The Republican Party finds itself at a crossroads. The Party received an electoral beating in 2006. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of the President, suggested at a recent conservative conference that Republicans lost the 2006 congressional elections because they abandoned their principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility. The reasons for the Republican rut are self-evident. The way forward for the Republican Party in devising solutions to stave off future, perhaps more permanent, political setbacks is not as clear. The Iraq War is unquestioningly an albatross upon Republicans. The war alone, however, does not represent the whole of the problem. Republicans disagree about a myriad of issues: social, economic, and constitutional. The war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism is a policy area where Republicans generally find common ground with one another.
The War of 1812 was one of the single greatest wounds to the Federalist Party. Being on the politically disadvantageous side of the conflict, the Federalist Party, in the words of Paul F. Boller Jr.,: “thoroughly discredited, declined into a querulous and disaffected minority with little clout in politics except in a few isolated regions in the country.” By the presidential election of 1820, The Federalist Party had essentially died. David Boaz, in his piece, “A Republican Party for the Future,” put forth a political framework for the re- emergence of the Republican Party, so as to avoid a Federalist-type fate:
"As Republicans start to develop a strategy for 2008 and beyond, they should remember that lots of Americans don't like big spending and nanny statism. In the most recent poll that asked the question, 64 percent of voters said that they prefer smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes, while only 22 percent would rather see a more active government with more services and higher taxes."
"In a new Zogby poll, fully 59 percent of respondents said they're "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." That's a majority for a modern Republican Party. Republicans need to look to the future: Younger voters are more likely to be libertarian, more likely to accept gay marriage, and more likely to have voted Democratic in 2006."
"Republicans need to reach them before the Democrats lock them in. They can do that with an optimistic, inclusive message of liberating people from the dead hand of the federal bureaucracy—a smaller and less intrusive federal government, encouragement of enterprise and economic growth, a government that respects but doesn't embrace religion, and a de-escalation of the culture wars."
The party of Lincoln will almost certainly not go the way of the Whigs, the party it replaced in the American political landscape. The Republican Party enjoyed a long stretch of electoral success in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Republican strategists concur that it can achieve success once more by returning to principles and ideals that Republican voters feel strongly and passionately about, while at the same time finding innovative ways in which to reach out to Independents. Some argue that Senator McCain is the Party’s best, last, and perhaps greatest hope in attracting coveted Moderates and Independents in what is a difficult election cycle for Republicans generally. The Senator’s reputation of reaching out across the partisan divide could signal that Republican voters prize electability over complete philosophical concurrence.
Still, the Republican Party has a tough fight ahead. Whatever decisions it now makes as a Party, the outcome of those decisions might not help to advance the Party’s political prospects in the near term of the current election cycle. As Dr. Bruce Larson explained to this writer:
"Fairly or unfairly, voters tend to vote on peace and prosperity, both of which have diminished under the GOP watch. The very troubled economy and the horrendously managed—some would also say mistakenly conceived—war in Iraq has the potential to make the GOP the minority party for many years to come. Republicans have nearly a zero chance of winning back the House or Senate, making the presidency the Party’s only hope. "
The Republican Party can almost certainly avoid the fate of the Federalist Party - if they listen to the echoes of the past.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=7544
By Ryan Christiano
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