New Coalitions for a New Age

Summer is coming to an end as is evidenced by the return of children to school, the start of football season and the breezy hint of cooler temperatures to come. Looking at the political calendar, we are nearing the eight-month mark of the Obama administration and their allied, Democratically-led Congress.

So, as Congress sits in recess and the nation braces for the upcoming national health care fight, I thought it an appropriate moment to talk about the future of Republican politics. Not just how we can defeat health care or win more congressional seats in 2010 -- but how we develop the coalitions necessary to ensure we are a party capable of standing strongly 10, 20, 50 years into the future. In essence, we must ensure we are a lasting party equipped to defend the principles of limited government, lower taxes, free markets, a strong national defense, and individual rights and responsibilities.

Today, with government spending increasing astronomically, with the prospect of one-fifth of our economy -- in the form of the health care system -- being turned over to government controls, these guidelines are all the more important. Thirty years ago, my father understood this, and that legacy has passed down to us.

Even as conservatives, we will not always agree, but if we respect those with dissenting opinions, we can grow even stronger in our determination to follow our shared values. Americans are increasingly, and rightfully, growing skeptical of policies that emphasize budget-busting government solutions, as opposed to empowering individuals, families and small businesses. Conservatives have a great opportunity and platform to move beyond the media stereotypes of Republicans as demoralized and dysfunctional and come together to reassert our strength and fight for our freedoms. Liberal, conservative or independent, there is much that unites us.

My father understood that good governance required strong coalitions. In order to move forward, this is something the Republican Party will need to understand as well. Today, as political maps show the Northeast and the Southeast entrenching further along party lines, the coalitions and partnerships which will shape our future are increasingly found in the West.

We have a new proving ground in the independent-minded West, with states like New Mexico, where the presidential election was decided by less than 6,000 votes in 2004 and by a mere 366 votes in 2000, and Colorado, a state so intensely contested between President Obama and Senator McCain in 2008. The West has always been a region of fierce independence and a willingness to buck traditions. The challenges we face today require that spirit and creativity.

Any new winning coalition must include America's growing Hispanic population, which makes up over 20 percent of the population in six states from this Western bloc, as well as Florida. The Hispanic community has much in common with what I call conservative values, from an emphasis on family values to issues of law enforcement and education. I have seen this in my own home state of California.

Now is the time to win back the hearts and minds of all Americans and embrace the founding principles of this great nation. With so much at stake, this is an endeavor that will require all of our participation; no one group can do it alone. This undertaking will also require practical solutions and the leadership of young Americans, whose future is ever more on the line. We must build coalitions that honor our shared traditions and principles, or we will jeopardize our future. It's time to come together.

The current Republican coalition actually comprises people with sometimes opposing viewpoints. Libertarians who want less government in all areas and less spending across the board, those who might be called Nationalists or Federalists who can favor more spending especially in areas regarding defense and security, Christian and Social Conservatives who might want less government intrusion but government support of what they consider essential moral issues, business oriented folks who desire government intervention to support business even if it goes against the interest of the other groups, and fiscal conservatives who are interested in the government acting in a fiscally responsible manner even if it means cuts in the military and business support. I am sure that I have left some viewpoints out here for the Republican party has such a variety of people. While many people combine all these elements together to some extant the different avenues that lead to support of the Republicans can be quite different. What does unite all these people together is the fear that the liberal socialist policies of the Democrats will be far worse then anything that the Republicans can come up with. They are also united by the common ground of self interest, that can be found in many of these areas. The only way to expand the hoop would be to let many people of diverse ethnic groups realize that their own interests are better served by the Republicans. This should not be done by catering to them like the Democrats but rather by appealing to their pride in being able to act as free person in a free land.

"Now is the time to win back the hearts and minds of all Americans and embrace the founding principles of this great nation. With so much at stake, this is an endeavor that will require all of our participation; no one group can do it alone. This undertaking will also require practical solutions and the leadership of young Americans, whose future is ever more on the line. We must build coalitions that honor our shared traditions and principles, or we will jeopardize our future."

Reagan is correct. Book sales for Mark Levin's new "Liberty and Tyranny" and the popularity of other such materials demonstrate that Americans are searching for what Jefferson, in his First Inaugural, after outlining "the essential principles of our Government," described them as "the road which aloone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

With regard to Michael Reagan's points, next week, when the President addresses school children, Reagan and other conservatives should flood the airwaves with President Reagan's November 1988 words to school children. Such a move would, no doubt, highlight the vast difference between the focus of the two--and in a manner that would, at the same time, serve to unite this generation in a new devotion to the ideas of freedom the nation was founded upon. In that speech, among other things, he said:

"And it's not just that our government is the oldest of its kind, but that it's based on the world's most revolutionary political idea. You can see that concept in the very first line of our Constitution, and it begins with three simple words: ``We the People.'' In other countries, in their constitutions -- they all have constitutions, and I've read a great many of them, those other ones -- and the difference is so small, but it's found in those three words. Because their constitutions are documents by the Governments telling the people what they can do. And in our country, our Constitution is by the people, and it tells the Government what it can do. And only those things listed in the Constitution, and nothing else, can Government do. So, in America, it is the people who are in charge. And one day you'll be those people out there voting and creating the Government.

"That vision of self-government was the basis for the American Revolution, the first revolution of its kind and one of the most important historic events not just for our own nation but for all humanity. Because most revolutions have always just been a case of replacing one set of rulers for another set of rulers. Ours was that kind of a constitution where, for the first time, it was announced -- what I've told you before already -- that the people were in charge of the Government, not the other way around.

"Now, the Revolution may seem like something they say happened a long time ago -- to me 200 years seems just like yesterday -- but I think it'll prove to be America's most important guidepost for the future. I believe that the chief moral task for America in your generation -- a period destined for great change -- will be not so much to chart a new course or launch a new revolution, but to keep faith with the original American Revolution and that remarkable vision of freedom that has brought us two centuries of liberty and is still today transforming the world.

"Over these 200 years, country after country has followed our path, and I believe that ultimately all nations will do so. It's no exaggeration to say that the political vision of our Founding Fathers has become the model for the world. This is true not just in the many countries that have turned from despotism to democracy these last years, it's also true even where it's least apparent. It's remarkable to realize that in this century even brutal totalitarian dictatorships kneel at the feet of our Founding Fathers when they try to counterfeit the practices and institutions of democracy in order to claim legitimacy for their ruling their people. Dictators today from Afghanistan to Nicaragua do not want to be called Czar or Commissar; they want to be called Mr. President and to pretend that they rule in the people's name, even if they don't. Yes, even Communist dictators holding power through force, against the will of the people, acknowledge the triumph of the American idea when they go through the motions of holding phony elections, forming rubberstamp legislatures to ratify constitutions that will not be honored, and then using our words to call their regimes democracies or republics.

"As a wise Frenchman one wrote: ``Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.'' But when dictators, even in this fraudulent way, acknowledge the basic truth that the right to rule comes from the consent of the governed, the door to freedom begins to crack open, and it can't very easily be closed again. John Adams said that long before the opening shots of America's war for independence -- he was one of our Founding Fathers, as you know -- our revolution had already occurred ``in the hearts and minds of the people.'' And today from Asia to Africa to Latin America and behind the Iron Curtain, the world is in the midst of a democratic revolution that was foretold by the creation of the United States.

"From the beginning, the American vision was that our country would be the cradle of freedom for all mankind. . . ."

"And, again, I would say that the most important thing you can do is to ground yourself in the ideas and values of the American Revolution. And that is a vision that goes beyond economics and politics. It's also a moral vision, grounded in the reverence and faith of those who believed that with God's help they could create a free and democratic nation."

He said much more in the middle of the speech, but these words would serve to inspire Tea Partiers and others as a sharp contrast to the counterfeit ideas being promulgated today.

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