[DoughtyOne]

Rose, the hardest thing we have to do this year, is sell the idea that we are materially different than the Democrats on issue after issue.

Because we are (or at least have a background) in the Republican party, we often think we are much different. The populace isn’t as stupid as we take them for though.

Bush passed a great society program. He solidifed the one-theater level of military readiness. He allowed illegals to pour across the border for most of his presidency. He failed to order his agencies to crack down. This is the model Bush followed for eight years.

Despite what folks think, Bush cannot articulate. He has a following of folks who think he can. But he does not attract folks to his cause. He cannot make a sale. He fails over and over to even plead his case effectively.

Public opinion began to turn around at one point when he made the case for the war, but that was only temporary.

When you state that Bush isn’t the problem, I have to say that I think you’re missing some serious issues.

He has soured many of us. Those he has are not going to blindly support the next guy who isn’t close to a Conservative. His policies have been far too lefist in nature, and that hasn’t garnered him any respect from the left. Now we have another guy in that mold, and he thinks he can sell ice-cubes to Eskimos. No he can’t.

You can’t sell leftist policy as a Republican. Leftists want to vote for the real thing, and they will.

You attract people to your cause by sticking to principle, explaining why that policy is solid, and winning folks over to your view. McCain isn’t doing that. He is trying to appeal to the left, and they already have a candidate.

Reagan attracted folks with sound fiscal, military and global policy. He din’t win by adopting the Democrats principles.

McCain thinks he can. And he’s been convinced of that in part because Bush got away with so much leftist policy.

We very much are dealing with what Bush has done IMO.

[villagerjoel]

Excellent post.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Well said, DoughtyOne, but then you always do have a way of hitting the nail on the head. Every now and then I like to reread your Profile page, it always gives me encouragement to believe there has to be many Americans out there who still care about this great nation of ours and understand what it is that made us great and what we will have to do if we want to continue to be be a great nation.

[nathanbedford]

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party's fortunes from the president's. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn't be left with a ruined "brand," as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

So, sadly, Noonan has got it about right. It is certainly not a new insight, we Freepers for one very public example have been so posting since before the '06 election. In fact, I can quote myself and use up a lot of bandwidth doing so to demonstrate that we knew long before the last election that we were sleepwalking toward calamity.

My quarrel is not with that which only echoes what we have already said for years, my quarrel is with this conclusion which Noonan comes to just before the quoted observation above:

What happens to the Republicans in 2008 will likely be dictated by what didn't happen in 2005, and '06, and '07. The moment when the party could have broken, on principle, with the administration - over the thinking behind and the carrying out of the war, over immigration, spending and the size of government - has passed. What two years ago would have been honorable and wise will now look craven. They're stuck. (emphasis supplied)

No it is not too late. The problem is not really a matter of time even though we have squandered every precious minute especially since McCain became the putative nominee. The problem is not time. Clinton could pivot like a ballerina and shamelessly reverse his field and the election results proved that the public would accept it. Our problem is not primarily time but an absence of will which really means an absence of a leader who has the will to step forward and break with the double crosses of the past few years.

McCain clearly is not our leader anymore than Bush has been. There is no one in Congress with national prominence who has the capacity to step forward and declare independence from the Bush /McCain immigration policy, to demand a chokehold on spending, to pin the blame for soaring gasoline prices where it belongs, on Democrats who to pander to environmental whack jobs. McCain is against us on immigration, and therefore against the majority of the country, against us on energy, and therefore doomed to carry that cross. He cannot possibly be the man.

If we sit on our hands praying for a second coming our defeat in this election will be historic. That means that the party ought to turn every Congressman loose to run his own campaign and to form alliances with fellow conservatives of like mind where they can. Out of the carnage of the next election somewhere a leader will emerge. He must be free of taint from either Bush or McCain or the failed Republican leadership in the House and Senate.

These leaders, few as they no doubt will be, will have emerged with credibility because they will have been endorsed by the electorate.

[MBB1984]

Excellent post. I also think Noonan nailed much of the problem in the GOP.

[andy58-in-nh]

Solid analysis on your part, sad to say. Sad, because while some folks here have responded reflexively in denigrating the messenger, I do not see Ms. Noonan's observations as the result of personal bitterness or disillusionment, but of clear-eyed realism. She sees what Washington insiders frequently fail to see: that even people of principle and good character are seduced by the lure of a lavish Congressional lifestyle. She also recognizes that the President bears a fair degree of responsibility for the GOP having lost its way, partly as a result of embracing big government programs, partly by allowing great national problems to fester, but also by his serial inability to articulate policy.

Government service is a vastly different enterprise for liberals and conservatives, and one in which conservatives, absent force of will and unshakable principle, are always going to be at a disadvantage. Liberals believe in government, actively pursue its expansion, and participate in it as a vocation. Conservatives see government as a necessary evil, seeks its reduction, and participate in it as a matter of public service.

When the GOP began to gravitate toward and ultimately embraced Big Government, it abdicated not only principle but motivating spirit. They ceded public arguments to Democrats who are always happy to seize on any opportunity to accuse Republicans of being unprincipled, if they cannot otherwise charge them with being evil.

Hence, Ms. Noonan is correct in her charge against RNC chairman Robert Duncan, who doesn't want to let Democrats "pretend to be conservatives," while failing to grasp that Republicans "pretend to be conservative every day".

[babble-on]

You can’t sell leftist policy as a Republican. Leftists want to vote for the real thing, and they will.

I think that's very well stated. The mistake is Rove's in a sense, trying to hang on to power by co-opting lefty issues like the infamous steel tariffs and the prescription drug boondoggle. Let there be two parties, with distinct points of view, and let the VOTERS be the centrists if that's what they want. If one decade the voters decide to make government larger, then Democrats will be elected, if not, Republicans. But as you say, when they want bigger government they're going to elect Democrats anyway, so what good does it do for Republicans to muddy their own water?

[Hildy]

You are 100% correct and Noonan has hit this one out of the park. I still think McCain will win, and that still doesn’t make me happy one bit. How depressing is that? I put on Rush yesterday because when I’m feeling down, he usually says something to give me hope, I wound up turning him off it was so bad. I feel numb...

[JamesP81]

We very much are dealing with what Bush has done IMO.

Yes we are, and the worst is yet to come.

Great tagline, BTW.

[lainie]

Great post. Bravo.