• Election 2008
• National RCP Average
• Electoral Maps
• Battleground States
• Latest Polls

November 12, 2008

GOP Begins Plotting Comeback

By Reid Wilson

A week and a half after Republicans suffered their second rout in as many election cycles, the party is looking for ways to regroup and rebuild. The first steps, planning for which began months ago, will take place this week as three groups of prominent Republicans meet separately to plot comebacks.

A gathering of the Republican Governors Association in Miami this week will attract the most attention and will serve as an unofficial cattle call for a number of potential presidential candidates. Hosted by Florida Governor Charlie Crist, the RGA meeting will also include Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and a handful of other possible candidates. The RGA announced earlier this week that Alaska's Sarah Palin will attend the gathering, where she will give a speech and face the press.

This weekend, members of the Republican National Committee and party strategists will meet in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a conference on the party's future. Hosted by South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson, RNC members will discuss the path back to power. The event is largely seen as a forum for Dawson, a leading candidate for party chairman, to gain access to many of the 168 voting members of the national committee.

In what may have the most immediate and obvious impact on the party, the depleted House Republican Conference will meet in Washington next week to elect leaders for the 111th Congress. House Minority Leader John Boehner is likely to keep his post as the chamber's top Republican, but Minority Whip Roy Blunt and Conference Chairman Adam Putnam are not running for re-election. That will open the door for Eric Cantor and Mike Pence, both of whom Republicans hope can infuse new life into a beleaguered and downcast caucus.

All three meetings are part of a larger move to rebuild a party that is now in trouble. While some conservative commentators take heart in the notion that the electorate, they say, is still best described as center-right, others are increasingly realizing that the results of the last two years suggest Republicans are no longer winning the center-right.

Republicans "are going to have to have essentially the Council of Trent, to get the popes and the cardinals together and figure out what it is they stand for," said longtime GOP consultant Craig Shirley. "The debate is going to boil down to this: The future of the Republican Party, is it based on Bushism or is it based on Reaganism? Is it based on a K Street access project where you tax cut, tax cut, spend and spend, elect and elect ... or is it going to be a populist type of conservative party that is going to take on the moneyed elites and the political elites?"

"We need to seriously look at a lot of the messages and tactics and all of the things we did not do and haven't been doing," added Chris Healy, chair of the Connecticut Republican Party. "The map is going to have to change. We have to build new coalitions. We do need to rethink some of what we're saying and some of what we're not hearing."

In fact, the debate over the direction of the party is largely shaping up as a contest over who can get back to the purest form of essential Reaganism. "The gold standard is Ronald Reagan," said Luke Esser, chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. "I think that the big shortcoming of the last few years, and not just from the Bush Administration but when the Republicans controlled Congress, was Republicans not governing in line with those principles."

"We didn't lose because we were too much for tax cuts. We didn't lose because we were against spending. We lost because we stepped out of an away from the Reagan vision," said Grover Norquist, the prominent Beltway-based Republican operative. "We have a winning vision, and that's Reagan's."

On the other hand, GOP strategists are increasingly open about what they see as the hole President Bush has dug- a hole out of which they now must climb. Several prominent Republicans cited an impending break with President Bush that, though they hope it stays polite, could be one of the more public divorces in party history. "With Bush gone, we're going to have to have a polite conversation about his failings," Norquist said.

Norquist, once a fan of President Bush, is increasingly open about his philosophical disagreements with the White House. "What does that mean?" Norquist asked rhetorically of the term "Bushism." "Spend too much? Occupy Mesopotamia endlessly?" Other Republicans, asked about President Bush, rattled off initiatives they see as major breaks from party orthodoxy that those in the White House will instead see as accomplishments. From an office of faith-based initiatives and intervention into the Terri Schiavo case to the No Child Left Behind act and the PATRIOT Act, few Bush actions, on reflection, have pleased party activists.

The soul-searching is nothing new for the Republican Party, an organization of individuals with a reputation for self-flagellation. And the party has largely settled on an answer, however vague and generic the concept of "Reaganism" may be.

The problem, though, is in the implementation. "What we had in 1977 was a philosophical and motivating leader in the guise of Ronald Reagan. We do not have that today, and that is always helpful to have someone to kind of crystallize the argument," Shirley said. "To be quite frank, if you compare the Republican Party to a Major League Baseball team, the team they're putting on the field in the majors is not very good, and their Triple-A and Double-A system is not very good either."

Republicans meeting in Miami, Myrtle Beach and Washington this week will begin three facets of the long and steep climb back to prominence. The RGA will showcase future national candidates while House leadership will select the most immediate new faces of the party. Both gatherings will have political implications for the next two elections, as Congressional leaders try to rebuild their shrunken majorities and as the nation's governors work from the ground up while several eye the White House.

But it may be Dawson's meeting in Myrtle Beach, to be attended by many other potential RNC candidates including Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis and Florida's Jim Greer, that may be the most important for the future of Republicanism as a philosophy. Whether the party figures out how to make a comeback with comity or riven by ideological disagreements will determine just how soon that comeback takes place. "Before we even think about 2012 or even 2010, we've got to think about what it is we stand for," Shirley said.

About Us | RSS | Contact | Advertise | Privacy Policy         © RealClearPolitics 2008