Sweeny Report » Republicans need to get back to being the conservative party

Republicans need to get back to being the conservative party

November 9th, 2008 at 12:29am Chuck Sweeny

To those of you who think that the Republican Party is now toast, remember 1994. That’s when the GOP came storming back after Bill Clinton overreached in his first two years as president, attempting to nationalize health-care and allow openly gay people to serve in the military.

Newt Gingrich, who’d been planning a House takeover for a decade, organized a disiciplined campaign for House candidates, presented a 10-point agenda called the Contract With America, and picked up more than 50 seats in the 1994 mid-terms. Republican Senate candidates also regained a majority, resulting in a GOP Congress for the first time in 40 years.

Unlike 1994, today’s GOP has no recognizable leader. The party got shellacked last Tuesday, losing seats in both houses of Congress and the White House. Democrats shouldn’t gloat, though.

Sometimes a royal drubbing is good for a party. And the GOP now needs to regroup around a new generation of leaders, kick the “neo-cons” back to their National Review and Weekly Standard magazines, their Heritage Foundation institute, and restore the biggest spending political party in history (doubling the national debt in just 8 years) to being a conservative alternative to the Democrats.

They have young people who can do this, like:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a reform governor in Louisiana who’s not yet 40, and, who enjoys widespread popularity. He had the good sense to stay out of the bidding for vice presidential candidate on the doomed McCain ticket. Jindal is also unique in that his parents are from India. He’s our first Indian-American governor.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, re-elected soundly on Tuesday even though his state went closely for Obama. Daniels quit a Bush administration post because he thought it had strayed from conservatism.

Alsaska Gov. Sarah Palin. OK, OK, so she didn’t know that Africa is a continent, the woman can take a geography course. She has charisma galore, and if she goes on the GOP fund-raising circuit for other candidates and rents an apartment in Des Moines, we’ll know she’s serious about her political future.

Mike Huckabee, the gentleman’s conservative. He won the Iowa caucuses and impressed a lot of people. The former governor of Arkansas has got himself a FOX talk show and he books a wide variety of guests from left to right. Saturday night he was interviewing Oliver Stone, as well as Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to attend Little Rock High School, a feat that required Ike to federalize the Arkansas National Gaurd to protect them. Huckabee also plays bass in his band, the Little Rockers, on the show. You’ll be hearing a lot more from Mike Huckabee.

The party also needs to concentrate on economics and stop pretending that GOP stands for God’s Own Party. Also, it cannot continue to be the party of Grumpy Old White Men. There just aren’t enough white people in America’s future to make a majority. It mystifies me that the GOP hasn’t reached out to the minorities who will soon be in the majority. If the party is to remain viable, it must do so.

As I write, the neo-cons are conspiring in a hotel somewhere, I think in Virginia , to make sure their agenda — to build an American Empire – remains the core of Republican philosphy.. But Americans don’t want to be an empire, they want to be a republic.

Entry Filed under: republicans

11 Comments Add your own

1. chucks retirement | November 9th, 2008 at 4:12 am

now is a good time to retire sweeny,your mouth is to loud
2. SNuss | November 9th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Chuck sez: “Alsaska Gov. Sarah Palin. OK, OK, so she didn’t know that Africa is a continent,”
But I bet she can spell Alaska correctly. The context of her comment is this: She was doing a series of fast-pased interview simulations, and mis-spoke because she was tired. First, she is cheap-shotted by a partisan media, then by disgruntled McCain workers. Too bad that you choose to propagate the lies.
3. SNuss | November 9th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

The best thing the Republicans could do is an updated version of the “Contract With America”, for 2010 The reason they lost control of the House and Senate was because they failed to follow it’s tenets after a few years, and started behaving more like the overspending Democrats they had replaced. So, why have “faux” Democrats? That is why we are where we are. With any luck, history can repeat itself, before the radical Left can do much damage to our Country.
4. railrider | November 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

Chuck says, it mystifies me that the GOP has not reached out to minorities. Thats not true, former NFL great Lynn Swann ran as a republican in Pennsylvania, he lost to a white Democrat. The former Lt. Governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, an African American republican ran for the US Senate two years ago and lost to a white democrat.

Republicans have minority candidates run all the time, but the liberals and the media demonize them and destroy their chances simply because they are conservative. Look how Justice Clarence Thomas was attacked simply because he was a conservative minority. As you point out, the first Indian-American governor is a republican. There are also many Hispanic republican officeholders. There would be many more conservative, republican minority officeholders if the liberal media did not villify them.
5. snuss | November 9th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

And don’t forget the last two Secretaries of State were African-American.
6. Monkey | November 9th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Ahh, blame the media. It’s not the media’s fault that the GOP has lost touch with the country. Fox News, for the most part, is still the most popular cable news network and conservatives have controlled talk radio for the better part of a decade.

The GOP has simply lost touch with what most Americans want. Affordable health care. Decent jobs. We want judges that keep their hands off a women’s body and their eyes out of the bedroom. We want to end an endless war that is diverting billions away from our country. We want to put a stop to Wall Street abuses that make a few people rich at the expense of the rest of us.

And the radical right-wing religious-based ideology upon which most of the GOP has been built in the last 10 years is another reason why people are turning away from the GOP.

Chuck’s point about getting minorities in the GOP is not about a few high-profile office holders. It’s about rank and file support from everyday American blacks and Hispanics. To that end, the GOP does not have it.
7. railrider | November 10th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

The pro-life position is exactly the reason catholic hispanics support the GOP. Hands off a womans body? How about protecting innocent human life. The majority of the american people support policies such as parental notification for a minor attempting to get an abortion, and a ban on partial birth abortion. Most Americans do not support homosexual marriage, just take a look at California.

The GOP is going to come roaring back in two years, and most likely will take back the Congress again. Blagojevich will be thrown out of office at the state level. The pendulum swings!
8. Chuck Sweeny | November 10th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

Remember folks, IT’s the ECOMOMY, Stupid, as James Carville said way back in 1992.
The other social issues are sideline stuff, arguing a the margins.
Sixty-two percent of voters last Tuesday said the economic situation was their number one concern. The war in Iraq, healthcare and the “war on terror” all got about 10 percent each.
If The Democrats are seen as improving the economy, they win. If not, Republicans win. It’s pretty simple.
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9. snuss | November 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

“Alsaska” “ECOMOMY”? Chuck, don’t you have Spell-Check?
10. hokumboy | November 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

Not to mention “disiciplined, National Gaurd, and philosphy” in the original post.
Chuck, it’s time for a new brand of coffee.
11. railrider | November 11th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Here comes the backlash. The Catholic Bishops prepare to confront Obama on his coming pro-abortion agenda, which will shut down hundreds of Catholic run hospitals because they dont allow abortion procedures. This will impact OSF in Rockford. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-081111bishops,0,3307557.story