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A Road Map to GOP Recovery

November 10, 2006

When the pink slip arrives, the cascade begins. First there is the shock. Then comes bewilderment, followed by anger, recrimination, self-pity, and malaise.

After a time, you pull yourself together and start mapping the road to recovery. It all comes to a happy ending – if the right lessons are learned from the unfortunate experience and then applied.

Republican leadership was fired Tuesday. Not because the nation made a dramatic philosophical shift to the left. Because elected Republican leaders forgot what they were supposed to stand for, what they were being paid to do, and whom they work for.

Fixated on keeping power, Republican leaders fell prey to a noxious combination of influence-peddling special interests, radical ideology, and venal temptations. They became strangers to core Republican values, the traditional conservatism that frowns on greed, arrogance, and waste, and demands careful stewardship of our nation’s natural and cultural heritage.

So, what are the right lessons that Republican leaders should learn in order to regain the voters’ trust and earn their support in 2008?

They must rediscover traditional conservatism, including the conservation ethic that includes a duty to hand a clean, healthy world to future generations. That means taking to heart constructive criticism from inside the GOP tent, and finding ways to broaden the Republican Party’s appeal.

They must rediscover integrity and make a renewed commitment to principled public service, which means closing the pork barrel and turning away money-grubbing special interests that distort and corrode public policy debates.

They must learn to work constructively with the incoming Democratic majority in Congress to find pragmatic solutions to pressing national problems. We have time, but not unlimited time, to attend to them. The longer we delay facing up to climate change and the dangers of fossil fuel overdependence, the harder it will be to solve those problems – and the less able we will be to take advantage of the economic opportunities that will come from solving them.

There is no mystery on how to learn and apply these lessons. Arnold Schwarzenegger defied the blue wave and cruised to a landslide re-election as California’s governor by doing exactly that. Schwarzenegger’s administration this year was a virtuoso performance in which he skillfully blended principles and pragmatism.

Schwarzenegger did not shy away from dealing with climate change. He acknowledged the science, took on the challenge, negotiated bill details with Democrats, and won passage of a sweeping climate policy that is a model for urgently needed legislation at the federal level.

Schwarzenegger embraces the conservation ethic that is a core principle of traditional conservatism. Living up to that ethic, Schwarzenegger governed effectively, appealed for broad support, and earned the voters’ trust.

We expect no less from the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. If the party can live up to that high standard, it can expect good tidings on November 4, 2008.