Nov. 4 2008 was a good day to be a Democrat. President-elect Barack Obama won by a landslide as did most Democratic incumbents and many challengers running for Congress. Now a few weeks after that history-making Tuesday Republicans are scrambling to answer the big question – what will happen to the GOP in 2012?
Names have already been thrown out for potential presidential candidates – Mitt Romney Sarah Palin Bobby Jindal – and positions have been discussed (apparently U.S. governors will lead Republicans back to victory). But before the Republican Party can get anywhere it needs to know where it is going.
Obama won 66 percent of the votes from the 18- to 29-year-old age bracket making it clear that the “Grand Old Party” certainly is getting old. The GOP’s interventionism in international affairs domestic economics and personal lifestyles seems inconsistent with its conservative mantra. To win disillusioned young voters Republicans need to get their message straight.
Consider the perfect example: In an election during which the economy was a selling point the “fiscal conservatism” of the GOP was a market flop (pun intended). The U.S. federal government enjoyed a budget surplus under the Democratic Clinton administration but the “conservative” Bush administration presided over the largest spending increases since World War II.
Meanwhile Bush’s tax cuts appealed to the basic human aversion to taxation but as any Democrat will point out cutting taxes while increasing spending is probably not a very efficient concept. In an attempt to share a piece of the pie with every constituency from the defense lobby to the AARP the administration’s spending put this year’s projected budget deficit at a staggering $988 billion and the nation’s overall federal debt at more than $10 trillion all in the name of smaller government and fiscal responsibility.
Though John McCain and the GOP promised that excessive spending would end lines about American prosperity belief in smaller government and democracy in Iraq have failed to convince. While it is true that the Iraq war has been shorter less expensive and less bloody than other historical conflicts the toll of $600 billion and 4000 dead U.S. soldiers seems high to young voters especially in light of the uncertainty regarding the war’s benefits.
Bush’s agenda seems to have failed on all important counts. The president promised to remove Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction but never found any. He aimed to thwart global terrorism but terrorist recruiters couldn’t have created better publicity than the administration’s policies have. Soldiers went to Iraq to instate a stable and self-sufficient government there but success seems distant.
A recent “Rock the Vote” poll found that 60 percent of voters between 18 and 29 years old believe it’s time to pull out of Iraq. These voters see the fight against terrorism as only fueling the unpopularity that fostered it in the first place yet they are assured by the GOP that this is a war the United States will win. It might take 100 years we might be dead (or dead broke) but the GOP insists we are headed for victory.
Heavy blows to Republican credibility from foreign and economic policy blunders are compounded by the party’s pandering to social conservatism. While U.S. troops fight for freedom abroad young people can’t understand why the GOP thinks government should enforce public morality here at home.
Widespread support for gay marriage is an excellent illustration of young America’s belief that the government should let the personal lives of individuals remain private. In California 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted against controversial Proposition 8 sending a clear message – to win the votes of America’s youth the Republican Party must be able to show how its platform on social issues can be reconciled with a government founded on the right to “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The future still holds room for the GOP but only once the inconsistencies that riddle both its ideology and its actions are clearly addressed. Before the party can succeed Republicans must establish policies on international economic and social spheres that truly reflect limited government and personal liberty.
2012 may sound like a distant year on the calendar but there is a plenty of work to be done between now and the next electoral rematch. With some soul-searching by the GOP maybe election day of 2012 or 2016 will be a good day to be a Republican.