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September 27, 2004

Where is the GOP as a Party?

Kerry Houston, Vice President of Policy for Frontiers of Freedom, spoke about where the GOP is as a party at last week's GOPUSA Issues and Action Conference.

She made some obvious points, but we as a party do tend to ignore them, so they are well worth pondering.

There are three groups, she said, that the GOP tends to ignore:

  1. Seniors
  2. Children
  3. Blacks
We ignore them because we do not know what to say to them. When we do have ideas we are lacking in communication. By "children", she meant all of the issues that affect children, such as education and day care/"latch-key" children.

There are also three issues that we have trouble dealing with:

  1. The Environment
  2. Health Insurance (often mischaracterized as "health care")
  3. Social Security
I would argue that we are getting better at discussing Social Security, but there is no doubt that we have allowed the Democrats to get ahead of us on the first two.

Republicans have simply lost on environmental issues. It's not that we don't have any ideas, rather that we tend to downplay them and are poor at communicating them when we try.

We are making headway on Health Insurance, but the Democrats are demagogueing this issue to death and we need to find a way to get ahead of them.

I would argue that we are the ones now in the lead in the debate on Social Security. All of the ideas are coming from conservatives, with the liberals reduced to scare tactics. As long as we keep pushing for partial privization, we will be fine. The new "investor class" doesn't have faith in Social Security anyway, and it is becoming an important voting bloc. It would be a mistake to propose total privatization, as that is not politically viable and will only give the Democrats material for TV commercials.

Kerri Houston then went on to say that the Democrat's biggest problem in this election was that they have no strategic clarity. John Kerry has no idea why he wants to be president, or even where he stands on the issues. She said that Kerry was in the process of imploding and will continue to go downhill.

If Republicans stay focused and on-message we will win.

I agree with her assessment on everything but Social Security. John Kerry and Joe Lockhart's behavior during the recent visit of Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allwai confirms this analysis.

This having been said, the biggest danger to right now for Republicans is complacency. We can still loose this election. Stay focused, stay on-message, and stay determined.

Posted by Tom at September 27, 2004 11:08 AM

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