How can the Republican Party rebound? The first step would be to quit letting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham set its agenda. ...I'm only going to deal with the talk radio issue in Mort's comments. First of all, I'm not aware of any Republican who lost who actually took Rush Limbaugh's advice. Most if not all of the Republicans who lost did so by running to the center and trying to appeal to the great unwashed "independents" out there. The conservatives, like Jeff Sessions and Mitch McConnell, won.
A second step would be for Congressional Republicans to actually try to help President-elect Barack Obama succeed in addressing the country's dire problems -- offering better ideas where appropriate and opposing just when necessary, not reflexively.
And the third -- maybe the biggest one -- would be for GOP governors to use their posts to show the country how conservatives can solve problems, especially the dismal state of American education and its menacing cousin, lagging American competitiveness.
If one governor would fully implement a widely circulated proposal to transform U.S. education -- based on having most children graduate after 10th grade and using the savings to pay teachers like professionals -- it could serve as a model for the nation and bring the United States back to world standards.
But Step One is to fire Rush Limbaugh and his ilk as the intellectual bosses of the GOP. They shouldn't be muzzled, as some liberals want to do by reviving the "fairness doctrine" in broadcasting, just ignored more frequently.
In recent years, Republicans have let right-wing talk show hosts whip the GOP base into frenzies -- over immigration, brain-damage victim Terry Schiavo and same-sex marriage -- that have branded the party as troglodyte.
The result is that the demographic groups representing the future of American politics shifted decisively to the Democratic Party in 2008 -- Latinos, young people, the well-educated, moderates, working women, first-time voters, suburbanites and "seculars."
And Mort thinks that making same-sex marriage is a loser for Republicans, and yet all three anti-gay marriage amendments offered in this election won, including the one in very blue California, meaning there was more support for conservative issues than there was for Republican candidates. What does that tell you?
And I'm not sure why Mort is still obsessed with Terry Schiavo. Her name never came up in the campaign and I don't think anyone has really thought much about that case for 2 or 3 years. I think that's Mort's personal obsession.
Conservatism wins when it's tried, and often wins big. There are a number of conservative pundits who have decided that paying attention to the religious right is a mistake for the party. Meanwhile, they ignore conservative Christians, those voters stay home in large numbers on November 4th, and the party gets creamed. What does that tell you?
Mort, I like you personally and I'm sure you think your heart's in the right place, but you don't know what you're talking about. That's why you get regularly schooled on conservative issues by Fred Barnes and Brit Hume.
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