GOP... RIP?

On the eve of the Oregon and Kentucky Democratic primaries let's talk about...the Republicans. Maybe you saw Peggy Noonan's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. If not, you should read it. Talk about some 'straight talk'. She lays it on the line about the train wreck the GOP has become.

But this is not a kick 'em when they're down blog. First of all, I do not believe the GOP is in any danger of going away. Republicans are moving through the same kind of course correction Democrats had to implement in the early nineties. And if this political season has proven anything, it's that things can change in a hurry. But the GOP is in trouble right now. When an extreme faction of a party guides policy, and that policy fails on many fronts, voters become alienated. It's the free market concept of politics.

As Noonan points out, the Bush Presidency has been a disaster. We all have our opinions as to how that happened. Just for the heck of it, I'll agree with many Republicans who believe that the party abandoned true conservative principles. But I take it one step further: they abandoned those principles to the 'values voters'. And 'values voters', some of whom are my dear friends, had an agenda that didn't mix well with competent governance.

The grand experiment of this country centers around the idea that individual freedoms can co-exist with the common welfare. It requires obeying the law, paying some taxes, and participating in basic duties of citizenship (like jury duty and voting), but the reward is the freedom to live one's life as one chooses, as long as it doesn't harm any one else. Unanimity of thought, or of religious expression, or of lifestyle is not the object.

But that conservative concept changed radically in the GOP, starting in 1994. And it culminated with George Bush as the choice of the 'values voter'. The bottom line for the values voter was that government should dictate morality; should emphasize religion in the public square; should govern what a person does with their body or whom they should sleep with. This was a social agenda that subsumed the need for competence in running a government, in exchange for a government that simply shared its values.

This was like the Democrats' notion of Big Government put on its head. Instead of the Democrats' style of government, which sought to take care of people's fiscal lives with entitlement programs or welfare, the values voters' big government would take of people's spiritual lives by legislating personal morality (see Terry Schiavo).

And it all went wrong. The governing part of the equation stood outside in the rain. Excessive spending, abuse of executive privelege, lobbyists running amok and extreme partisanship sent this country to a place where 82% of its citizens now feel it shouldn't be.

Unfortunately, John McCain is a poster boy for all that's wrong with the GOP. And it's not really his fault. In 2000, he was, indeed a maverick, free to speak out at the hypocrisy of both parties. But the GOP attack machine (spearheaded by the values voters) handed his head to him before the South Carolina primary. They made sure he learned his lesson. In 2004, he made the Faustian bargain to appease, I mean, embrace George Bush. In return, he would get the Bush machine behind him in '08. And voila, all of his truly independent positions on immigration, campaign finance reform, tax cuts for the rich, even his principled opposition to ban torture, evaporated in the mist of political expediency.

So now, in a change election, McCain has to tap dance between agreeing with Bush (on his 'appease' comments, for example) and distancing himself from Bush's 28% approval rating. He's an anti-lobbyist crusader who has surrounded his campaign with lobbyists--that he now has to fire. And instead of substantive attacks, he's resorted to playing the 'association game' with Barack Obama. As if the electorate can't see that Obama's association with ex-Weather Underground participant Bill Ayers is not the same as having five major campaign advisors involved in unsavory lobbying activities.

And honestly, I blame McCain less than the hard core right wing of the GOP for his confused message. They took his refreshing political approach and strait jacketed him into something approximating a values orthodoxy. It's a shame, because I think he's a good man with a great sense of humor and a lot of plain old political common sense. We'll see how this plays out. But I'm not feeling confident for the Grand Old Party.

And before we go, can we just take a moment, regardless of party affiliation or whom you support in the Democratic primary, to acknowledge what Obama did on Sunday. Take a look at this . I mean, come on. When was the last time you saw any politician attract a crowd that big? And the kid painting his bare torso with the words 'Hope' above an Obama logo? I'm sorry folks, Barack Obama is a rock star. He's not perfect, but he's got a lot of people believing in the possibilities of politics again. In this day and age that's a monumental feat.

Just ask some Republicans.

How can John McCain right the GOP ship, if in fact, any one person can? Talk about this ora anything else, by clicking on 'comments' below, bypassing the Google sign up and hitting the anonymous or nickname button.