The Next Level

Dear GOP,

You don’t have to be evil. You don’t have to demonize education just because people who graduated college voted against you in 2008. Convincing your base that contraception is bad and that you should not send the resultant kids to college is not really a sane way to combat unfavorable demographic trends. You should spend some time re-establishing your pragmatic bona fides rather than complaining about lady parts.

Stop acting like a party of permanent opposition rather than a party that hopes to govern some day. Get out there and steal issues from the Democrats instead of letting them steal issues from you. Pissing and moaning about obamacare being the greatest threat to American freedom wince WWII is just sad, and an insult to the Soviet Union which wanted to actually destroy us rather than just give us preventative care.

Our national politics were ready over a decade ago for one of those big realignments of party planks that happens every few generations. I wonder if we would have gotten a gradual ideological reshuffle if the 9-11 attacks hadn’t provided cover for the GOP to remain electorally viable longer than you should have. This has backed you into a corner where the ideological realignment can’t be managed gradually any more. It can’t be achieved without completely alienating the current base.

I think that the only way out is to go big. Go so big that no one can get up off the floor before the election in November. Once Romney locks up the nomination and can pivot to the general have him ferociously tear into President Obama for not doing enough to expand health care and access to education, rather than too much. Fire your own base up with some hopey changey stuff. Go with a pragmatic cost-benefit analysis approach that relies on your core fiscal stewardship message.

Upon further reflection I don’t even know who to send this to. The concept that there is some actual leadership somewhere that is intentionally steering the current course is too mind boggling to countenance. Where is a shadowy cabal when you need one.