November’s election was a painful reminder that the Republican Party desperately needs a refocus. Like a football team trying to run end-arounds and flea-flickers but that can’t even run the ball up the middle without fumbling, the GOP needs to once again focus on the fundamentals and watch some game film featuring coach Reagan. It also needs to flush its system of imposters. In short, the GOP’s tent has become way too big.
There’s a terrific temptation to become bogged down in pointing fingers at where an Obama presidency will lead this nation, and it’s hard to blame people for doing so. I mean, The Messiah hasn’t even taken office yet, and it already feels like we’ve seen the makings of enough scandals and accusations (“Walk-on-Water Gate” in Chicago, the birth certificate thing, etc.) to get us midway through Obama’s second term, but Republicans have to accept some responsibility for this. Obama didn’t win – Republicans lost – bad – and it wasn’t the fault of the base, no matter how many RINOs make that charge.
The election was a clear indication that the Republican Party is broken. How should it be fixed? Colin Powell examined the party’s problems and concluded that the party is too polarized, shouts at everybody and listens to Rush Limbaugh too much.
Powell’s sentiment was of course gleefully reported by the media, but unfortunately this opinion is also shared by other so-called “Republicans” who have been suckered into either taking the “Fairness Doctrine” bait, or encouraged to place it.
This view should be disregarded because the accusation itself is completely baseless. If Limbaugh, Hannity and Ingraham set the GOP agenda, rest assured that John McCain would not have been the party’s nominee. Conservative talk radio greeted the nomination of McCain with all the enthusiasm that Michael Moore approaches a salad bar. The problem with Republican Party leaders was and is that they don’t listen to the base in the first place! The only thing that saved McCain from suffering a total Mondale-style blowout was Sarah Palin, and, ironically enough, she was made into the fall girl for McCain’s loss.
The view of Powell, Buckley Jr. and many other “Republicans” whose Obama endorsements were widely reported isn’t a misconception, but rather the byproduct of a deception. This is a bogus seed that the left, and willing or unwitting dupes on the right, plant among Republicans so liberals can implement a version of their coveted Fairness Doctrine without the rest of us complaining too loudly.
It’s no accident that the names of Limbaugh and other talk radio biggies keep surfacing as part of “what’s wrong with the Republican Party.”
Here’s part of the strategy: By brainwashing everybody into believing that Rush Limbaugh cost the GOP the White House and congressional control, Democrats hope to make Republicans believe that a Fairness Doctrine would actually save the Republican Party. Wow, those Democrats sure are nice!
Sure, there’s nothing anybody can do about Democrats who insist on calling themselves “Republicans,” but Republicans should recognize those people and relegate their “advice” to the ash heap of useless information, which is exactly where Colin Powell’s “advice” belongs.
That Republicans might implement the suggested agendas of Limbaugh, Hannity and Ingraham is exactly what Democrats fear – or else they wouldn’t be so preoccupied with trying to put an iron boot over the throat of free speech. All I ask is that Colin Powell and any number of other “Republicans,” some who laughingly consider themselves “conservatives” but who managed to somehow find reasons to pull the lever for a pro-choice, pro-high taxes socialist because they were turned off by an actual conservative like Sarah Palin, don’t offer to tie the laces on that iron boot. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
If “right-wing talk radio” were increasingly responsible for devastating Republican losses, the Democrats would be trying to figure out how to get Rush more air time, not less. And isn’t it sad that “free speech” is now an issue separated by party?
The crux of Colin Powell’s advice to the GOP is this: The Republican tent needs to be bigger and the party should be more inclusive. A bigger tent? Criminy – the Republican Party’s tent was big enough to cover a black man who endorsed and voted for a liberal Democrat, and the tent should be bigger? Sounds to me like the GOP has been too inclusive. When your tent is so big that it shelters shills for the opposition, it needs to shrink a little.
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