About Finger Pointing

I already posted a link to George Will's take on the election. The Washington Post has another article on the factional finger-pointing going on right now in the Republican ranks. As I said before, this is inevitable in the wake of a defeat at the polls. What it should not be, however, is an excuse for outright internecine warfare. That would be a sure ticket to minority status.

In the aftermath of the historic GOP losses Tuesday night, moderate Republicans quickly concluded that the party needs to be more moderate. Conservative Republicans declared that it should be more conservative. Main Street is angry at Wall Street, theo-cons are angry at neo-cons, and almost everyone is angry at President Bush and the GOP congressional leadership…..

"We ought to just mend our wounds, bury our dead, learn from our mistakes and move on," said GOP lobbyist Ed Rogers. "But first we're going to have go through this. Look, bad policy and bad politics makes for bad elections."

The common theme of the Recriminatathon is that the party lost its way after seizing control of Congress in 1994, focusing on power and perks instead of principles. But behind all the maneuvering, posturing and backstabbing lingered a serious debate over the party's future, and what those principles should be. It's a familiar argument between confrontation and compromise: appealing to base voters on the right or independents in the middle.

The moderate Republican Main Street Partnership fired its first salvo on election night, unleashing a news release titled "Far Right Solely Responsible for Democratic Gains." Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the partnership's director, complained that GOP leaders had rejected popular causes such as the minimum wage, embryonic stem cell research and lobbying reforms while ignoring health-care issues that did not involve Terri Schiavo. The result, she said, was that moderate suburban voters saw Republicans as extremists.

"This election isn't a repudiation of the GOP," Chamberlain said. "It's a repudiation of a handful of zealots, and a reminder that you can't build a majority party without securing the middle of the American electorate."

That wasn't the conclusion the right drew from Tuesday's losses. The main theme on GOP conference calls and the conservative blogosphere was that Republicans need to act like Republicans, returning to the small-government principles that helped them seize power in 1994. The RNC's first talking point for the day was: "Recommitting to conservative reform." Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) announced campaigns for minority leader and minority whip by invoking the GOP's "Contract With America" and criticizing Republicans for betraying principles of stronger ethics and tighter budgets.

Actually, I think that both groups are correct, oddly enough. The Republican-conservative coalition depends on certain conservative tenets being a bedrock foundation for the Republicans. But at the same time, conservatives must realize that there are times when moderation rather than ideological purity are the better way to go. That was Reagan's strong suit, being able to stand on the truly important issues while yielding enough on other things to make it all work. Remember, he did it with an opposition Congress. The issue now will be how to define the true bedrock and not define everything as crucially important. That should be the goal now. Get the recriminations out of your systems, then start working on rebuilding. Soon.

Other Links to this Post

1. stikNstein….has no mercy » Blog Archive » Subject: Her Diary — November 9, 2006 @ 8:03 am

2. The Heretik : In This Corner — November 9, 2006 @ 11:15 am

3. Don Singleton — November 9, 2006 @ 4:58 pm

4. Blue Crab Boulevard » Reconciling The Wings — November 19, 2006 @ 8:25 am