Free Republic

In new book, Michael Steele says the GOP should acknowledge where "we most glaringly compromised our principles" in the past decade and hold its elected officials accountable. WASHINGTON -- Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele offers a simple explanation for why the GOP may have lost touch with some Americans since the Ronald Reagan era: "We screwed up," he claims in a new book offering a blueprint for the party's resurgence. That "we" includes the last two Republican presidents and the most recent Republican candidate for president.

Less than five years after Karl Rove mused openly about the possibility of Republican dominance for decades – an idea which was absurd at the time – the Republican Party finds itself in disarray. The moderate wing is showing itself to be as RINO as ever, and in one case, that of Sen. Arlen Specter, the pretense is finally over. It goes without saying that the moderates are wrong; their advice to do as the Democrats do, only a little less enthusiastically, not only betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamic nature of electoral politics in a democracy, but ignores...