A Blueprint for Becoming Red Again
On November 4th, voters all across America came out in record numbers and told us they want our country to go in a new direction. It was painful to watch the election-night electoral map where several traditional “red states” like Florida and Ohio turned blue, and some blue states became even bluer. It was hard to imagine that the electoral count was 364 to 163.
Hand it to Democratic primary voters this political season. They finally nominated someone palatable enough to win the general election. Barak Obama is a charismatic figure with great oratory skills and a top-notch campaign team. His liberal views aside, he clearly ran a superior campaign. While Obama’s popularity cannot be questioned, George W. Bush’s lack of popularity cannot be ignored. Our nominee, John McCain, faced insurmountable odds as he ran against Obama’s policies and away from Bush’s voter approval rating. It was the prefect storm that brought about our defeat.
How did a president, once embraced by Republicans and Democrats alike, lose his way? The main reason is that our party became everything we ran against in 2000—bigger government advocate, runaway spending proponent, global policeman and intruder into our private lives.
While it seems trendy to blame George Bush for all that is wrong with the world, he is not the lone culprit of a Party that lost its compass. The Republican-controlled Congress that was thrown from power in 2006 never saw a budget it couldn’t inflate or a bottom line it wouldn’t ignore. The spending spree during our Republican reign was an affront to all who joined the Party because they believed in Ronald Reagan’s smaller government message.
To make matters worse, Republican candidates failed to update their playbooks, and returned to using phrases like “tax and spend liberal” to define their Democratic opponents.. At a time when so many are making monthly choices on which bills to pay and which to put on hold, our candidates should have recognized that we have a middle class in distress. Americans are yearning to find leaders with answers over whiners making accusations. What our Party lacked in 2008 was offering positive, conservative solutions to the plight of ordinary citizens. We must also find a way to excite and inspire voters with candidates who have messages of hope and opportunity, guided by principles of less government intrusion into our lives. Our candidates need to articulate our vision and recapture the heart and soul of the Grand Old Party. If we do this, then we will once again become the majority party.
Hopefully, the Alabama Republican Party and our candidates in the future will learn from the election of 2008. We must find a way to re-connect with the folks who elected us—advocates for less government and less government spending. Labeling our Democratic opponents as liberals and expecting that to be enough will no longer win elections.
All is not lost because political parties are resilient things. The pendulum will swing back, and Republicans will have a chance to prove we are adept at winning and governing. If not, we will literally be singing the blues in elections for many years to come.
