Republican Party faces difficult recovery

By Brian Reinhart     11/6/08 6:00pm

For the Republican Party, the question after the 2008 Presidential Election is: What happens next?Its losses in Congress and its defeat in a transformative presidential election have Republican leaders wondering where they went wrong and how the party can recover. On these questions conservative pundits are divided into two rival camps, which may be poised to launch a civil war of ideas.

One group, including such luminaries as columnist George Will and satirist Christopher Buckley, argues that the Republicans need to swing to the center, repudiating the neo-conservatism of the Bush administration. The other camp, which includes commentators as thoughtful as William Kristol and as loud as Bill O'Reilly, contends that the party needs to rally its right-wing base and be more assertive on issues such as illegal immigration, gay marriage and abortion. The first group argues that Senator John McCain could have won the 2008 election by picking a moderate vice presidential nominee and disowning the legacy of President George W. Bush. The second group believes McCain would have won if he had done more work to energize the evangelical movement and if he had been more harshly critical of Barack Obama's radical pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

These two competing views on McCain's defeat and the party's future leave little room for compromise. Republicans must change their priorities drastically, either by redoubling their dedication to core right-wing values or abandoning them in favor of centrist compromise. We must hope that the party chooses correctly to dismantle its ultra-conservative social agenda and become a more moderate political voice.

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There are many problems with reaffirming a commitment to the far-right party base. First, it will be hard for the Republicans to become more ferociously conservative than they already are. Second, Barack Obama's strong support among self-identified moderate voters suggests that much of America does not identify with the conservative movement. As John McCain aligned himself more closely with the right on issues such as tax cuts and offshore drilling, he began to lose traction among American centrists. His biggest drop in the polls came after the selection of his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, an evangelical neo-con who alienated moderates and polarized the electoral atmosphere by associating Barack Obama with terrorists.

Yet another problem with a potential Republican lurch to the right is that the party stands to alienate young voters. Our own campus, generally perceived as moderate or just apathetic, is a good example. The Rice Standard's election survey, released on Monday, found that our student body overwhelmingly disagrees with Republican stances on nearly all the social issues. Nearly two-thirds of the 400 students who took the Standard's poll agreed, for example, that homosexual couples should be allowed to marry, and almost three-quarters of Rice students believe women should have the right to an abortion in most circumstances. There are universities both more conservative and more liberal than ours, but these results at least suggest that the Republican Party's fight against marriage and abortion rights risks losing our generation's support.

The final problem with a Republican Party that returns to its base and rallies social conservatism is that the leaders of the right wing are not strong. TV pundit and noted neo-con Kristol thinks the next great Republican leader is Sarah Palin, even though her bumbling interviews and angry anti-Obama rants disturbed much of the American public. Young people are especially wary of Palin: On our campus, the Standard's survey found that a measly 8 percent of students had a positive opinion of the Alaska governor. Furthermore, charges of ethics violations and a spotty political record suggest that Palin is simply not a competent leader.

The path forward for the Republican Party is clear but painful. It needs to accept that America has rejected Bush-style neo-conservatism, and it must realize that the next generation of young voters is both more politically engaged than ever before and more socially liberal than ever before. The Republicans need to recast their party platform to expand their appeal for racial minorities, religious liberals and political moderates. If the party tries to head in the opposite direction, by embracing outdated policies and anointing ultra-conservatives like Sarah Palin as the faces of the future, it risks alienating a generation and feeding the new liberal resurgence. In short, if the Republican Party decides that the right reaction to John McCain's defeat is to rally neo-conservatives and evangelicals for one more march to the right, the rest of America may leave the Republicans behind.

Brian Reinhart is a Wiess College sophomore.

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