Rand Paul’s GOP

Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei may have put it best with his recent analysis following a victory by a mediocre Republican over a relatively formidable Democrat in a special election for a house seat in a swing district in Florida.

Right now, he said, “Republicans suck slightly less than Democrats.”

Ordinary Americans are experiencing more fallout every day – cancelled policies, skyrocketing costs – from arguably the most unpopular legislation of our lifetimes, which is the brainchild and signature achievement of a president who’s had nothing but trouble since being re-elected and who by most all accounts has lost the confidence of the American people, as he presides over an economy which is still sluggish at best with record numbers of people having left the job market altogether.  All of this serves to confirm what constitutionalists have said all along about the leftist worldview and agenda.

But the best we can do in the wake of all this is to suck slightly less?  Really?  Then what will it take to actually make the GOP appealing again?  To make it something more than the perceived party of old white men?

Do you think the charismatically challenged GOP leadership – John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, John McCain and the like – have the answers?  Sorry for the rhetorical question, but you get the point.  There appears to be not a single Republican leader who stands a chance of expanding the party’s base.  And we can all agree that in this 47% world, expanding the base is vital to survival as anything more than a permanent minority party.

We need only look back to 1980 to understand the importance of expanding the GOP base.  Ronald Reagan attracted millions of new blue-collar followers which came to be known as “Reagan Democrats.”  The result was two landslide victories.  But following Reagan, the inexplicable response of the party establishment was to reverse course and nominate candidates known for being “kinder and gentler” or a “compassionate conservative,” both of which signal an inherent insecurity and defensiveness about the core principles which resulted in Reagan winning 45 and 49 states in successive elections.  Reagan won with bold colors, and the party retreated into pastels.

Meanwhile, the Democrats did the reverse.  Understanding the failures of liberal candidates like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, they turned to the center and managed to twice elect a little-known centrist governor from Arkansas to the presidency.

So while one party had a proven formula for defeat and reversed course, the other party had a proven formula for victory and retreated from it.  Go figure.

This begs the question of who in the GOP might  best be positioned to play the role of Reagan three decades later, and attract the minority, female and young voters necessary to energize a moribund party, without sacrificing core principles.

Who has actually succeeded in speaking the language of a more diverse party?  Who has not just talked the talk, but walked the walk and has done so, like Reagan, despite the skepticism or outright undermining of his own party’s establishment?

Well, Rand Paul is no Ronald Reagan, but he has certainly been willing to speak in the same bold, albeit somewhat different, more libertarian colors.  And willing to take on his own party with clever sound bites such as a recent one comparing the GOP to Domino’s Pizza and its unpopular crust.

What other Republican could go to Berkeley, with its radical roots, and receive a rousing ovation?  Who else would file a class action suit against the NSA on behalf of all Americans in order to dramatize the breach of our fundamental fourth amendment liberties?  What other Republican has the cajones to call out the feminist movement for elevating a man who engaged in sexually predatory behavior?  What other Republican is willing to include the Defense Department in his oratory about massive government waste and bureaucracy?

And his unusual across-the-aisle appeal is not limited to his ideology.  As per a recent observation in the Christian Science Monitor, “He does not look like, act like, or talk like a conventional politician,” Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, told This Week magazine. “Voters are extremely unhappy with the political system, and Paul’s awkward sincerity status clearly taps into the disillusionment.”

Paul synthesizes his own approach in saying “We have to welcome people of all races. We need to welcome people of all classes…We need to have people with ties and without ties, with tattoos and without tattoos; with earrings, without earrings…. We need a more diverse party. We need a party that looks like America.”

It is inarguable that the GOP needs a new crust, and we must not let the short term political opportunities available this November blind us to the dismal long-term outlook for the party absent a serious re-branding and expansion of the party base.

Sen. Paul has admittedly experienced the same electability arguments and skepticism that Reagan experienced from the chattering class and within his own party.  With the growing number of “slating” controversies here in Virginia, we have witnessed plentiful examples of the resistance of the GOP establishment to those committed to changing the party from within.

Perhaps Sen. Paul really is not electable.  Perhaps he is shouting into the darkness of an intransigent party intent on avoiding change at all costs, even if what they refuse to change is demonstrably unattractive to the electorate.  Perhaps he is just a canary in a coal mine, signalling inevitable long term disaster for a party he can hardly save by himself.  Sen. Paul is obviously not the first one to admit the need for a re-branding of the Republican party, but most of the other prescriptions involve far more compromise in principles than Paul has prescribed – most based on co-dependency in expanding the size and scope of government.

We know how often unstated but fierce resistance has been, and will be, to fundamental change within the stodgy GOP.  Perhaps the changes, the new crust, he prescribes for the party will be nothing more than the first step in a very long journey that will not bear serious fruit for many years.  But while we all wait to decide who we support for president in 2016, can one argue that it is not the most important venture the GOP could undertake here and now?