apologize or back down from his confidence in it. So, to keep the middle and flank of the party with him, he did something that no Republican before or since him, to their own detriment, has tried. He issued his “Big Tent” Invitation to anyone who wanted to be with him and the Party. He, in effect, said to all of America: “We’re going to move this country back to the principles it was founded on. And you’re all welcome to join us, whether you agree with fifty, eighty, or one hundred percent of our agenda.”

If the potential candidates, both those in the limelight as well as those who still have yet to come out of the woodwork, would realize that they can be conservative and still win elections, they could win in 2012, and they could ultimately change the direction of the country for the better, as long as they stay conservative while in office. If we want to end the recession, stop the tsunami of wasteful spending domestically, win the war on terror, and restore the American Spirit (Sounds like Reagan’s goals, huh?), we need to remember that Conservatism works, and people respond to it positively—both on the campaign trail and afterward. It’s not enough to just switch the control of our federal government from Democrat to Republican hands. It’s not enough to push even harder on the car breaks of our economy sliding quickly downhill, and thereby simply postpone the inevitable crash at the bottom. We have to shut the ignition off completely before we can turn the car around and start driving back up the road. Conservative solutions work. They are what Americans have always needed, and they are what they need now. Somehow, each of the GOP candidates need to get that through his or head; and they need to get it through their heads even before they make any kind of formal announcements.