Despite the Republican Party going "Hog-Wild Big Government" over the last couple decades, securely deleting every last byte of logic and reason for a conservative (of any stripe) to justify continued support ... I believe Michael Steele, the man, deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Don't get me wrong here. Things are not OK. But "we the people" must continue forward, just exercising extreme caution as we do.
For example, many people were (are) convinced that Karl Rove was (is) some kind of "political genius," who took the lead to create a permanent conservative majority. Sounds great! But back in the real world ... the "Story of Rove" tells a totally different tale.
The true "Story of Rove" ... is a tale of Karl Rove being leader of a coup, that successfully seized the leadership of the party away from the leadership of Goldwater/Reagan conservatives, and putting it back in the hands of Northeastern/Rockefeller Big Government Aristocrats.
Getting back to Steele ... as reported by The Washington Post, he had the following to say regarding the old GOP guard and their ways:
We missed the mark in the past, which is why we are in the crapper now. We had the White House, the Senate and the House and were not building a farm team over the last years. We could have been ahead of Democrats and their 50-state strategy.
He's right! I just hope while building the "farm team," Steele doesn't lose sight of the much more significant need of developing genuine, limited-government conservative politicos.
"We the people" don't want a different kind of Big Government in Washington. We want folks who are committed to kicking Big Government out!
There was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort [zones]. We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ... We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.
... we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.
I like his sense of humor! It's a nice change of pace.
This may only be strange to me, but the conservative movement - born of revolution and nurtured by skepticism - has somehow morphed from a radical movement founded on individual liberty, to what is now, and let's be frank ... an uptight, straight-laced, button-down shirt, boring movement demographic.
I like what Steven Crowder had to say about this on Big Hollywood (emphasis added):
For years now Republicans have ignored new media like the plague. "The arts, sitcoms, the inter-what now? Naaah we don't need those. We're too noble." Really... Too noble to stop sucking?
For crying out loud, what will it take for the old GOP to smarten (and loosen) up? We need some good entertainment and quality creative arts coming from the Right. Do you know what single-handedly destroyed Sarah Palin this last election? No, it wasn't her accent, the fact that she was Alaskan or even the terrible, Katie "God-Awful-Botox" Couric.... It was those cronies at SNL.
People were actually walking around parroting a line hand-fed to them by Tina Fey herself, completely unaware that Mrs Palin said nothing of the sort.
"I can see Russia from my house." I'll admit that it's a funny line... It's a comedic premise funnier than anything produced from the Republicans these days (Dennis Miller not withstanding), but a highly inaccurate depiction of what Sarah Palin said.
Now if Steele is serious about improving communications within "urban-surburban hip-hop settings," I highly recommend he starts by contacting AlfonZo Rachel and his Macho Sauce Productions!
But in the mean time ... this is great and everything ... the GOP taking initiative to improve HOW they communicate ... but the bigger, more fundamental question remains:
WHAT are they going to communicate?
It seems an eternity, I know ... but it wasn't that long ago when Republican politicians refused to tip-toe around the warnings against Big Government which were handed down to us by our forefathers. They were successful with the message too! Go figure.
Quin Hillyer wrote a terrific article published in The American Spectator, and sums up the GOP's real problem perfectly:
Without the ability to cut through the establishment media noise, capture the popular imagination, and sell solid, intellectually coherent new policy ideas, the movement will be in the wilderness a lot longer than anybody in it seems now to expect.
Hillyer believes the GOP needs a new Jack Kemp, and I must agree.
It wasn't Kemp's techniques that captured public imagination, but his willingness to challenge popular "wisdom," and ability in "reaching across the aisle," without compromising his beliefs and principles, that spurred and continued the growth of the conservative movement.
Conservatives today who want to recapture the popular imagination (not to mention popular support) ought to emulate Kemp's loud and tireless simultaneous engagement with policy details and public relations in the best sense.
Fortunately, there are some conservatives today who seem to have the right spirit. U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is one, as are U.S. Reps. Mike Pence of Indiana and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin -- the latter of whom once worked for Kemp at Empower America. Everybody in the conservative movement ought to move heaven and earth to help these lawmakers get wider exposure through speaking events, radio and TV appearances, and other public forums.
But the Kempian model is more than about mere men. It is a model about bedrock values, beliefs, and attitudes. It is a model about openness to new approaches without losing core principles. Kemp's own core was expressed in his 1987 speech announcing his candidacy for the presidency, in words describing the polar opposite of what is now the approach of the Obama administration: "No government in history has been able to do for people what they have been able to do for themselves, when they were free to follow their hopes and dreams. The American Dream is not to make everyone level with everyone else, but to create the opportunity for all people to reach as high as their God-given potential allows."
Michael Steele would be wise to take note of Jack Kemp's principled approach. Because "we the people" don't need more politicians wearing an elephant on their lapel ... We need genuine, principled, limited-government conservatives!
