Republicans Are in Denial
By TOM COBURN
May 27, 2008- Wall Street Journal
As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.
Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.
Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn't good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.
Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and "compassionate conservatism." If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof "governing" majority, the goal of "compassionate conservatism" was to spend our way to a governing majority.
The fruit of these efforts is not the hoped-for Republican governing majority, but the real prospect of a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in 2009. While the K Street Project decimated our brand as the party of reform and limited government, compassionate conservatism convinced the American people to elect the party that was truly skilled at activist government: the Democrats.
Compassionate conservatism's starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the "other" is indisputable – particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.
Compassionate conservatism's next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor's possessions. Spending other people's money is not compassionate.
Regaining our brand as the party of fiscal discipline will require us to rejoin Americans in the real world of budget choices and priorities, and to leave behind the fantasyland of borrowing without limits. Instead of adopting earmarks, each Republican can adopt examples of government waste, largess and fraud, and restart the permanent campaign against big government.
Republicans can tear up the "emergency spending" credit card and refuse to accept any new spending whatsoever, including for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, until Congress does its job of eliminating wasteful spending. The federal budget contains a vast unexplored area of offsets. My office alone has identified $300 billion in annual waste. Borrowing from the next generation when we haven't done our job of oversight is unconscionable.
Regaining our brand is not about "messaging." It's about action. It's about courage. It's about priorities. Most of all, it's about being willing to give up our political careers so our grandkids don't have to grow up in a debtor's prison, or a world in which other nations can tell a weakened and bankrupt America where we can and can't defend liberty, pursue terrorists, or show compassion.
John McCain, for all his faults, is the one Republican candidate who can lead us through our wilderness. Mr. McCain is not running on a messianic platform or as a great healer of dysfunctional Republicans who refuse to help themselves. His humility is one of his great strengths. In his heart, he's a soldier who sees one more hill to charge, one more mission to complete.
I love all the "marketing" terms that political types use now- branding- positioning-messaging. It takes me back to those days of yesteryear when I sold hot cocoa mix and cat litter- not at the same time or in a banded pack.
In this column, Dr. Coburn breaks down the GOP woes in a simple way and he is absolutely right- the reason the Republicans lost in 2006 and will likely lose more seats in 2008 is because they have not behaved like Republicans. They are more concerned about reelection than principle. Elected Republicans run from right wing activists like they were a skunk at a family picnic. They don't want to be identified with the right wing or photographed with them, yet they will take their money and their time. It's really not the activists the political types are fleeing- it's what they stand for- smaller government, principled stands on moral issues- the second amendment. Republicans win when they stand up for what they believe- when they compromise or waffle, they get drilled because the base stays home. Unless the base gets energized, we are looking at a dubbing in November in Congress.
Dr. Coburn is in the cab of the STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS. He introduced McCain at the conservative C-PAC meeting earlier this year. Some have criticized his endorsement of McCain because the two don't seem to fit, but Coburn's explanation is that McCain has the courage to put America on a more fiscally sound foundation. Coburn's endorsement may seem to be a compromise to some, but make no mistake about it- Coburn is not a compromiser or waffler. He has more courage in his little finger politically than all the Democrats and two thirds of the Republicans in the Senate combined.
