Posted by
Patrick S. Adams on Friday, October 02, 2009 4:25:49 PM
Steve Schmidt has made some very disturbing comments about the direction the GOP should be heading. The idea of the party migrating from the right and moving toward the center simply because Schmidt thinks that's where the votes are is a scary concept at best. After four years of watering down GOP values to the point where it got blown out in elections is not the direction to go. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It hurt Gerald Ford in 1976, it hurt George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992 and it hurt the post George W. Bush party in 2008. Alienating the right is not a good idea.
In
The Atlantic, Schmidt is quoted as saying independent candidates "are socially tolerant and fiscally conservative, like Michael Bloomberg." Does he mean that the American people should embrace a Republicanism based on nanny state directives from a thrifty government? Go to New York City and try to get food with trans fats, smoke a cigarette or talk on your cell phone in the car and see what happens. I'm not saying these are good things, but I'm really not in favor of a guy who is pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage telling me I can't have a smoke. We didn't like it when the religious right told us what to do. We're sure as hell not going to like it if the secular right wants to do it either.
When Schmidt says "That middle of the electorate is going to be determinative of the outcome of the elections," what he's really saying is "I'll trade you a million conservatives for a million moderates." Do what Schmidt says at your own peril, GOP. Voting is not mandatory and a lot of us can stay home if you want us to.
Republicanism should be about liberty and limited government, not intolerance of a wing of the party. Republicanism can appeal to moderates because today's "common sense conservative" wants "freedom not fixes." Find me a moderate who doesn't want freedom and I'll show you a liberal.
Schmidt really does a lot for party unity with this one: "A Republicanism 'modeled on Alabama Republicanism' won't work in the rest of the country." So, Schmidt's elitist version of Republicanism is better than Alabama Republicanism why? Alienating Alabama Republicans makes Schmidt's theory sound more and more like addition by subtraction. And that, sir, is some fuzzy math.