{"id":733,"date":"2009-05-05T08:38:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T12:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/05\/05\/hope-for-the-gop\/"},"modified":"2009-05-05T08:38:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T12:38:00","slug":"hope-for-the-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/05\/05\/hope-for-the-gop\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope for the GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Kemp represented a chunk of Western New York in Congress and managed to mix conservatism, pragmatic governance, and a sophisticated worldview.<\/p>\n

Like a lot of Republicans in the Reagan school, Kemp embraced optimism and a hopeful, responsible sense of American exceptionalism.<\/p>\n

As the GOP looks to “rebrand” itself, this is one piece of the old playbook that should be dusted off.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

When Republican leaders speak of Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and the “Democrat” party, you can hear the scorn.<\/p>\n

From Glenn Beck to Rush to this advertisement<\/a> on John Boehner’s website, conservatives are doubling down on gloom and doom.<\/p>\n

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

In these hard times, that stuff won’t play in Kemp’s Buffalo.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

Maybe it’s smarter to just go buy a gun…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

How does that vision tackle Americans’ biggest concerns: jobs, healthcare, climate change, and defense?<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Job two for the New GOP is to close ranks against the nattering nabobs of negativism who have colonized their movement.<\/p>\n

The take-no-prisoners approach of Rove and Delay and Rush turned out to be a dead-end. <\/p>\n

The next great era of conservatism should acknowledge that fact and instead embrace Kemp’s openness. This from the Wall Street Journal’s remembrance<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The GOP also needs a rhetoric and a demeanor that invite all Americans to its cause.<\/p>\n

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

Jack Kemp’s admirable life shows that it is possible to be a populist intellectual and a capitalist for the common man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Kemp, who died May 2nd of cancer at age 73, may have represented the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}