The Occasional Observer

Article in WSJ about Republican Governors' meeting trying to assess what went wrong and how to fix it. At they end they provide two opposing viewpoints: expand the tent, or return to our core values.

I think expand the tent is not the answer.* If you look at voter turnout this year, despite the fact that registration and voting in Dem primaries was through the roof, and you had the historic nature of Obama and Hillary, at the end of the day voting was only slightly up from '04. In fact, as a percentage of eligible voters it was not up at all, and Obama barely got more votes than Bush in '04. What happened was simply that fence voters who leaned Republican in '04 switched in '08, more than any "new" voters affecting things.

The problem is simply that the Republican party did not provide a clear, compelling vision with any credibility. How can we claim that we are the party of fiscal responsibility when the deficit has ballooned under Bush, and now Paulson gives us the bait and switch? The bailout plan was ill conceived and a bad idea to begin with, and only getting worse by the day. Republicans have NO credibility on fiscal issues at this point, and that must be item #1 in restoring the party.

We lost because people viewed Dems as the superior party to handle the economy and provide jobs. This is unacceptable. The Republican party must wrestle this back from the Dems, which starts with people like Romney.


*One concern and caveat about expanding the tent. If the Dems successfully give citizenship to the 12-20 million illegals, they will have added that many voters to their ranks in one fell swoop. That may prove to give them an insurmountable voting base for many years.