The Republican Party is in a state of flux. Many call it an identity crisis; others say the party has lost its way. However the problem is defined, voters across the nation made clear on Election Day that they were having none of it. So, where does the party go from here?
That was the hottest and most hotly debated topic at this week’s Republican Governor’s Association meeting in Miami where attendees sought ways to stage a GOP comeback following its Nov. 4 defeats. Some Republicans, like Florida Gov. Charlie Christ, are calling for the party to grow more moderate so it can expand its demographic base and attract more voters, including those who abandoned them on Nov. 4. And while all eyes were on former vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin, who remains a superstar in many conservatives’ eyes, questions remain about whether she and other traditionalists are the true representatives of the party and its future.
The party needs a leader. Unfortunately, no one seems quite sure who that person would be. Even before Election Day, the House Republican leadership was undergoing a shakeup and two of its top commanders have already announced they will step down from their leadership roles.
“A lot of people have been doing some soul searching. I was joking about how long the Democrats have been looking for the North Star that Obama provided for them, but I don’t see the equivalent on the Republican side. I can’t say anybody’s going to be a huge, transitory leader like that,†says Danielle Doane, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“There’s no natural leader in the party and I can’t see John McCain leading the loyal opposition They’re not that united behind him and the fact that 64% allegedly want Sarah Palin to run for president, that tells you there’s a fighting mood out there, at least among a significant number of social conservatives,†adds Bruce Cain, a University of California, Berkeley, political scientist.
There is also an ongoing debate among Republicans about whether they should remain true to their traditional conservative principles and values or find their way more toward the center. Should they change their policies or their message? But according to Alabama Rep.
Robert Aderholt, the party’s principles will remain unchanged. “It still stands for the issues we’ve always stood for, that government is best when it governs least, but there’s some messaging that needs to change. We’ve been labeled as mean spirited and not happy as conservatives and I think that’s totally not the case. We need to come out and change our message.â€Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, one of the GOP’s rising stars, echoes that sentiment. “Voters want us to stand up and act like conservatives. We don’t need to rebrand ourselves; we need to get back to basics,†she says. “People want us to enact laws that reduce how much government spends and voters are taxed. We learned that we’ve not stood firmly enough on those principles and have not articulated their relevance to current issues as we should have.â€
But Cain says that when Democrats were thinking along similar lines four years ago, Republicans said they were kidding themselves. “Crafting your message is part of it, but in the end they got thrown out of office because the policies they pursued weren’t working,†he says. Cain believes that the GOP chose ideology over pragmatism and is now paying for it. The party might look to governors successfully leading such states as Minnesota, Louisiana, and Florida who have taken a more pragmatic approach.
As Democrats in this year’s election expanded its electoral base across the nation, and swept up the majority of support from both African Americans and Latinos, who once were faithful Republican voters, the Republican base has shrunken to a coalition of voters in the Deep South and the Great Plains. Doan describes President-elect Obama’s outreach from the grassroots to the Internet as genius. Republicans, she says, weren’t willing to do the extra work necessary to expand its base.
“What’s certainly clear to me is that the Republican Party has no future as an all white party. They got 6% or 7% of the black vote, less than a third of the Latino vote and not a majority of any other group defined by people of color,†says DePaul University political scientist Michael Mezey. “They’re going to have to find a way to incorporating and bringing in a larger segment of the population: younger people, people of color, women, people who are increasingly Democratic. That, or root for the continuation of economic disaster.â€
Black Republicans aren’t giving up on their party and argue that there’s room under the GOP tent for everyone. “We are extremely important to the party and always have been. I don’t think we do enough outreach, grassroots, for example, but as we saw in this last election, people of color are very important. We will play all different roles, having a seat at the table to make important decisions about where the party is, where we’re going to go and how we’re going to get there so that we’re all on the same page,†says Renee Amoore, president and CEO of the Amoore Group Inc.
Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, an African American, has announced today that he intends to run for RNC chair. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said, “I know firsthand the RNC must truly be run as a federation of state parties in order to be effective. I believe the leadership of our party must come from its grass roots, because the members of the RNC are the best representation of what direction our party needs to take.â€