Hope for the GOP

Jack Kemp, who died May 2nd of cancer at age 73, may have represented the high water mark for the version of the Reagan-era Republican Party that is now dismantling itself piece by piece.

Kemp represented a chunk of Western New York in Congress and managed to mix conservatism, pragmatic governance, and a sophisticated worldview.

Like a lot of Republicans in the Reagan school, Kemp embraced optimism and a hopeful, responsible sense of American exceptionalism.

As the GOP looks to “rebrand” itself, this is one piece of the old playbook that should be dusted off.

To much of the conservative message these days is frankly apocalyptic and churlish. President Barack Obama is a socialist or a fascist or the Anti-christ.

When Republican leaders speak of Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and the “Democrat” party, you can hear the scorn.

From Glenn Beck to Rush to this advertisement on John Boehner’s website, conservatives are doubling down on gloom and doom.

As I cruise the Right’s most popular websites, the message is all Decline and Fall, with very little Shining City On A Hill.

In these hard times, that stuff won’t play in Kemp’s Buffalo.

It’s hard to see how this stuff wins over any part of mainstream America, which has never had much tolerance for sourpusses and sore losers.

It’s even hard to see how this venom mobilizes the Republican base. If the world is ending, what good is casting a ballot?

Maybe it’s smarter to just go buy a gun…

Job one for the New GOP is to articulate a clear, positive vision for what America should look like five or ten or twenty years from now.

How does that vision tackle Americans’ biggest concerns: jobs, healthcare, climate change, and defense?

And how do conservatives avoid the pitfalls of their own philosophy that contributed to the Iraq War disaster, the Katrina fiasco, and the economic meltdown?

Job two for the New GOP is to close ranks against the nattering nabobs of negativism who have colonized their movement.

The take-no-prisoners approach of Rove and Delay and Rush turned out to be a dead-end.

The next great era of conservatism should acknowledge that fact and instead embrace Kemp’s openness. This from the Wall Street Journal’s remembrance:

The GOP also needs a rhetoric and a demeanor that invite all Americans to its cause.

The Kemp-Reagan message was rooted in ideas but it also appealed broadly across ages and incomes because of its buoyant temperament.

Jack Kemp’s admirable life shows that it is possible to be a populist intellectual and a capitalist for the common man.