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June 5, 2008. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich publishes a piece on the upcoming presidential election in Human Events – the self described headquarter of the conservative underground. It is titled: “My Plea to Republicans,” and ties the recent loss in a Louisiana Congressional election to what he warns could end in disaster in the coming November election. His strategic piece highlights painful figures for the GOP – an 18 point Congressional polling deficit “reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.” He warns the GOP’s current attack ads and political talking points are without depth, failing and close to disaster. And finally, he cautions that the Republican frontrunner – John McCain, seriously misrepresents the GOP’s message and is straying away from the party’s intended and proven talking points.
Gingrich was correct.
ome November 4th, Congress widened their Democratic leaning polling gap, the McCain campaign recklessly drove forward the same attacks that they were warned against – chose arguably the most controversial Vice Presidential pick in the history of the modern presidential election, and overall – dissolved its entire lead, falling into the wrong side of the main stream media, and of course, the blogosphere.
But most of all, the McCain campaign tore apart the GOP – initializing off topic but politically detrimental side stories from inside their own campaign. They lost most of their little presence in the web, and sent their most passionate bloggers rebuilding their own web stature. House GOP members have been forced to ban against Presidential spending bills, but have only accomplished being dubbed by the liberal media as the “party of no.”
So in a party still plagued with revenge, how is a quick and painless reconstruction possible? As Michael A. Cohen writes, without even a hint of extremist rhetoric.
Cohen certainly makes a good point. The Reagan-era conservatism of worlds past certainly proved effective, but when used the in context of the current audience and their patience, it may come off as the word than no politically respected conservative wants to hear – extremist. This breed certainly is far from extremist, but as we certainly have witnessed, anything in the realm of a brash, new policy from the conservative or Republican side has not been taken in with open arms by the press.
So essentially, how can the GOP implement new policy by passing through the main stream media without as much as a negative peep, and even harder – passing by the newest media – the web?
Frankly, if the GOP has any shot, it is to go politically younger. CPAC gave us a very good glimpse of who may arise as the newest leaders in the party, and who should be not included in the future, the highlights being 14 year old Jonathon Krohn and the infamous Rush Limbaugh, respectively.
Limbaugh, along with similar GOP counterpart Glen Beck prove to be insufficient, but most dangerously, unpredictable. The Republican Party needs someone remotely controllable, and with quotes such as “I hope the president fails,” Limbaugh could be potentially suicidal.
On the other side of things, Krohn is a glimmer of hope for the young conservative movement that has not been seen for a very long time, but then again, his age and maturity will definitely work against him.
His impact on the GOP, however, seems unclear. His message of splitting the political stature conservatism and the Republican Party shows he is cool-headed and smart, but he lacks the valuable political skill of thinking on his toes, and most of all, is not mature enough to understand the process of a press conference – reporters treat him like a kid, not a politician, and because of that, he loses the legitimacy that he earned from writing his book – Define Conservatism. He also doesn’t have what he should be able to acquire because of his age – an easy path through the blogosphere.
Essentially, the GOP will not have a brand new leader out of the box for a matter of years, and this greatly degrades the party’s chances to succeed in the younger generation, a category where Barack Obama essentially slaughtered them in the 2008 elections.
So, as advice to the GOP goes – make the 2012 elections a test of strength and by the way – listen to Newt Gingrich a bit more.