Cheney Gets It – But the GOP Doesn’t
I’ll admit I’ve always like Dick Cheney since he was Bush I’s Secretary of Defense (BTW I have never liked Bush I). In this interview with North Dakota’s Scott Hennen, Cheney shows he understands what Republicans need to do to save their party.
“I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate,” Cheney said. “This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas … what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles… Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, ‘Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.’”
What I don’t get is why the rest of the GOP leadership doesn’t get this. It’s an easy lesson to me. Did Barack Obama lead the Democrats to where they are today by being like Republicans? After all it was just 6 short years ago that the Democrats fretted about being leaderless. Heck, 7 years ago I recommended that the Democratic Party in effect become Republican-lite. Lucky for them they completely ignored my advice.
The Democrats returned to power by becoming more like themselves – wimpy, wealthy, eco-whiners – but guess what? It worked, and Republicans need to take a hard look at how it worked if they plan to replicate the strategy.
The party must stop moderating. Extremists bring excitement and new ideas to the party. They also raise shedloads of cash. We need to encourage extremists, not shy away from them or blush when we are questioned about our relationship to them the way many veteran GOPers have done with Rush Limbaugh.
It also needs to learn from Reagan. After all, Obama did.
This gets back to the 80% rule. If you agree with me 80%, then stay. If you are goin to let your little petty 20% get in the way of doing what we need to do, then you can go elsewhere. But, guys, you say, this can’t work. Um, yeah, it did. Look at what Reagan did with these groups who disagreed:Pro-choice women were welcomed into the tent as voters so long as they didn’t try to change the party’s position on the issue of abortion, one which Reagan held dearly enough to have written a book about while still in office. Union members were courted by Reagan, so long as they didn’t mind Reagan’s tough policies toward organizing which included his firing of striking air traffic controllers and eventually came to be known as “Reagan Democrats.” Those jittery over Reagan’s bellicose statements on foreign policy were also welcomed, provided they could live with his tough posture toward communism. And even Rockefeller Republicans were allowed to stay in the tent so long as they realized that they were joining his party and not the other way around, that while they would be horrified by the new boss’s position on social issues for instance, they’d find something to cheer about in his tax cuts.
Leigh Scott points out that Conservatives need to rebrand themselves as the punk rockers of politics:
Conservatism is all about freedom. That’s the sales pitch. Conservatives endorse freedom. We are the modern day rebels. We are the punk rockers of politics. We like to work hard and party harder. The government is “The Man.” “The Man” tries to hold you down. Anybody who wants the “safety net” of cradle to the grave government support should be ridiculed. And rightfully so.
It should be cool to be Republican again because we aren’t the establishment. We are the radicals that terrify the establishment.
And like all good radicals we need new ideas, new leaders, and a bloodbath of the old ones. Dick Cheney senses this, and it’s why I know that once the young firebrands of the party get organized and start kicking butt, he’ll disappear.
bullet:
once the young firebrands of the party get organized and start kicking butt
Surrounded, as we are, by those of the neo-con persuasion how can we go about doing that? As conservative as I am, I’m not religious enough for the GOP in my area. What’s to be done?
9 May 2009, 7:15 amScott Kirwin:
Well the Modern Whig party looks interesting. The GOP should die if it turns into an American version of the Taliban.
We need a Howard Dean – a powerful figure who can provide us cover while we get organized.
9 May 2009, 8:09 amWatcher of Weasels » Regulator Watch: FDA Regulators Claim Cheerios Is a Drug:
[...] The Razor – Cheney Gets It – But the GOP Doesn’t [...]
13 May 2009, 1:33 pmGW:
Well said, Scott. Part of the problem we face now is that the MSM both damps down any message from the right or distorts it in print. I just don’t know how we get around that to reform the disparate elements that rightly belong under the Reagan big tent.
14 May 2009, 7:31 pmScott Kirwin:
GW
That’s what the internet is for. If Republicans rely upon the MSM for reforming, then our party deserves to die.
Look at moveon.org. Look at Howard Dean. We need the equivalent.
14 May 2009, 7:34 pm