Posted on 04/14/2015 2:49:35 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
No matter how much their adversaries have tried to pin them as the "party of no," the GOP is far and away the most dynamic of the two major American political parties today. As evidence of this, just look at how the 2016 primary campaigns are shaping up on either side of the ideological divide.
Conservative voters will get to choose from the youngest and most philosophically diverse group of GOP candidates I’ve seen in my lifetime, while the left will get to choose—wait, there is no choice.
Yes, that’s right: Unless something drastically changes, the very same liberals who celebrate diversity and choice will get neither. They will be forced to line up behind a party operative who’s been using politics for personal gain for nearly four decades.
My, how times have changed.
With Marco Rubio’s formal campaign announcement yesterday, there are now three Republican candidates officially running for president. At least two more will join the fray in the coming weeks. So far, each of the Republican presidential hopefuls has announced their candidacy before live audiences, each one mapping out their policy objectives and vision for this country.
Clinton, on the other hand, prerecorded a video, shot it out over the interwebz on Sunday and then hopped in a van for a "spontaneous" road trip to Iowa so she can meet some "everyday Americans," whatever that means. She’s not pausing for any tour stops along the way—just making a beeline for the key primary state so she can deliver a handful of speeches and talk with some handpicked small groups.
Talk about being out of touch. Sheesh.
It’s not just that the left is trotting out the same old, same old presidential candidate that shows how stale American liberalism has become. It’s, as Matt Purple pointed out in a wonderfully written American Spectator essay last week, that their talking points haven’t matured, either. It has become clear that President Barack Obama’s inspirational message of "hope and change" was, to the left, little more than a sorely needed aesthetic treatment to a crusade stuck in neutral.
As chief sales officer for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton will kill all progressive momentum, because nothing sucks the life out of a movement like an antiquated politico reciting tired lines. Sure, the prospect of breaking the Oval Office gender barrier will motivate a good number of voters, but aside from that ... yawns.
Meanwhile, on the right, there are serious and engaging dialogues happening daily about what the future of conservatism and its chief political vehicle—the Republican Party—will look like in the coming years.
Rubio catches flak for being an immigration reform advocate. Rand Paul is hustling to connect his libertarian views with conservative orthodoxy. Jeb Bush is trying to distance himself from "dynasty" talk while simultaneously trying to sell the party on Common Core and an immigration overhaul. Ted Cruz is trying to keep Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee out of the race by grabbing up evangelical alliances, and Scott Walker is trying to show how his conservative wins at the state level will work nationally.
Sixty years ago, National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. wrote that a conservative is someone who "stands athwart history, yelling stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." In the early Obama years, that’s exactly what conservatives did, and for their efforts, the GOP earned the title the "party of no."
There is a reason the left avidly tries to keep that stereotype glued to the right. They want the American voter to see progressives as innovators and forward-thinkers. "They are the know-nothings," they’ll say about the right. "They have no fresh concepts. They only say no, while we, on the other hand, are full of ideas that will make America better."
Get past that rhetoric, though, and you’ll see the opposite is actually the case.
It’s not just at the national level where we can see intraconservative grappling. It’s happening here in the Volunteer State, too, as evidenced by the Insure Tennessee debates. Moving ahead, newly elected Tennessee Republican Chair Ryan Haynes—a millennial—will preside over a party marked by growing nuance.
Throughout 2008, Obama urged young voters to change their country for the better and become civically engaged via the Democratic Party. Seven years later, it’s the Republicans who truly offer an opportunity for the idealistic to influence the future of our nation’s political and policy landscape.
For the young conservative, now is the best time to get involved with the GOP. Your voice carries great weight as the party deliberates over what it wants to make of itself in the coming years. And while influencing change, be sure to take a moment to consider how fortunate you are. As your eyes are cast forward, your peers on the left are being held politically hostage by a figure from the 1990s.
******
David Allen Martin is a civic engagement advocate who teaches United States history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
For young conservatives, now is the time to invest in the GOP
No way! It is time for the GOOP to invest in this nation and not in their origination. It is time for the GOP to conform to “We The People” not for the people to conform to the Repubicrats and their new world order.
GOP?
Nah. Not as long as the RNC is still dictating that southern states’ primaries be held later in the spring — usually after the nominee has already been determined.
Most of the southern states requested that their primaries be changed to early March. How many have the Elites allowed to change?
GOP/RNC can go suck eggs — until there are major changes in the leadership.
Minor correction:
” Time to invest in Cruz, and urinate down the leg of the GOP Establishment.......I have dogs for rent too.
Sorry.
The GOP is dead.
Pushing daisies.
Longing for the fiords.
Admit. It, Jeb will be the losing entry.
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