Is the nearly extinct Northeast species of Republicans being brought back from the brink?

I once did a post about the demise of New England Republicans. It seemed like they were gone for good. But could it be they are making a comeback?

Return of the Northeastern Republican

[...] Republican political operatives say the gains the GOP is set to make are due to a convergence of causes. There is the fact that in the wave election year that 2014 seems poised to become, the party could win in even the most unexpected of places. There is the fact that in many of these states Democratic legislatures are entrenched, and voters are looking for a counterweight.

And finally, there is the fact that most of the culture wars have reached a stalemate. In Massachusetts, for example, Baker is running as a pro-choice, pro same-sex marriage Republican nominee. Other Republicans are similarly downplaying these hot-button issues of old, and pollsters say most voters see them now as settled matters. And so if two candidates are a wash on matters of civil rights, why not go for the guy who is going to cut your taxes?

“Republicans have just been putting together a more coherent message of change in New England,” said Will Ritter, a Republican political operative who worked on a number of statewide races in Massachusetts. “The Democrats’ message is what—‘Hey, it is not so bad?’ People look to candidates who have a business background, or at least have conservative underpinnings, when it looks like budgets are going off the rails.”

The major question for the Republican Party going forward is what all these Yankee newcomers will mean for its direction. The GOP has been at odds with itself as it tries to decide how to appeal to a diverse and changing electorate, and some Republicans think a handful of new voices from states not necessarily of the reddest hue could help the eventual 2016 presidential nominee.

“It takes a lot of Democrats to elect a Republican in one of these places,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster. “You can’t win otherwise. You broaden your base, you broaden your message, it shows that you really want to get things done. And we need do to that, not just racially but demographically.”

But will the Republican party welcome these blue-state Republicans, or will they shoot themselves in the foot (again!) by declaring them to be RHINOs and try to drum them out of the party with social issues litmus tests, insuring that the Republican Party remains small, with only limited appeal to a small minority of the vast demographic of voters? You can be sure that the latter is what the Democrats are hoping and praying for.
     

GOP must "Get Beyond Deportation"

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul Says GOP Must Appeal To Hispanics, Get ‘Beyond Deportation’

[...] This certainly was not the first time that Paul, since being elected to the Senate in 2010, has attempted to connect with Hispanics and other minorities.

However, Republicans’ interest in his policy vision and his vision for broadening the party base continues to grow as he ascends in the very, very early 2016 polls and travels the country. Recent stops have included those in Democrat-heavy Detroit and at the University of California, Berkeley.

Paul said Tuesday that Republicans need to focus on such issues as reforming the country’s work visa system and improving educational and employment opportunities for minorities.

However, the GOP must first make clear it is not “just the party of deportation,” he argued.

“The bottom line is that the Hispanic community … is not going to hear us until we get beyond that issue,” Paul told attendees at a symposium sponsored by the conservative Media Research Center and the American Principles Project. “They’re not going to care whether we go to the same church or have the same values or believe in the same kind of future of the country until we get beyond that. … We’ve got to get beyond deportation to get to the rest of the issues.” [...]

It's been pretty obvious for quite some time. But there is a segment of the GOP that has been too slow to wake up to the reality of changing demographics. Not to mention, popular opinion. Two realities that decide elections.
   

Immigration Reform and the GOP

The reality of demographics:

Rand Paul to GOP: Change your tune, or Texas goes Democratic

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., delivered a stark demographic warning to his party on Saturday, predicting that Texas – a sizable electoral prize that Republicans cannot afford to lose in national elections – may tilt Democratic within 10 years if the GOP doesn’t broaden its appeal.

“What I do believe is Texas is going to be a Democrat state within 10 years if we don’t change,” Paul told the Harris County Republican Party on Saturday, according to Politico. “That means we evolve, it doesn’t mean we give up on what we believe in, but it means we have to be a welcoming party.”

Paul’s pitch to Texas Republicans focused largely on the party’s appeal among Hispanic Americans, who have trended strongly Democratic in recent elections. He acknowledged that immigration reform, a top priority for many Hispanic political leaders, is a “touchy” subject for Republicans. But he counseled the GOP not to shy away from the debate, though it may expose intra-party divisions.

“We won’t all agree on it,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, what I will say and what I’ll continue to say, and it’s not an exact policy prescription … but if you want to work and you want a job and you want to be part of America, we’ll find a place for you.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t believe in securing the border first, doesn’t mean I don’t believe it’s important we have a secure country,” he added. “But it does mean we have to have a different attitude.”

The response from the activists and party officials in the room was “kind of tepid,” Paul remarked. [...]

And if the response continues to be tepid, it will be an ongoing case of "too little, too late", as the GOP fades into obscurity.


Also see:

Rand Paul warns Texas Republicans, 'Your state could turn blue'

     

The real, post-election Mitt Romney

The New Mitt Romney Documentary Is Fantastic, And It Exposes The Fundamental Flaw In A Lot Of Campaigns

[...]

 One of Mitt's sons, Josh, was asked by Whiteley in the midst of the 2008 primary if he ever thought it wasn't worth the trouble to run.

Josh responded with two different answers — one from his media "training," and one that he said was the truth.

Here's the answer he gave as if he were speaking to the media:

"The opportunity [is] for someone like my dad to come in and run the country. And the challenges we face right now in this country, to have someone with my dad’s experience, his knowledge, and his vision for America, someone that can come in and do this. It’s worth whatever it takes for us to get my dad into office."

Here's the "translation":

"This is so awful. It’s so hard. They always say, why can’t you get someone good to run for president? This is why. This is why you don’t get good people running for president. What better guy is there than my dad? Is he perfect? Absolutely not. He’s made mistakes. He’s done all sorts of things wrong. But for goodness sakes, here’s a brilliant guy whose had experience turning things around, which is what we need in this country. I mean, it’s like, this is the guy for the moment. And we’re in this, and you just get beat up constantly."

[...]

“Mitt,” Al Gore, and Our Identification With Presidential Losers

[...] Many reviews of “Mitt” have noted its humanizing effect on Romney: he is revealed to be thoughtful and gracious and, in scenes with his family, funny and self-aware. There are even murmurings that such a portrait, had it been released before the election, would have helped him to shed his reputation as an ambitious automaton and to forge a closer connection to voters. Maybe he would have won. But, in the heat of a campaign, the documentary would have been greeted differently, as a purely political object—mined for ready clues to his political positions, spun predictably by supporters and detractors. What did the fact that he listened to “This American Life” or quoted “O Brother Where Art Thou?” or attempted to iron his clothes while wearing them say about his ability to be the President? Surely his handlers wouldn’t have wanted anyone hearing him call himself “the flipping Mormon” or noting, rather bitterly, that he may have been a “flawed candidate.” But there is not much utility in a retrospective gaffe; seen now, the documentary is more intriguing for its general tone, which is one of pathos and quiet regret. [...]

Meanwhile, the RNC struggle to expand and find unity within itself continues:

RNC showcased update, while losing image remains

The road ahead is looking rather long.

   

Republican Party Reform/Revitalization

Some thoughts on the topic:

Social Conservatives: The Republican Party’s Dilemma

[...] In order to win, therefore, Republicans need to find a way to adapt Reagan’s core insights–”government that rides with us, not on our backs”–in a way that directly addresses the front-of-mind day-to-day concerns of the lower-middle in the 21st century. These concerns include: unemployment, economic insecurity, wage stagnation, healthcare (security and affordability), education, quality of life, etc. And remember, lower-middle people are not ideologues. Maybe capital gains tax cuts or a flat tax would create a rising tide that would lift all boats. Reform conservatives love them some tax cuts. But people in the lower-middle ain’t buyin’ it. If Republicans don’t have good, credible, conservative policies to address these concerns, lower-middle people will vote for Democrats if only by default. This is the story of 2012. Lower-middle people don’t like Obamacare but they still swung the election for Obama because Romney’s alternative to Obamacare was (perceived to be) zilch. At least the Obama agenda realized what their concerns were and addressed them.

The thing that is holding the party back isn’t simply social issues, but economic ones as well. It has to find a way to speak again to the lower middle class on economic matters. I’m guessing a lot of young people are not voting GOP simply on same sex marriage, but also on the fact that they don’t see the party really helping people like them. The same-sex marriage issue is frosting on the cake instead of the cake itself. The problem with social liberals like myself is that we have internalized the Democratic critique of the GOP instead of seeing what is the real problem. Social issues are a drag on the party. But the problems that drag the GOP down looks more like an iceberg. The social issues are on top and look imposing, but the economic issues are bigger and dwell below beneath the waterline. We can support same-sex marriage and immigration, but as long as we don’t deal with what’s below, the party will not win.

So what to do with social conservatives? Instead of trying to throw them overboard, it might make more sense to lift up more of their salient points, while downplaying that which polarizes. [...]

A Reform Conservative Manifesto

[...] The story about politics is fairly straightforward: elections in America are swung by people in the “lower-middle” class, and if the Republican Party wants to win national elections decisively and repeatably, it needs to appeal strongly to these people.

What can we say about “the lower-middle”?

People in the lower-middle tend to be roughly culturally conservative but are they are not ideologues and they tend to vote their pocketbooks and their day-to-day concerns.

Here is the story reform conservatives say about the Reagan Revolution and why Republicans have not managed to repeat that success:

The Reagan agenda was not 100-proof small-government conservatism. Reagan said that “government is the problem” … “in our present crisis.” Reagan called for “government that rides with us”, not the nightwatchman state.

Reagan won the lower-middle not because the lower-middle clamor for minimal government or (just) because he was such a charismatic figure, but because the Reagan agenda appealed directly to lower-middle day-to-day concerns. Inflation. Taxes that ate significantly into middle and lower-middle pocketbooks. A welfare system that destroyed families and made a mockery of diligent hard work. An unprecedented crime wave that a liberal state was failing to rein in.

It is precisely because the Reagan Revolution was so successful that the Reagan agenda no longer appeals to the lower-middle. Inflation is in check (more than in check). Taxes on the lower-middle and middle–at least federal income taxes–are much lower. Crime, though too high, is much lower. Welfare reform has been a phenomenal success of conservative policy. The problems that Reagan fought are problems that are largely fixed now. We’re fighting the last war. [...]

Jonah Goldberg: Excuse me? GOP to blame for ObamaCare?

The Affordable Care Act — aka ObamaCare — is off to a very rocky start, and according to the law's biggest defenders, the blame falls squarely at the feet of Republicans.

It's an odd claim. Republicans did not write the law. They did not support the law. And they are not in charge of implementing it. Yet, it's got to be the GOP's fault, right?

[...]

... Republicans are on the right side of the argument in every particular, save one: the effort to force the Democrats to defund ObamaCare by threatening a debt crisis or government shutdown. The Democrats will never agree to such a demand, and the resulting crisis would surely be blamed on Republicans.

Pull of entitlements

There is a bizarre irony at work here. Both the right and left are convinced ObamaCare will eventually become popular if implemented. Conservatives fear the "ratchet effect," a term coined by the great libertarian economic historian Robert Higgs. Once government expands, goes the theory, reversing that expansion is nearly impossible. Liberals have their own version. They point out that once Americans get an entitlement — Social Security, Medicare, etc. — they never want to lose it. They hope that if they can just get Americans hooked on the goodies in ObamaCare, they'll overlook all the flaws.

There's a lot of truth here, to be sure. But it's not an iron law either. Sometimes, bad laws get fixed. It happened with Medicare in 1989 and welfare reform in 1995. Many of the boneheaded laws of the early New Deal were scrapped as well.

Republicans should have a little more confidence in their own arguments. If you believe that ObamaCare can't work, you should expect that it won't. Forcing a debt crisis or government shutdown won't kill ObamaCare, but it will give Democrats a lifeline heading into the 2014 elections, which could have the perverse effect of delaying the day Republicans have the political clout to actually succeed in repealing this unworkable and unpopular law.

All these things make sense to me. Follow the links and read the complete articles. But how many people in the Republican party are listening? How many haven't yet figured out that America doesn't have the same demographics it did in the 1980's? That the majority electorate's concerns have changed?  How many Republicans are talking to, addressing the concerns of, and trying to win the votes of, a majority electorate that no longer exists?

This is important stuff being addressed in these articles. But I don't post about it much anymore, because I doubt many are listening. It seems like pissing in the wind sometimes.

Jonah's last point is a perfect example.  Forcing a debt crisis or a government shutdown won't kill ObamaCare.  The Republicans will be blamed for it, and that will only help the Democrats in the 2014 elections.  But I'm pretty sure the Republicans are going to go ahead and do it anyway.  To no good end.
   

What Young Voter's REALLY Think

About Republicans. And why:

The Real Reason Young People Don’t Like Republicans

[...] It’s true that most polls find strong support for same-sex marriage among young people. The report, mainly written by Winston Group pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, tries to gauge how important the issue is in driving their votes. It finds that 26 percent of young voters favor same-sex marriage and wouldn’t vote for a candidate who opposes it even if they agreed with that candidate on most other issues. Some of those voters, maybe most of them, must lean toward the Democrats on issues other than same-sex marriage. So Republicans are losing some young voters on this issue, but it may not be central to the party’s troubles.

And young people aren’t socially liberal when it comes to abortion. In the College Republicans’ March survey, 51 percent of them believed abortion should be banned altogether or with exceptions in unusual circumstances. They aren’t all that liberal on immigration, either. About 65 percent of young voters favored deporting illegal immigrants, enforcing the law before offering them legal status, or offering them legal status but not citizenship -- all positions to the right of the immigration bill now being debated in the Senate. Young voters also consider climate change a low-priority issue.

Economic Concerns

They are deeply concerned, on the other hand, about economic issues. And Republicans have a lot of work to do on them. A majority of young voters think the party’s economic policies played a big role in the recession. They don’t follow Republican politicians in thinking that higher taxes on the rich are higher taxes on small business. Although they tend to agree with Republicans about the future of entitlement programs for the elderly, they are much more worried about the here-and-now. (The report cites a survey showing 20 percent of young people had delayed marriage because of the economy.) They consider student-loan debt a major obstacle to their goals.

And they give President Barack Obama credit for trying to help the economy, reduce their debt burden, and fix health care. Among those young voters who approve of Obama’s job performance, “trying” was the No. 1 word they used about him -- as in, he has been trying to improve things.

They think that public spending should be cut and that government is too big. Fighting big government is, however, a much lower priority for them than expanding the economy, reforming the safety net and controlling the national debt.

To my eye, these findings suggest there is an opening among young people for Republicans who advance credible plans to reduce the cost of health care and college, to foster job growth, to control the national debt and to address the other issues they consider important. Republicans will want those plans to involve shrinking the government, but that shouldn’t be their chief selling point. If they can do that -- a big if, for many reasons -- Republicans will also get credit from young voters for trying, whereas they now seem reflexively anti-Obama. It will also make them seem more intelligent, which is a quality that young people, according to the report, prize more than coolness. [...]

Republicans had a chance to fix things like health care, but they chose other priorities, and they are paying the price for it now.

Currently, the Republican Party is having a problem adapting to changing demographics. They keep trying to appeal to a majority of Americans that no longer exist as a majority. Time to adapt, or die. I think ultimately they will adapt, but there will be growing pains.
     

About the 3,000,000 Republicans who didn't vote, and other reasons why the GOP lost

How Republicans Can Rebrand

While listening to conservative pundits lamenting Mitt Romney's defeat, incredulous that three million Republicans didn't vote -- ostensibly because the GOP (Grand Old Party) had failed to get out the vote -- the real problem hit me: cultural infantilism. Liberalism, and its pillars entitlement and dependency, is now so pervasive, corrosive, and infectious that many of America's adults have regressed.

The GOP shouldn't have to "get out the vote" in any election. Responsible adults know that voting is a civic duty, a responsibility, an obligation, a self-directed act. We tell children to fulfill their obligations, right? Barack Obama exhorted his sycophantic base to vote, even instructing them that voting is the best revenge. Although he won, Obama received 10 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008.

Adults, conversely, get themselves out to vote. They take responsibility for their lives, make difficult choices and sacrifices, fight to limit government, and control their own destinies. Adults respect the laws of finance and accounting, resent wealth confiscation and redistribution, and loathe unpayable debt.

Alas, there are few adults in socialistic America; that's why Barack Obama, the Candy Man, appeals so much to Candylanders, who childishly accept free candy in exchange for their own freedom. President Obama understands the infantilism of his base and, accordingly, crafted a simple re-election strategy: promise and deliver them free candy; they will overlook my failures and vote for me with messianic zeal. It worked. [...]

That's one way of looking at it. I understand the rest of the author's rant, and as much as I sympathize with his proposed solutions, I'm not sure it's that simple, or that his proposed solutions alone would be effective enough. I think there is more that needs to be considered.

This also makes a lot of sense to me:

Republicans learn the hard way: George W. Bush was right

[...] Compassionate conservatism always struck me as a philosophical surrender to liberal assumptions about the role of the government in our lives. A hallmark of Great Society liberalism is the idea that an individual's worth as a human being is correlated to his support for massive expansions of the entitlement state. Conservatives are not uncompassionate. (Indeed, the data show that conservatives are more charitable with their own money and more generous with their time than liberals). But, barring something like a natural disaster, they believe that government is not the best and certainly not the first resort for acting on one's compassion.

I still believe all of that, probably even more than I did when Mr. Bush was in office.

But, as a political matter, it has become clear that he was on to something important.

Neither critics nor supporters of compassionate conservatism could come to a consensus over the question of whether it was a mushy-gushy marketing slogan (a Republican version of Bill Clinton's feel-your-pain liberalism) or a serious philosophical argument for a kind of Tory altruism, albeit with an evangelical idiom and a Texan accent.

Some sophisticated analysts, such as my National Review colleague Ramesh Ponnuru, always acknowledged the philosophical shortcomings and inconsistencies of compassionate conservatism, but argued that something like it was necessary nonetheless. The evolving demographics of the country, combined with the profound changes to both the culture and the economy, demanded the GOP change both its sales pitch and its governing philosophy. [...]

The playing field has changed. There are new demographics at work. The GOP needs to stop acting as if it's still the 1980s, if it wants to remain relevant.

And this too:

The real reason Obama won
History, not an imagined rejection of capitalism, explains the president's re-election victory

[...] In 1992, George H.W. Bush, presiding over a sluggish economy, faced the hard-charging Bill Clinton, who promised fundamental changes in the nation's economy and an alteration of priorities. Mr. Clinton's charisma and message that he represented change, coupled with a third-party candidacy in the person of Ross Perot, helped ensure Mr. Bush's defeat.

This year, Mitt Romney talked about change but failed to offer a clear agenda that represented a recognizable break with the past. Most informed voters surely recognized that they had heard the promised magical benefits of tax cuts before. In fact, the policy was very recently in place during the administration of George W. Bush, and helped turn a $290 billion budget surplus into a $455 billion deficit, while nearly doubling the national debt from $5.6 trillion to more than $10 trillion. Mr. Romney's assertions that he would reduce spending and close tax loopholes (without meaningful specifics), along with promised defense increases, prevented his ever gaining the credible high ground in the economic conversation. Bill Clinton's retort that "it's arithmetic" probably rang truer with voters than anything offered by the billions of dollars spent on political advertising.

While this year presented an economy still in slow recovery from its 2008 collapse, the other factors present in past presidential defeats were clearly lacking. President Barack Obama had no primary challenge, nor was there any thorny third-party candidacy. He was spared blame for the economic collapse, while being able to take credit for slow but undeniable growth. No charismatic personality dominated the agenda, and the challenger never offered an inspirational program of truly new ideas that signaled a compelling reason for change.

These facts, more than any theories about the rise to prominence of some entitlement-dependent mass bent on turning America into Europe, provide the basis for why the country decided to stay with the guy in office.

Read the whole thing. I think it's possibly the most objective and fair explanation I've read so far, based on historical comparison and analysis, of why the GOP didn't defeat the incumbent. All things considered, the outcome was inevitable.

It's not the end of the world, IF the GOP learns from it's mistakes. And as the next article I'm linking to points out, the Democrats would do well to not become over confident:

Don’t get cocky, Democrats: The post-Romney GOP looks just like you did two decades ago

You’re looking at a political party that has lost the popular vote in five of the past six elections; whose one winning presidential candidate achieved the White House thanks to a fluke; and whose prospects for the future seem doomed by demography and geography.

No, it’s not today’s Republican Party you’re looking at—it’s the Democratic Party after the 1988 elections. And the past (nearly) quarter-century is an object lesson in the peril of long-term assumptions about the nature and direction of our political path.

Consider where the Democrats found themselves that November. They had just lost their third straight presidential election, and not to the formidable Ronald Reagan, but to George Herbert Walker Bush, a WASP aristocrat prone to sitting down at a diner and asking for “a splash of coffee.” They’d lost by more than seven points in the popular vote, and by 416-111 in the Electoral College, winning only 10 states.

The most enduring element of their geographic base had vanished. The once-solid Democratic South was now solidly Republican and, for the second straight election, their candidate had not won a single state in the region.

But that was only the start of the wretched geographic picture. Four of the six New England states had gone Republican, and the Plains and the Mountain West were all in the GOP camp. Most daunting, three big states—New Jersey, Illinois and California, with 87 combined electoral votes—had gone Republican for the sixth consecutive election. The weakness of Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis could not explain away a recent political fact: The Republican Party appeared to have “an electoral lock” on the White House.

What had happened to the Democrats? What changed? And why is this relevant to Republican woes today? [...]

Read the whole thing, for a good reminder of how things can change.      

Republican complacency. But whose agenda?

Do they need a stronger agenda? Some would argue yes:

Get With the Program

[...] If GOP consultants who are advising the party to avoid embracing a substantive agenda prior to the November elections get their way, this will be the pitiful Republican dance for the next three-and-a-half months.

We understand the Republicans’ temptation to believe that they can beat the Democrats with nothing. The public has recoiled from President Obama’s agenda and seems set to swing to the Republicans as a check against his liberal overreaching. Why not just play it safe and ride the wave that’s already building?

One, this wouldn’t be as safe as it seems. The consultants think Republicans risk putting targets on their backs by associating themselves with particular policy ideas. But Republicans will be targeted regardless. The White House wants to define them as mindless apostles of “No,” and as “Bush Republicans.” Both of these charges could hurt, and they are more likely to stick if Republicans lack a forward-looking agenda of their own.

Two, a campaign agenda is, if nothing else, a sign of seriousness for voters. The danger in the kind of cynical calculation urged by the consultants is always that the public will recognize it for exactly that and react accordingly.

Three, if Republicans plan on having a majority in either house after November, they had better have some idea in advance of how they will conduct themselves in power. If they have an agenda that has won at least loose assent from voters, they’ll be better-off than if they were trying to come up with something on the fly in the flush of victory, when giddiness will rule and special interests will all want a piece of the pie.

Fourth, Republicans should have confidence in their ideas. If they can’t offer an alternative to Obama now — with the president sagging in the polls, with tea partiers in the streets, with conservative sentiment on the upswing across the board in the public — they should be in a different business. This needn’t entail recklessness. The Contract with America of 1994 wasn’t a radical document, but it did point in a clearly different direction than the Clinton Democrats. This is what Republicans need now (watch this space for our ideas) and what House Republicans have been planning on — so long as they don’t flinch. [...]

My fear is though, that the Uber Conservatives are going to push social issues as the spearhead of the party. That would be a mistake.

Spain's economy is collapsing. It's been doing poorly for a while. Conservatives there have not been able to win elections, despite the poor economy. Why? Because their conservative party is dominated by people who wish to push unpopular social issues, that the majority of voters don't agree with. So the economy there continues in it's downward spiral.

Here at home, the Republican's need an agenda, but it must be one that the majority of voters can gather behind. It should be about jobs and the economy, first and foremost.

I don't expect social conservatives to give up their issues, but those issues should not be the spearhead of the party. We need a large tent, with a spearhead that the majority of voters can rally behind.

Swing voters matter. People who are not rigid social conservatives are not RINOS. If social conservatives insist on drumming all who are unlike themselves out of the party, then we will follow the path of Spain. Or worse.

This next election is ours to win or lose. And it may be the last chance to save our Republic.

And for an agenda that many can rally behind, perhaps Paul Ryan's roadmap would be a good place to start:

'Roadmap' a realistic plan to remake the tax system

[...] The Wisconsin Republican's Roadmap is not a "reactionary" document, as the left usually describes most anything that involves substantially reducing the size, scope and cost of government. It doesn't seek to turn back the clock. Rather, it breaks with a strain of libertarian logic that is always at war with the State, while staying true to the idea that the best government is the one that governs least. It advances libertarian ends by admitting the limits of libertarian means.

The key to Ryan's do-over is acknowledging that America will never eradicate the welfare state entirely for the simple reason that Americans don't want to eradicate the welfare state entirely. The Roadmap explicitly declares that the social safety net — in the form of health and retirement benefits — for those "suffering hard times" is something Americans want to keep. On this and other fronts, the document is a monumental concession to political reality. [...]

It may not be perfect, but it doesn't have to be. It only has be good enough for the majority of voters to agree with, and better than the alternative that the current administration is trying to force down our throats. And THAT, it is.

     

Tammy Bruce interviews Sarah Palin

Here is a link to the podcast:

Special Podcast: The Sarah Palin Interview

An informal interview over the phone, it's just under 15 minutes long.
     

Why Republicans need to be the party of reform

Conservatism and the Spirit of Reform
Republicans squandered their hard-won reputation as the party of ideas. It's time to reclaim it.

[...] Conservatives tend to be suspicious of reform and distrustful of the impulse to improve, seeing in both perennial threats to freedom. This is exacerbated by the common tendency, on the right and the left, to equate reform and improvement with the progressive aspiration to remake society. Conservatives warn—with a good deal of dismal political history on their side—that owing to ineradicable human arrogance, ignorance and error, big plans to centrally regulate human affairs are bound to go awry.

But that's no excuse to conflate reform, which is often necessary to advance the cause of political liberty, with the progressive interpretation of it. Indeed, conservative reform will very often involve devising policies to limit government in the face of relentless progressive pressure to expand its reach and responsibilities.

Conservative reform is particularly necessary today. Revolutions in telecommunications and transportation continue to transform business, the family and the environment. The threat of transnational terrorists employing biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber weapons demands greater resourcefulness and agility at all levels of government, as well as greater cooperation among federal, state and municipal officials. And the vast expansion of the federal government undertaken by President Barack Obama and the Democrats has focused the electorate on government's cost and role in a way not seen since Ronald Reagan ran for president.

[...]

Like Burke, contemporary conservatives should take their bearings from the principle of freedom and the conditions that sustain it. The question to ask in every case is whether current arrangements or proposals for alternative ones are more likely to promote individual responsibility, self-reliance and opportunity. The answers should recognize that a federal system favorable to local self-government, respectful of religion and supportive of the family is a time-tested way of cultivating individuals capable of conserving free institutions and taking advantage of the opportunities freedom affords.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan are among those officeholders in the process of recovering reform as a conservative virtue. In November, Meg Whitman, the new Republican nominee in California, and Brian Sandoval, the new Republican nominee for governor in Nevada, stand a good chance to join their ranks.

Today's conservative reformers appreciate that within its limited sphere government should be excellent. Promoting individual responsibility, self-reliance and opportunity requires targeted action, beginning with health-care reform that really controls costs by eliminating barriers on insurance companies operating across state lines and limiting malpractice damages; public-sector reform that reins in unions by reducing benefits and expanding accountability; and education reform that through school-choice programs gives parents, particularly in low income and minority communities, greater control over their children's education. [...]

Freedom is the answer. Government has it's place, when it's put IN it's place: supporting OUR freedom. Reform begins at home, within our own party. The article points out where Republicans went wrong as well. We have to reform our own house first, to regain the confidence of the electorate, not just Republicans, but the majority of the electorate. Only then will we be in a position to advance greater reform, to bring back our Constitutional government, in support of our freedom and liberty.
     

Conservatives will have to "adjust their approach" to score major gains in 2010

Republicans in Resurgence

A new poll by Resurgent Republic, a conservative group, confirms the trends that other political observers have been seeing: This year’s electorate leans to the right, with most independents seeing eye to eye with Republicans on the major issues. But the survey also includes some warning signs for conservatives.

[...]

The survey, in short, provides an enormous amount of good news for Republicans and conservatives. It even finds that Republicans in Congress, while still unpopular, are less disliked than Democrats in Congress. But the picture is not wholly sunny. A fair reading of the survey results suggests that conservatives would have to adjust their approach on some issues to bring the public on board.

It is Republican voters who are out of step with independents, for example, on the question of whether human beings are causing climate change. Most voters are also open to creating “a path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants, while Republicans believe that would reward lawbreaking.

The survey found that voters want to elect Republican congressmen as a counterweight to the Democrats — but their receptivity to the check-and-balance argument depended on how it was made. An argument that suggested that the Democrats were being “arrogant” and “ignoring what most voters want” persuaded fewer voters than an argument about the danger of “too much power in one party’s hands.” Similarly, voters were more receptive to the argument that federal spending is being squandered in ways that “create few private sector jobs” than to the argument that “the Obama Administration is taking advantage of the recession to make massive increases in government spending” that would hurt the economy. Voters do not attribute malign intent to Obama or his party. [...]

Read the whole thing for the details. It's obvious that it's the swing voters that can "swing" the election in the Republican's favor. If conservatives insist on ignoring swing voters in favor of ideological purity, the gains Republicans will make in 2010 may be less than we need, and short-lived. The Uber conservatives need to learn how to adapt, and embrace incremental change... or die.
     

GOP reaches out, goes high tech with an online portal to write it's "Commitment to America"

GOP about to go online with 'Commitment to America'

Washington (CNN) -- Remember the 1994 "Contract with America" that propelled Republicans back into the majority of the House of Representatives with its author Newt Gingrich as their speaker?

Well, 16 years later, it's back to the future -- the GOP is again drafting a blueprint designed to take back control of Congress. But this time, it is looking for authors everywhere, and if you want help write the 2010 GOP "Commitment to America," you can take out your iPhone or BlackBerry and point your browser to a new GOP website coming soon.

[...]

The online portal will allow anyone to log on and create a personal "profile," similar to Facebook. Users will be able to vote up or down on other people's submissions -- similar to the "like it" thumbs-up feature on Facebook. Proposals can be sorted by how popular they are, or how many "votes" they receive.

Visitors to the site will be anonymous and those setting up profiles can choose their own names, but the site's managers will verify e-mail addresses and postal codes. There will be a filter to weed out offensive language.

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy is leading the effort and he said if Republicans want to connect with voters, they have to prove that their policy proposals aren't cooked up by a group of insiders in Washington.

House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio tapped McCarthy, 45, to craft the 2010 equivalent of the 1994 "Contract with America." But McCarthy said he doesn't want his effort to be compared with Gingrich's '94 playbook and said he's using the "Commitment to America" as a temporary name that's likely to change after the public weighs in.

That's where the new technology comes into play. To connect to other popular social media sites, the GOP's website will also have Twitter and Facebook components. Like those sites, users can participate in the ongoing political debate from their laptops or from mobile devices like iPhones and BlackBerrys.

To encourage people to come back and be part of an online community, users will accumulate "points" every time they submit an idea or engage in a debate. McCarthy compared this to getting frequent flyer miles or points with an airline.

But users won't get prizes or free flights, just the bragging rights that they are helping the GOP write its agenda.

The site will include a few major topics like "jobs," and "the economy," but won't have any specific proposals laid out by GOP lawmakers. McCarthy said the goal is for "the public to take ownership."

The site will allow a continuing debate about the merits of the party's policy priorities. Once it goes live, Republican House members will have a widget posted on their Congressional web pages that will link to the main GOP "commitment" site on a real-time basis.

Although the software to do all these things is already available to the public -- NASA uses a similar web portal -- Republicans pointed out that no other political organization has yet used it this way.

McCarthy described the effort to come up with the party's policy priorities as a three-phase project. [...]

Hmmm. It sounds... interesting? I tend to think of anything to do with "social networking" as shallow crap, but then I don't use most of that stuff either. The article goes into some detail as to how it should work. It is pretty cutting edge. I suppose we shall have to wait and see what results from it, before we know it's merits. I think it's a good move for the GOP, and if they can make it work, it could be a great move. We shall see.
     

Is it a GOP comeback? Or lesser of two evils?

It's an interesting trend, but if people are merely voting against the Democrats by voting Republican, then the GOP had best not get over-confident, by trying to count their chickens before they've hatched:


G.O.P. Envisions Northeast Comeback

[...] The independents who swing New England elections abandoned the party as the Bush era drew to a close. They were in revolt over the war in Iraq, the struggling economy and the strong strain of Southern social conservatism that was dominating national Republican politics. It was crushing for the remaining Republicans in a section of the country that once saw itself as the foundation of the party.

But Republicans see Mr. Brown’s win — and an earlier victory in the New Jersey governor’s race — as evidence that independents are moving back their way, a possible harbinger of good things to come.

[...]

But they should not get too far ahead of themselves. They still face difficult challenges in most of those states, given Democratic demographic advantages. And off-year and special election Republican victories in Democratic territory offer no certainty of winning in the more heavily contested midterm elections, with their accompanying greater turnout. Also, ideological divisions being exhibited in primaries in Connecticut and New Hampshire in particular could ultimately cost Republicans.

Still, they have reason to be optimistic after being nearly wiped off New England’s political map. One reason is that the current national political fight is centering more on the economic issues that are part of the fabric of New England political ideology, rather than the divisive social issues that can drive less conservative Republicans away from the party.

“What’s fueling the resurgence of Northern Republicans is public anger over the economy and an impression among New England voters that ‘big government’ is back with a vengeance,” said Bob Stevenson, a former senior Senate Republican aide who has long worked in New England politics. “New Englanders tend to believe in fiscal restraint, self-rule and self-sufficiency.”

The addition of even a few moderate Republicans to the Senate could change the dynamic in that institution. Conservatives are so dominant now that Ms. Collins and Ms. Snowe face intense pressure to vote with their party, particularly after they broke ranks to provide the crucial votes to pass the economic stimulus measure early in 2009. Mr. Castle, should he prevail, would add another strong and experienced moderate voice.

The philosophical direction Mr. Brown intends to take remains to be seen, but even his fellow Republicans said he could not compile a heavily conservative voting record and expect to be re-elected in Massachusetts in 2012 when his partial term ends.

Ms. Snowe, typically a favorite target of Democrats as they try to build a 60-vote bloc to break filibusters, said that Republicans representing Democratic states — or vice versa — tend to push the debate toward the middle to appease their diverse political constituencies.

“Having those countervailing voices really creates the inclination and propensity for drafting centrist-based positions,” Ms. Snowe said. [...]

Maybe what we are seeing is a victory for centrists.

The Republicans have an opportunity here, but they could easily blow it, if they insist on making the Republican party a purist ideology, instead of using it as a political vehicle to be cooperatively used by a large diverse base, to achieve goals the members all have in common.

This means not kicking people out when they are not ideologically rigid, being flexible, letting states make their own choices about how they want their Republicans to be.

We don't need a GOP dominated by the South, or the North either. What good would it do to gain the North, but then lose the South? If we emphasize fiscal issues as our spearhead, and keep social issues, the culture wars, primarily fought in our culture more than our legislature, I think we have a good chance of a comeback. But if the Republicans continue to support big government, and continue to push legislation to control controversial social issues, then I doubt we stand a chance.

I've posted before in detail about the Death of Republicanism in New England. There are lessons to be learned from that. This potential Republican Revival we are seeing now will only succeed if the voters of each state can use the party as a political vehicle, instead of having to join an inflexible ideology.

There has been a lot of criticism by GOP Uber-conservatives of Republican Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine. I visited with family in Maine last year. I read in the newspaper there, in a political article, a comment by a voter addressing that criticism, who said: "We sent Snowe and Collins to Washington to represent the State of Maine, not the GOP". I think that is very true of the voters in Maine; they tend to not be rigidly partisan, and like their politicians to reflect that.

I think it's largely true for New England as whole; they expect their senators to be loyal to their state first, their party second. They are expected to compromise when necessary, to please the voters of their state.

Brown of Massachusetts knows this. If he turns into a GOP Uber-conservative, he will be toast. He won by listening to his constituents, not the GOP ideologues.

Here in Oregon, we had a wonderful GOP senator, Gordon Smith. But then the GOP ideologues began to complain he was a RINO, and undermined him, just enough to help the Democrats defeat him. Now we have two Democrat senators, and some of the highest income taxes in the nation, second only to NYC. Way to go... NOT!!!

I already am hearing the GOP Uber-conservatives complaining that Brown is a RINO, not good enough, not pure enough. Are we as a party going to shoot ourselves in the foot AGAIN, ending the Republican revival before it's begun?

If Democrats and Republicans keep sticking to ideological extremes, then perhaps a third party will have a good chance of forming. One that could attract independents, and both Republican and Democrat moderates might actually succeed, especially if WE continue to flail and fail.
     

Thousands attend Tea Party Protest in DC

Battling Pelosicare; Update: Thousands descend on D.C., “You work for us!”



Also see:

Is Tea Party conservatism a help or a hazard for Republicans?

     

The GOP is presently a large minority. Will it stay that way, or can it grow into a coalition?

GOP's choice: Purity vs. power?

[...] The message is clear: Republicans need to work hard on a reform platform that attracts both conservative and moderate voters.

Armey and his friends have a reason to feel comfortable sticking to their conservative line. Gallup just announced a survey that showed that conservatives make up the largest voting bloc in the country, 40 percent.

But, and I hate to break this to my conservative friends, in America, 40 percent of the country is not enough to gain a working majority in Congress. Without the help of moderate and independent voters, conservatives will stay in the minority, keeping the reins of power in the hands of liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

Conservatives seem to be mystified that these liberals hold the reins of power even though they make up a small minority of the country. Most polls show that only about 20 percent of the American people consider themselves to be liberal.

But it shouldn't be any mystery. It is all about building a majority coalition, and the Democrats for the last two elections have been better at it than Republicans.

In order to build a governing coalition, the Republican Party must exhibit one over-riding philosophical trait: flexibility. What makes sense in New York and New England may not make as much sense in South Carolina and Texas. I know this is blasphemy to hard-right activists. But it shouldn't be. Building coalitions is an essential party of any democracy.

Having political flexibility doesn't mean becoming a sell-out or a squish. It does, however, mean having an understanding of our unique political system, where sometimes it is better to vote with the head and the heart rather than just the heart. [...]

That 40 percent of people who call themselves conservative, includes a lot of libertarian minded people who are fiscally conservative, but more moderate, not rigid, on social issues. But as the article points out, even 40 percent is not enough to win.

The Dems made a coalition. Where is ours? Where is it?


Also see:

The return of the angry independent

     

Will Republicans make gains by default? Or...

Obama's vanishing majority
The 2008 election didn't exile Republicans to the political wilderness. Today, the party has already started its comeback

[...] But the American people did not love the Democrats. They merely loathed the Republicans, who had given them (if I may quote myself): "War, Wall Street jitters, wage stagnation and, above all, W". If the Democrats did not understand this basic fact, I predicted, they would soon have problems of their own.

Two years ago, the Republican base was dispirited, the Democratic base was vacillating between energetic and enraged and the GOP couldn't buy independent votes with a bridge to nowhere. It's early, but things are starting to trend in the opposite direction. Angry conservatives are mobilised, liberals are starting to wonder where their Hope and Change went and swing voters are inching ever so slightly to the right.

According to a recent Gallup poll, self-described conservatives once again outnumber moderates after being at parity with them from 2005-2008. The increase is entirely based on a six-point increase in the number of independents adopting the conservative label, which they disdained under Bush. On a number of issues, independents are moving closer to agreement with a majority of Republicans rather than a majority of Democrats. As I write, it looks like the Republicans will win at least one of the 2009 gubernatorial races in independent-heavy states that had recently been favouring Democrats, and they may well win both.

Independents are a pragmatic lot. Just as they disliked the Bush Republicans' incompetence, bellicosity and inability to say anything coherent about the country's most pressing problems, they now dislike the Obama Democrats' stimulus plans that don't stimulate, massive expenditures of money the federal government doesn't have and general fondness for the sound of the president's voice. [...]

But it goes on to say the Republicans still lack a unified message on healthcare and consistancy in fiscal policy.

Those things are fixable. We'd best get to work on fixing them. We have to be more than just the party that says "no" to whatever the Democrats are doing.


2010's opening acts

The first key votes of the Obama era take place this week, not on the floor of the House or Senate, where health-care legislation still languishes, but in Virginia, New Jersey and northern New York state, where President Obama's endorsements of threatened Democratic candidates will test his political clout a year after his own election. [...]

But Tuesday's voting is merely the curtain-raiser to a full year of headlined Senate and statehouse races that will go a long way toward defining the landscape of Obama's political future. The gubernatorial battles especially will be worth watching.

It is there that Republicans have their best opportunity to find the missing leadership that now allows Democrats to characterize them as "the party of no," and the GOP has recruited potentially powerful challengers in such states as Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado and Tennessee. [...]

Read the whole thing for the details about tomorrows elections.
     

The GOP: a Political Vehicle, or an Ideology?

It needs to be the former, not the latter. From Neal Boortz:

REPUBLICANS VERSUS CONSERVATIVES

Have you been following this House election in upstate New York? The Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava has some stiff competition, and it isn't from the Democrat candidate. It is from Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman. Republicans Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty have thrown their support behind Hoffman in what is turning out to be a clash of principles ... what does it mean to be conservative versus Republican?

This Scozzafava woman has some positions that don't sit all that well with the Republican base. Truth is, she's probably running as a Republican only because that area has a history of voting Republican in congressional elections.

But wait until next year. The midterm elections of 2010 may be our last chance to save this Republic. No .. .I'm serious. With the anti-capitalists we have running the show right now the time is short. It may be next year ... or never. Watch the Republicans though. Despite what's at sake, Republicans are going to engage the idiotic abortion litmus test. Candidates are going to be judged primarily on whether or not they want to use the police power of government to force women to continue with pregnancies they want to terminate. This one question will be the beginning and the end of all deliberations as to whether or not to support particular Republican candidates. Makes sense, doesn't it? The future of this country is at stake and these abortocentrists are going to be doing the work of the Democrat party.

Bold emphasis mine. It's ironic how conservatives can actually help Democrats get elected, by sandbagging Republican candidates who don't pass the "litmus test". Conservatives and Democrats, working together to defeat the GOP.

Arguing over who is "good enough" is politics, part of the political process. But is it also sometimes a luxury? How much time do we have, right now, to fight within our own party? I suspect Boortz is right; time is running out. I've posted before about Democrats who want to permanently marginalize the GOP, as a stepping stone to actually eliminating them completely.

Instead of tearing down the GOP, conservatives would serve themselves and their causes better to get involved in their local GOP, and stop trying to dictate to other localities the candidates they should choose. Applying Red state standards to our Blue state candidates usually means a victory for Democrats (as it did here in Oregon). Thus our party grows smaller.

The GOP is a political vehicle, not an ideology. It's time to car pool, not fight over the steering wheel and try to kick each other out of the car. Flexibility and diversity of opinion in our party can a strength; it can be the difference between the GOP's survival, or it's perishing like the dinosaurs.


Related Links:

A long lament about Republican errors

Christian moralizing as a party platform

The Republican Winners, and Their Message

     

Time to stop whining and get back to basics

Republicans have spent too much time whining about Democrats, and it's a losing strategy. And when I say basics, I mean Republican principles that a majority of Americans can get behind and support. And what principles might those be? Gov. Tim Pawlenty explains:

Cut up the credit card

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist — or even a political scientist — to understand the steps the Republican Party must do to again become the national majority party.

The 2006 and 2008 election results are warning signs for the GOP. The good news is our party’s future is brighter than many think. Newsweek’s recent cover story makes it clear America leans more right than left.

The Republican Party’s conservative values — freedom, personal and moral responsibility, the power of capitalism and a limited accountable government — are as important as ever. The GOP should build on its core principles by making its case with common sense ideas that are better than our competitors.

Our approach on issues like security, energy independence, free market solutions for better health care and education with a focus on accountability for results instead of just increased spending are ideas that will do just that.

But it all starts by putting first things first. A cornerstone of the Republican Party must be fiscal responsibility — living within our means like most Americans do. Wall Street and the federal government chronically disregard this principle and have substantially contributed to our current economic mess.

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Americans don’t need a Nobel Prize winner to understand we can’t solve a crisis caused by the reckless issuance of debt by then recklessly issuing even more debt.

Remarkably, we have now entered the second or third round of bailouts for some companies and industries. But bailing out the bailouts is like using credit cards to pay off credit cards. It’s a strategy that would have made even Charles Ponzi blush.
[...]

He goes on to make some good points, about the weak spots in the Democrat's plans. But he says above, "A cornerstone of the Republican Party must be fiscal responsibility — living within our means like most Americans do." But DO they? I'd like to think so, but it seems a shocking amount of people are living beyond their means, and they are doing it on credit.

I was going to add, "... and that's why they've elected a Democrat government that wants to keep spending". But we've just had 8 years of Republican government that did that! Republicans have lost credibility on that issue.

The Democrats may blow it too, as Pawlenty points out, but it remains to be seen just what they will do. It would be ironic if the Democrats were to lead us into fiscal responsibility. I'm not saying they can or will, but stranger things have happened.

Every government screws up some things, they are only human. But the question is, how much, how fast, and what the damage is. The answers to those questions will determine who becomes (or stays) the dominant power. We shall see how the Democrats do. Then next four years certainly won't be boring.
     

"McCain-Spears" better than "McCain-Palin"?

With all the talk about why McCain lost, has anyone considered, that it might be because he picked Sarah Palin instead of Britney Spears?

Spears beats Obama

Hey, why not, after all, Britney is a Republican.

Of course I'm kidding. About her being Veep. I'm just wondering, as time goes on, and the Republican Party desperately needs to attract the youth vote, if the day will come when the party has to appeal and reach out, in some way, to the "Britney Spears Republicans"?

In 2004, the party said "no":

Republicans not voting for Britney Spears

But if the Republican Party isn't able to grow and diversify, including attracting younger voters with liberal social values, they may have to rename themselves "The Incredible Shrinking Party".
     

The Republican Winners, and Their Message

Some Republicans won in this decidedly difficult election year for Republicans. Do they have any advice the GOP should heed, as it licks it's wounds and tries to plan a strategy for 2010?

3 Successful Republicans Caution Against a Move to the Right

[...] Senator Collins, Senator Alexander and Representative King were among Republicans who defied the odds in a terrible year for their colleagues. Their re-elections provide a possible road map for how the party can succeed in a challenging political environment. The answer, the three veteran politicians agreed, is not to become a more conservative, combative party focused on narrow partisan issues.

“What doesn’t work is drawing a harsh ideological line in the sand,” said Ms. Collins, of Maine, who early in the year was a top Democratic target for defeat but ended up winning 61 percent of the vote while Senator Barack Obama received 58 percent in the presidential race in her state.

“We make a mistake if we are going to make our entire appeal rural and outside the Northeast and outside the Rust Belt,” said Mr. King, of New York, who easily won re-election in a region shedding Republicans at a precipitous rate.

“We can stand around and talk about our principles, but we have to put them into actions that most people agree with,” said Mr. Alexander, of Tennessee, a self-described conservative who was able to attract African-American voters.

Their comments go to the competing visions for the party’s future that will confront Republicans as they return to Capitol Hill next week to elect House and Senate leaders and begin the process of adjusting to a second consecutive round of resounding losses on Capitol Hill. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Notice they didn't say "abandon conservatism". They simply speak of being more flexible, reaching out instead of being too narrow and intolerant, and not putting all our eggs in one basket.

Some would call that common sense.

The Democrats regained control of Congress by their clever stategy of supporting Blue Dog Democrats, conservative Democrats, to gain wins against Republicans. I'm wondering if the Republicans shouldn't learn something from that, and try supporting "Red Dog" Republicans, liberal Republicans, to win against democrats in blue states.

Instead, a vocal element in the Republican party has become strident, labeling anyone who doesn't fit their definition of conservative as RINOs, moderates who need to be driven out of the party.

Look where that's gotten us today. The entire Northeast, once a Republican stronghold, has been lost to the Democrats as many of New England's Republicans have abandoned the party they feel has abandoned them.

Even here in Oregon, the Uber Republicans who felt our Republican Senator Gordon Smith was too liberal to support, decided to throw their vote away on the Constitution party instead. Now we have that disgusting pig Jeff Merkely as our new senator. How is that supposed to be an improvement?

There has been too much focus on trying to kick people out of the Republican party. It's clearly a losing strategy. Isn't it time we focus on trying GROW our party and to attract people INTO it instead?


Related Links:

Can't we all just get along?

"Politics is the art of the possible"

PAWLENTY CALLS FOR A MORE DIVERSE GOP