The Republican Path Ahead. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, March 1, 2013.
Party, Heal Thyself. By Pete Wehner. Time, March 11, 2013. Also find it here.
How to Save the Republican Party. By Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner. Commentary, March 2013.
Wehner, Party Heal Thyself:
There
are, we’re told, five stages of grief. A political party, in the wake of a
devastating loss, goes through something similar. Shock gives way to a (short)
season of self-reflection—but what emerges on the other side varies. Sometimes
people draw opposing conclusions. Such is the state of the Republican Party
right now.
Republicans
seem to have broken into three camps. One is composed of those who believe that
concerns about the party are vastly overstated. The argument goes something
like this: America remains a center-right country. Barack Obama had a
once-in-a-generation appeal to the Democratic base that can't be replicated.
All the GOP needs is an attractive torchbearer, better messaging, a tweak or
two, and all will be right with the world once more.
A
second camp argues that the problem with the GOP is insufficient purity. Those
who hold this outlook believe that by nominating moderates like John McCain in
2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, the Republican Party didn't offer enough of a
contrast with Obama. Victory depends on dusting off the old Ronald Reagan
playbook. It worked in 1980 and 1984, and it would work for the GOP today. In
the process, the party needs to expel heretics from the temple—which in this
case means attacking RINOs (Republicans in name only) and members of the
loathsome Establishment.
A third
camp, in which I place myself, believes the party is in a precarious position
because it faces systemic problems and alarming demographic trends. Which means
a significant recalibration is in order. This doesn’t mean jettisoning the GOP’s
core commitments to limited government, economic growth and protecting unborn
children. Nor does it mean the Republican Party should become more moderate.
What it does mean is that the GOP has to become more modern, more reform-minded
and more aggressive in repositioning itself through a series of policy
innovations. This involves identifying areas of weakness and designing a set of
proposals to address them. Some examples: To combat the impression that the GOP
is beholden to the top 1%, Republicans should champion ending corporate welfare
as we know it, breaking up the megabanks, increasing the child tax credit and
encouraging upward mobility through education reform. On immigration, we should
support better border security and a path to legal status and eventually
citizenship for undocumented workers. The GOP, perceived as
hyperindividualistic, should demonstrate its commitment to the common good by
supporting civil-society groups working to expand adoption, the next stages of
welfare reform, overhauling our prison system and the cultural assimilation of
immigrants. Republicans also have to accept that in large parts of America,
opposition to same-sex marriage is a losing battle—but that cannot keep the GOP
from being consistent about the importance of marriage itself and taking steps
to fortify it.
But
creative policy proposals, while essential, are insufficient. Something deeper
needs to occur. The party must shake off an intellectual rigidity that has set
in. Some examples of this include declaring that not raising taxes is an
inviolable principle rather than a reasonable policy judgment and insisting
that global warming is a hoax. And a self-confident conservative movement would
not bar the gay group GOProud or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie from its
events, as the Conservative Political Action Conference has done. The theory of
addition through subtraction doesn't work in mathematics or politics.
There
is an alternative conservative tradition to draw on that seeks to accommodate
timeless principles to shifting circumstances, that rejects unyielding
orthodoxy and believes prudence, not purity, is the cardinal political virtue.
And while it believes in limited government, it is not carelessly
antigovernment. The 19th century economist Alfred Marshall elegantly described
government as “the most precious of human institutions, and no care can be too
great to be spent on enabling it to do its work in the best way. A chief
condition to that end is that it should not be set to work for which it is not
specifically qualified, under the conditions of time and place.”
Now for
the good news: There is an unmistakable, if far from complete, movement in this
direction since the 2012 defeat. An intellectual unfreezing is taking place. It’s
actually a pretty interesting time to be a Republican. The Democratic Party
found itself in a similar moment in the early 1990s. The party was open to a
New Democrat—and out of this emerged William Jefferson Clinton. The GOP awaits
its version of the man from Hope.
Wehner, Path Ahead:
I’d add
to this several other suggestions.
First,
Republicans should make front-and-center their plans to reform public
institutions that were designed for the needs of the mid-20th century. Our
health-care and entitlement system, tax code, schools, immigration policies and
regulatory regime are outdated, breaking down, and creating substantial
wreckage. If I had to boil it down to a single sentence, I’d urge the GOP to
develop its reputation as the party of reform and modernization.
Second,
Republican leaders at every level need to conduct themselves in a manner that
not just reassures voters but appeals to them. As former Indiana Governor Mitch
Daniels has put it, “as we ask Americans to join us on such a boldly different
course, it would help if they liked us, just a bit.” This is not just a matter
of style; it’s a disposition that reflects an approach to the world. And it
matters.
Third,
Republicans must resist the temptation of defeatism, enervation, and turning
against the country. It is entirely within the power of the GOP to both remain
principled and appeal to a majority of Americans. An intellectually
self-confident party would, in fact, be energized by a challenge of this scale.
But it
seems to me that the main reason for Republicans to be confident, and the main
reason they should act quickly to revive their party, is that reactionary
liberalism is exhausted. It has nothing to offer when it comes to the greatest
domestic threats facing America: our massive fiscal imbalance, the impending
collapse of our entitlement programs, our insanely complicated and inefficient
tax code, and anemic economic growth. By the end of President Obama’s second
term, the Affordable Care Act will be viewed as a monumental failure. Liberals
will have had nothing useful to say about combating poverty, improving
education, energy independence or stabilizing a disordered and dangerous world.
The propositions of progressivism will have been tried and found wanting in
almost every respect. The public will again turn to the Republican Party.
For the
GOP to fully reposition itself will require the right presidential nominee to
emerge. But the groundwork needs to begin–has begun–with governors, members of
Congress, public intellectuals and policy entrepreneurs.
In
1980, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan admitted, “Of a sudden, the
GOP has become a party of ideas.” As it was, so shall it be again.
