June 5, 2008. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich publishes a piece on the upcoming presidential election in Human Events , the self-described “Headquarters of the Conservative Underground.” It is titled: “My Plea to Republicans,” and ties the recent loss in a Louisiana Congressional election to what he warns could end in disaster in the coming November election. His strategic piece highlights painful figures for the GOP—an eighteen point Congressional polling deficit that he calls “reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.” Mr Gingrich warns that the GOP’s current attack ads and political talking points are lacking in depth, failing to sway minds, and bordering on disaster. And finally, he cautions that the party’s frontrunner, Senator John McCain, seriously misrepresents the GOP’s message and strays from the party’s values.
Mr Gingrich was correct.
Come November 4th, Democratic widened their approval lead in Congress and the McCain campaign recklessly drove forward the same attacks that Mr Gingrich warned against, picked arguably the most controversial vice president in American history, and successfully dissolved of its lead in the polls—falling into the wrong side of mainstream media, and of course, the blogosphere.
But most of all, the McCain campaign tore apart the GOP—initializing off topic and politically detrimental side stories from inside the campaign. Over the course of his campaign, Mr McCain lost most of his already small web presence and sent his most passionate bloggers rebuilding their own web stature. Republican members of the House of Representatives, forced to ban presidential spending bills, gave rise to the liberal media labeling the GOP the “party of no.”
In a party so plagued by revenge, how is a quick and painless reconstruction possible? Michael A. Cohen recently tried to answer that question.
Mr Cohen certainly makes some good points. The Reagan-era conservatism certainly proved effective, but when used the in context of the current audience, it could remind voters of something no politically respected conservative would want—extremist. Indeed fiscal conservatism isn’t extremism, but as we have witnessed, anything in the realm of a brash, new policy that comes from the Republican side hasn’t exactly been embraced by the press.
But how can Republicans pass policy initiatives through the mainstream media or the internet without as much as a negative peep?
Frankly, if the GOP has any shot, it’s to go politically younger. CPAC gave us a very good list of the next likely leaders in the party—including the fourteen-year-old Jonoathan Krohn—and those who should be not included in the future—namely Rush Limbaugh.
Mr Limbaugh, along with similar GOP counterpart Glen Beck, prove to be insufficient and unpredictable. The Republican Party needs someone remotely controllable, and Mr Limbaugh who says things like “I hope the president fails,” is potentially suicidal.
On the positive side, Mr Krohn is a glimmer of hope for the young conservative movement that hasn’t been seen for a very long time. His impact on the GOP, however, is unclear. Mr Krohn’s message of splitting political stature conservatism and the Republican Party shows he is cool-headed and smart, but lacks the valuable political skill of thinking on his toes and, most of all, isn’t mature enough to understand the process of a press conference; since reporters treat him like a child, not a politician, he loses the legitimacy that he earned from writing his book, Define Conservatism. Also, Mr Krohn doesn’t yet have something his age ought not to bar him from—an easy path through the blogosphere.
Thus it will be a matter of years before the GOP has a strong leader, and therefore the party’s chances at attaining votes among the younger generation—an area where Barack Obama slaughtered them in the 2008 elections—is slim.
My advice to the GOP as 2010 and 2012 approach? Listen to Mr Gingrich.
Pacer521 is the thirteen-year-old political blogger and author of Politics Decoded. His writing has been syndicated around the web and by newspapers including Boston Globe.
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Republicans aren’t coming back anytime soon. They’re done for a while and they deserve to be.
There was a time when I thought Newt had no credibility whatsoever. Now he seems to be the only voice of reason in the Republican Party. They would do well to heed his words.
Gingrich did a pretty bad job as speaker of the house. He’d be a better spokesperson for the GOP than Palin, but I don’t think he’d be a good presidential candidate.