Blue Dog Reaganite

Rebirthing A Heritage

Below is a press release I wrote this weekend for the Irish Catholic organization, The Ancient Order of Hibernians, on a landmark historical moment near our home just outside Baltimore...

In 1888, a seemingly unremarkable thing happened. A baptism took place at a little country church in northeast Maryland. St. Patrick’s Chapel in Pilottown was the host to an event that regularly marks the lives of parishes around the world. It was, to put it mildly, a very different time. Chester Arthur was serving out his one term as a president, the United States was still going through the painful process of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The U.S. was at least twenty years away from its emergence as a superpower on the global stage. About the only thing a 21st century visitor to that time might recognize is that Baltimore had a professional baseball team named the Orioles.

A lot has happened since 1888. Except one thing. St. Patrick’s Chapel had never borne witness to another baptism. That changed on May 31, 2009. Claire Kathleen Cannon was brought to the font by her parents, Lysti Ann & Michael, and received the first sacrament of baptism. It was a landmark moment in the efforts by local Irish and Catholic groups to restore the chapel—“This baptism will mark the rebirth of the little chapel”, said Bill Pare, who oversees the renovation and restoration project.

Michael is a member of the St. Kevin’s Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, based in nearby Bel Air. The local AOH division has made participation in the St. Patrick’s restoration a key part of its activities and the Marine sergeant has been enthusiastic part of that process. “Every time they have a service, we’ll be out there”, he remarked. “That building has history and represents the past Irish immigrants. It’s the perfect place to be.”

Cannon’s wife Lysti Ann, is similarly enthusiastic. “We love the fact that she (Claire) can be a part of the tradition of the area. It’s the sweetest little country chapel.” Efforts to renovate the chapel have gained steam over the past several years, in what has been a general period of renewed interest by Irish and other ethnic groups about their immigrant heritage.

The restoration project still faces challenges, but in light of the commitment from people like the Cannons one thing seems safe to say—it won’t be 121 years until the next baptism. The odds are that Claire Kathleen will have a lot more company in the years to come.

The Fight For Reagan's Legacy

As the Republican Party looks to revive itself it is only natural that they look to the memory and inspiration of Ronald Reagan. And as the title of this site gives away, Blue Dog Reaganite is all for more of the Gipper’s ideas and influences in our politics. But a fine article by Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online exposes the problems that often come with this approach.

The first, and most obvious, is that Ronald Reagan left office over twenty years ago and simply regurgitating him makes the GOP look hopelessly intertwined in the past. It was not until Democrats moved beyond the memory of Franklin Roosevelt and started addressing the problems of today, rather than those of 1932, that they were able to break the Republican lock on the White House back in 1992. The GOP will stay in the wilderness for a similar period if they think just quoting Reagan and looking back nostalgically will substitute for viable policy solutions on contemporary problems. I understand the temptation—heck, this very site has a picture of former Boston mayor James Michael Curley as its most prominent image—but nostalgia is empty if its not translated into action for the present.

Reagan invokers go astray in two ways. The first is that they misremember what he was really about. Reaganism has become the political cover for extreme libertarianism in the realm of domestic policy. This forgets that the former president had no desire to dismantle the government structures of the New Deal, only to reform them. After all, the Gipper was a displaced traditional Democrat himself, having voted for FDR four times. And while his conversion to the Republican Party came earlier (1962) than it would for the voting bloc that would come to be known as “Reagan Democrats” the reasons were similar—it wasn’t that they had a change of heart or mind, but that the party they once called home had changed. “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, Reagan famously said. It left me.” These were words often uttered by my late father, who voted Democratic faithfully through 1980, but cast his final vote enthusiastically for George W. Bush.

This meant that Reagan often clashed with conservative purists who wanted to end the social safety net. Where he simply wanted to make sure welfare recipients genuinely needed the help—and worked for it when they were able-bodied—they wanted to place everything at the mercy of private charities. Where he wanted to transfer the responsibility for funding and administration of the programs to the states as a permanent solution, they saw such a step as a the beginning of a process to end the programs altogether. Ronald Reagan believed in free markets, individual initiative and a tax code that supported such, but still saw that the government had a role to play.

Which brings us to the second error most modern-day Reagan invokers make, and that’s to fail to account for historical context. The response to the critique I’ve just made above would be to hurl a variety of Reagan quotes at me, notably “government is not the solution, government is the problem.” On the surface, that quote seems indisputable proof that the former president was a libertarian and not a displaced, traditional Democrat. I would often argue that given Reagan’s own defense of the New Deal, one had to presume he was speaking simply in the context of all the government that had arisen since the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson and that the phrase wasn’t intended as a philosophical tract. Turns out I was right, but actually underestimated Reagan. He did, in fact, qualify his remarks. Ponnuru points out that this quote, uttered in the 1981 Inauguration speech had an important preface “In the present crisis (emphasis added), government is not the solution, but the problem.”

And what was the present crisis? Inflation was in double-digits and gas prices were running sky high. It may be hard to believe, but the top income tax rate was 70 percent. The tax code was suppressing individual initiative and Reagan was determined to fix it. He did so in dramatic fashion. In two stages, 1981 & 1986, he brought that top rate all the way down to 28 percent. It’s been tinkered with ever since and has crept back up. Three of his successors (Bush Sr, Clinton, Obama) have modestly raised the rate, while Bush Jr. modestly reduced it. But no one—not even the most liberal Democrats—will express a desire to go back to the days of confiscatory 70 percent rates. Republicans have fundamentally won the battle over taxes, in that even liberal victories don’t come anywhere close to undoing Reagan’s Revolution in this area.

Therefore, there was no evidence that Reagan’s correct criticisms of government overreach meant he wanted to dismantle the social safety net entirely. His diaries are filled with expressions of frustration with his most conservative supporters. The former president simply wanted to put government on the side of work and initiative and to stop spending $2 for every $1 of aid it delivered.

Yet modern-day movement conservatives still engage every battle over taxes and spending as though we’re living in 1980. If they wish to win elections in 2010 or 2012, they’ll have to address the issues that are actually faced in these times. Reagan’s victory on taxes changed the trajectory of American politics and all sides have to adjust. Just as his Cold War triumph over the Soviet Union changed the face of foreign policy, making it foolish to compare every enemy abroad to the old U.S.S.R.

Displaced, traditional Democrats were an essential part of the Reagan coalition and what ensured that he didn’t fall into irrelevancy. We’ve already let liberal “reformers” steal our own party’s heritage and reshape it for their own nefarious ends. We ought not let the same happen with the right-wing bourgeoisie as they try and steal the heritage bequeathed by Ronald Reagan.

A Call For Unity

I'm in the middle of a vacation week and am typing this as I get set to get on a plane back to Baltimore, and from there to the beach in Ocean City, so this will be a little short. But I just finished attending a funeral in the family back here in the Midwest. And like any good Irish wake, this one involved not only the free flow of liqor, but the free flow of political arguments. Most memorably, at my dad's wake in November 2004, I stood over his casket with a relative from Chicago arguing about George W. Bush. I liked W, while our second couisin wanted to "try him, convict him and hang him." Fortunately, conversation stayed away from the Packers-Bears or Brewers-Cubs, otherwise it could have gotten ugly.

But what goes through my mind during discussions like these, is that they--in spite of appearances to the contrary--take place among people who really don't disagree on a whole lot, at least nothing that can't be worked out with reasonable compromise. These aren't the clashes of ideals that take place between the pro-life and pro-abortion movements that can't be reconciled. These aren't the diametrically opposed value systems that fight it out over national security questions. These aren't the battles of idelogues who are committed to either quasi-socialism or all-out libertarianism. These are debates between people who more or less believe in a private economy and business, but that government should help people out who genuinely need it. These debates are among people who support traditional moral and cultural norms. In fact, when I made a comment about the need to restore traditional Democratic populism and "lop off the modern elements that have taken over the party", no one nodded his head more fervently than our passionate Democratic couisin.

The disagreement is really not about ideas, but about how to apply those ideals in an age where the Republicans best represent us on judges and cultural questions, and the Democrats are most closely aligned on economic issues. Even that is a rather raw portrait--there are plenty of Republicans who believe in using market-oriented solutions to solve problems in the cities and in schools, and plenty of Democrats who don't like using class warfare in substitute of a real economic policy.

It is addressing this divide that is the fundamental purpose of this site. Excessive partisanship creates division among like-minded people and serves only to advance the interest of the Republican Party's Wall Street elites and the Democratic Party's Left Coast and Ivy League snots. As long as we fight with each other, we're not fighting the common opponent.

In an era where the political parties are fractured, we'll always find different candidates to support every two years. But that shouldn't stop us from devoting more attention to what unites, rather than what divides.

Everybody have a good week, see you back here on Wednesday.

The Democratic Choice On Trade

On no issue has Barack Obama been more of a disappointment on than the issue of the global economy. Recall in March of 2008. His contest with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination was still heated and the campaign went to the battleground industrial states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Both states were—and are—poster children for what happens to a manufacturing-based economy when cheap foreign imports are let through the back door—or through the southern border, as the case may be.

It was in this context that Obama stepped up his rhetoric against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Passed in 1993 by an unholy alliance of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, NAFTA allowed a host of new imports to come in from Mexico tariff-free. In other words, a company that wanted to set up shop south of the border, take advantage of the cheap labor and lax environmental laws, and ship their products back into the wealthy consumer market of the United States, would pay no financial penalty for doing so.

NAFTA was shortly followed up the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), a complex agreement in the same spirit and that set up the World Trade Organization, an international institution that would serve as the enforcement mechanism if any countries’ decided to protect their own national economies at the expense of global free trade ideology. And it hasn’t stopped there—various agreements with the nations of Central America and South America keep coming before the Congress.

It is here that I must do something I don’t do very often and that’s single Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Left out for praise. The barrage of agreements passing through has slowed down since they assumed power after the 2006 elections. And those putting the pressure on are not the sort of conservative Democrats I would generally identify with. They have been those on the far Left, of whom I’m generally at perpetual odds with. The issue of global trade has created strange alliances. From Clinton and Gingrich in favor of it, to Pat Buchanan and Jesse Jackson against it. Globalization does not break down neatly along the Left-Right corridor and that’s probably why the media doesn’t cover it. Absent the customary templates, they probably don’t know what to write.

Barack Obama sought to create an alliance with the voters of Ohio and Pennsylvania fourteen months ago and he vowed to revisit NAFTA, going so far as to say the United States would consider opting out of the agreement if the labor and environmental provisions weren’t revised to provide suitable protection for American workers. The promise helped put him over the top, but he didn’t even get formally nominated for president before he began breaking it. Top officials in his campaign were quickly on the horn to Canada, assuring them that their candidate’s words were just the rhetoric of the moment. The Republican Party in general, and John McCain in particular, were in no position to call Barack on the carpet. The GOP coalition is a mix of the Wall Street-types who benefit under the current trade rules, and neo-conservative ideologues who consider free trade to be the Gospel itself. John McCain voted in favor of all previous agreements, and was regrettably a part of the movement inside his party that paints all who disagree with him as motivated by nativist bigotry. Unsurprisingly, Obama broke his promise, but still swept every state in the embattled Rustbelt.

The new president has shown no inclination to revisit or opt out of NAFTA. Nothing would revitalize the economy more than a renewed manufacturing base, filled with good-paying jobs. It wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a dime. But the weird politics of this issue mean various constituencies within the Democratic Party itself are at odds with each other. Consider the decisions Obama must make when trade-related issues come before him—

*Is the Democratic Party still the part of working people? If the answer is yes, than opposing trade agreements that ship their jobs out to countries paying a buck an hour, would seem a natural. Although we must candidly acknowledge there are choices. Cheap imports mean loads of low-priced goods that a poor person disproportionately benefits from. Cheap T-shirts made in China might shut down a textile plant in South Carolina, but the clothes themselves might be manna from heaven for a single mother of three. It is here that a Democratic president would need to clearly articulate that there are other ways to help that single mom, but no way to solve the problem of a deteriorating economy in general.

*Does the Democratic Party get a big chunk of its bills paid by snooty elitists from the Northeast and Left Coast who are embarrassed by their alliance with those dirty workers and immigrants in the Rustbelt? Absolutely. These elitists say all the right things, but when it comes to enacting policies that might benefit the guy who trims their hedges, at the expense of currying goodwill with their fellow elites abroad, they recoil.

*This leads us into the ultimate decision the Democratic coalition has to make. Representing the interests of their working class base, and the best instincts of the party heritage means an inevitable confrontation with the leadership of Western Europe, who is committed to the complete integration of the world’s economies, regardless of the labor and environmental standards contained therein. When it comes to doing right by working people and maintaining the applause from Western Europe, the Democratic Left has to choose.

Which way will Barack Obama choose? His own home region is the biggest loser of the NAFTA fraud. His party’s base has the most to gain from a change. Will he embrace the necessity of being disliked by Western Europe in order to bring about real change? So far, the prognosis is not good, and not likely to change.

Obama's Middle East Trip

Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East is being met with rave reviews from liberals and from disdain by conservatives. Liberals praise him for moving beyond the alleged arrogance of the Bush Administration. This is a common theme the American Left hits and they apparently believe it so much, that they spill it out even when there’s no cause. In Foreign Policy In Focus, University of Maryland scholar Adil Shamoo noted with pleasure that Barack didn't blame the entire Islamic world for actions of a small minority of "violent extremists.” Shamoo goes on to write that Osama found a middle ground between warring extremists—apparently placing George W. Bush on the same plane as al-Qaeda and other terrorists. To his credit, the new president has not engaged in such hyperbole against his predecessor, even if he has been harshly critical (as one would logically expect out of men from opposing parties).

One has to ask—when did former President Bush ever pin the events of 9/11 on the entire Islamic world? Bush bent over backward calling Islam a “religion of peace”, almost to the point of sounding foolish, as he passed himself off as an expert on the Koran. Is left-wing hatred of Bush so blinding that they can’t see when he’s saying exactly the same thing as Osama? It’s akin to the reaction many on the right are having to the nomination of Sonja Sotomayer to the Supreme Court. Had John McCain picked someone who had ruled in favor of pro-life groups in her only two chances to do so, while compiling a more liberal record elsewhere, the Right might have been mildly disappointed, but they wouldn’t be gearing up an attack machine. Both situations are examples of blind partisanship run amok.

But I digress. Let’s return to the Middle East. Osama took a substantial political risk in criticizing Israel for building settlements on the West Bank, but it was a risk he was correct to take. I understand Israel’s position. They are completely surrounded by hostile countries who want them wiped off the map. Naturally, they are going to go all-out to secure as much territory as possible. But in taking away the West Bank, it’s denying the Palestinian people their one chance for a homeland and creating the fertile ground that terrorist organizations such as the PLO have used to build up their support. Israel has suffered greatly, but it does not therefore follow that Palestinians, who have been mostly abandoned by the West, should suffer too.

Criticizing Israel involves substantial risk because of the political clout of AIPAC, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee. AIPAC has been ruthless in dealing with anyone who even mildly critiques Israel. Suggest that giving 20 percent of our foreign aid budget to a country with an already-developed economy is excessive? Expect yourself to be tarred as an anti-Semite. Suggest that making Israel the complete centerpiece of our Middle East policy is unwise? Why, you’re one small step from Adolph Hitler. No president has ever gotten Israel to do something it doesn’t want to do and the political and media power of AIPAC is the reason why.

It’s long past time to ask—is our Middle East policy designed to serve Israel’s best interest, or the United States’ best interest? If it’s the former, then there’s no reason to change. But if it’s the latter, then we need to ask ourselves serious long-term questions. Does a relatively small nation, completely surrounded by enemies, and in existence only since 1948, really have a serious future? Exactly how long can Israel hold back the tide, even if we continue to use our considerable influence exclusively on their behalf? Nations that prosper over time are in unique circumstances that allow it do so. The United States, protected by both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from the world powers at the time of its infancy is a prime example. Israel is not in this situation.

Furthermore, there is no more reason for the Jewish people to have a nation of their own than there is for the Catholic people to have their own country. Both have suffered over the years—while Jews were being destroyed by Hitler, Catholics were being destroyed by Stalin. Now, on the Protestant Right, some people have theological reasons for tying the return of the Jews to their homeland to the Second Coming and therefore see Israel’s existence is tied in with the end times. But I see the return to the homeland as being something more spiritual and involving the return of the people of Abraham to the Catholic Church (I think I’m understanding Catholic doctrine on this point accurately, but would strongly insist that no one take my word for it without consulting more learned people). But now I’m really digressing. Suffice it to say, I have no problem with a Jewish state, but nor do I see a reason to make our foreign policy prostrate in the cause of one.

It boils down to this—there is no reason to make Israel the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy. The only argument that exists for our undying support of the Israeli government regardless of what it does, is that we have a moral obligation to do so, rooted in our long protection of Israel and cognizant of how vulnerable they would be if we stepped away. This is a good argument and one which does have to be addressed as part of any responsible and ethical shift in U.S. policy.

The United State should announce a date certain and soon—say, five years, at which point our preferential treatment of Israel in Middle East diplomacy will end, along with our foreign aid. In conjunction with that, we should announce a completely open immigration policy in which any Israeli citizen who wants to come to the United States, can do so, and we should strongly push the European Community to do the same. It’s well past time Europe started doing something to rectify its history of anti-Semitism, which is the principal non-theological reason many had for believing a Jewish state was a practical necessity. 

We should then move to a policy of neutrality. Our interests in the Middle East involve the free flow of oil and the containment of nuclear weapons, and the loosening up of the Arab world. Related to that, our moral interests involve the human rights violations committed against women and Christians in these communities. And our most important strategic interest is to not get involved in other people’s quarrels if we don’t have to. Going neutral is the only way to ensure that.

President Obama’s gentle critique of Israel’s settlement tactics are mild, but they are a start. The question now is whether it will be followed up with constructive action. Past Administrations have not been able to get beyond words, be it deliberately or because of political fear. The Arab world is watching to see if this time around will be more of the same, or if it's change that can be believed in.

The Coming Illinois Senate Battle

A good column by political analyst Charlie Cook of National Journal outlines both parties’ chances in the 2010 mid-term elections. Cook sees opportunities for both, with the House of Representatives being ripe territory for the GOP, while the Senate representing a chance for Democrats to essentially hold even. We should say that Democratic majorities are so large that gaining seats is becoming almost mathematically impossible. However, the flip side is that a small loss of seats can be legitimately considered a victory, given how much ground the Republicans have to make up and how important it is for the “out” party to do that in a mid-term election.

GOP chances in the House are greater because the Democrats’ victories have left them in control of 49 districts that John McCain carried in 2008. It’s safe to say that anyone who voted Republican in ’08 would surely do so again in ’10, given that the party can’t sink much lower. Essentially, the GOP needs only to stop shooting itself in the foot and a natural trajectory will restore itself to American politics, putting them back in the game, if not on top.

The Senate is a different story. Cook lays out the political map. One-third of the Senate comes up for re-election each cycle and this year’s group favors the Democrats. Despite their 59-40 edge (including two independents, Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders who caucus with them, and allowing that a 60th seat in the still-disputed ’08 Minnesota race appears to be theirs), the Dems are on even footing in the Class of 2010. The majority party will only have to defend 18 seats, while the GOP must defend 19.

There’s a slightly larger class this year due to some changed circumstances which changed a landscape that originally favored the Democrats even more. When Hillary Clinton was named Secretary of State, it required that her seat be up for re-election this time instead of its natural spot in 2014. Same goes for the seat of Vice-President Biden, which would have otherwise been exposed in 2012. Not only are these races up in a year which is always a disadvantage to the party of the president, but there are more vulnerable without their famous incumbents running.

That’s not all. Arlen Specter switched parties and became a Democrat. A huge gain for the party to be sure, but they may well lose his seat this November. And finally, we come to the home state of the president of the United States. When Barack won the election, his Senate seat was left vacant. He would have been up for re-election in 2010 anyway, but the process of appointing his successor has been fraught with corruption and bungling, giving the Republicans a real chance to take this seat. This is a race to watch, because I believe it has larger implications. It may represent the GOP’s best chance to regain their toehold in Illinois and change the map of presidential politics along with it.

The collapse of the Republican Party in the state of Lincoln is utterly baffling. Once a battleground state that leaned to the right, Illinois has become a reliably blue state in the post-Reagan era. George Bush Senior was able to carry it again 1988, in an election that was essentially seen as a referendum on Reagan. Bill Clinton took it twice, something I initially wrote off to Clinton’s charisma and political skills. But Al Gore won Illinois easily in 2000, and John Kerry ran away with it in 2004. Even had a native son not been on the ballot in 2008, the trend would have continued.

What happened? Illinois is not the northeast or the Left Coast, with huge throngs of liberals. The Democrats have their natural base in Chicago, to be sure, but the Daley clan remains among the more socially traditional members of the party nationwide. There’s no reason to think support for Richard Daley Jr. would translate into huge success for the left-wing candidates who have a lock on the party’s presidential primaries. But a series of scandals crippled the Republican Party infrastructure in the state, leaving it non-competitive. And Illinois ended up joined with California and New York as huge states that the Democratic nominee can count as his own before a national campaign begins. Conversely, the GOP has only Texas in its corner.

Controlling a state because of one party’s scandals and incompetence is different from winning its heart and soul though, and that’s what makes the coming Senate battle in Illinois so interesting. Because now the corruption is on the other side of the aisle. Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich was forced from office after it was revealed he was openly considering how much an appointment to fill Barack’s seat (something he had power to decide) would be worth. Needless to say this didn’t reflect well on the eventual appointee Roland Burris, in spite of a lack of evidence that Senator Burris paid to play. If the winds of corruption are blowing differently, the Democratic hold on Illinois could disappear as suddenly as it appeared.

Up and down the state of Lincoln that are too many small towns and rural areas that fit the profile of areas the Republicans should be doing well in. The size of Chicago will mean the GOP can never dominate the state, but there’s no reason it should be bluer than Pennsylvania, Ohio or Michigan. Of course the GOP lost all of those states in 2008, and they’ve lost both Pennsylvania and Michigan five straight times. But they’re at least competitive. How they can get over the top will have to be the subject of another column. For now, it’s just a question of how they can get back in the game in Illinois.

The longer it takes the GOP party infrastructure to get its act together, the more it will risk the Democratic hold on the state becoming embedded, particularly with a popular native president in office. All eyes should be on Illinois as they maneuver for the coming Senate campaign in 2010.

How Can Republicans Bounce Back?

Barack Obama remains high in the polls, as his approval ratings continue to break the 60 percent threshold. When you consider George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 with an approval rating below 50 percent, it’s clear that the new president is working with a considerable amount of public goodwill and has plenty of room to maneuver.

The conservative opposition to Obama is hopeful that the coming Judiciary Committee hearings on Sonja Sotomayer will be the beginning of a revival. In general, talking about judges is a good idea for Republicans. The public has been more supportive of conservative judges than liberal ones in the past, which is the reason the GOP is anxious to thrust the issue into the political arena, while the Democrats get all jittery and nervous at the prospect. Hence, the triangulation approach seen by Obama in the Sotomayer nomination—with a female Hispanic, he is able to keep the diversity fascists of his party base satisfied. By appointing one who’s shown a friendliness to pro-life groups, he peels away the most vocal part of the Republican coalition on the judiciary—or at least moves it into hopeful silence, a category which this writer falls into. It’s not at all clear that the Republicans in general, or the professional conservative movement in D.C. specifically, would even win a PR battle over Sotomayer, much less use it as the lynchpin for an entire political comeback.

A GOP revival isn’t going to start without an honest diagnosis of the problem. When a party loses, the response from the divergent wings of the coalition immediately rise up with the quick auto-pilot answer. Hard-core activists thunder that the party wasn’t true to its principles. It wasn’t really us the voters rejected, the activists argue. It was when we tried to imitate the opposition that we failed. On the other side, the moderate-leaning officeholders and strategists declare that the problem is the reverse—the party became too extreme, too intolerant of anyone who didn’t hold 100 percent to a narrow dogma. The faultlines of debate broke down like this for the Democrats in 2002 and 2004, and they are doing so again for Republicans in the wake of 2006 and 2008.

The self-serving nature of these critiques do have to be pointed out. It’s unheard of for anyone in politics to see that their own ideas had a role in defeat. You never heard a left-wing activist say in ’02 something to the effect of “You know we were right to oppose Bush’s war in Iraq and conservative judges, but damn it killed us politically. We’re just in the minority right now.” Or you don’t hear moderate Republicans saying “Maybe if we’d have just backed Bush on Social Security reform and let our base get excited about something in the second term, we’d have gotten better turnout. Yeah, it was a bad idea, but you don’t get anywhere with a party that’s uninteresting.”

For that matter, the paragraph above is a fine example of self-serving critiques. Speaking as a conservative Democrat with strong sympathies and alliances with populist conservatives, I picked two hypothetical examples from the wings of each party I’d be in opposition too. The lesson is simple: no one in politics sees defeat as an opportunity for true self-examination. Instead, it’s seen as a chance to beat down one’s internal opposition. The only time people will come anywhere close to admitting their own ideas didn’t sell is if it’s coupled with blaming a combination of the media and an unscrupulous opponent for smearing it.

But if the argument is not over who’s right, but how to win, the reality is that both sides are usually right. The Democratic resurgence of recent vintage combined strong left-wing activity—witness the expansion in popularity of sites like The Daily Kos, where liberals gather. And the party leadership reached out to the center. They began to again make it clear that pro-lifers specifically and socially conservative candidates more generally, were welcome in the party. Such resulted in significant congressional gains in the Midwest and border states.

The Republican self-diagnosis should be easy, aided by their own monumental failings in the congressional majority. They weren’t true to conservative principles—witness the massive spending, none of it on even any projects liberals would consider worthwhile, much less their own. As mentioned, they failed to back President Bush when he sought to reform Social Security and turn it into something other than a rip-off of the tax dollars of those of us who can’t afford to have our paycheck going down a sewer. And they did nothing to reach out to more independent voters.

Contrast this record of non-performance with what happened in the early 1990s. George Bush Senior was the president and after his loss to Bill Clinton in 1992, the party had a similar argument to the one taking place right now. Moderates were horrified at the convention that summer in Houston, which they argued struck a tone too far to the right. Agree or disagree on the political consequences, it was a genuinely conservative convention in terms of its main speakers. Conservatives were outraged by a presidential record of big spending and liberal initiatives. Here again, whether you thought it was right or wrong, Bush Senior worked with the Democratic Congress on liberal legislation involving the environment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and racial quotas. It was at least something worth arguing about.

Republicans held the House of Representatives from 1994-2006, and had the Senate for most of that timeframe. There is no comparison to the record here, as opposed to the one in the early 1990s. The recent version of GOP control provided nothing for conservative supporters to get excited about. It provided nothing to attract moderates. And really, though their enemies don’t realize it, did nothing that should have inspired hate amongst the opposition. It did nothing in support of its own president.

So what should the GOP do to bounce back? Well, like anyone, I have my own thoughts on what I’d like to see them do. But as far as political viability is concerned, their choice is easy. Whether it’s appealing to the base or reaching beyond it, either one is a path that hasn’t been trod in a long time. Just stand for something even marginally interesting and things can’t help but improve.