Republican Chairman

                                                                                                             Malcolm Green

As I recall, I promised you an analysis of the election. I’ll divide it between the Presidential Election and our local election due to the length of the first. An analysis of our local county election will follow later.

The popular vote for president produced a clear winner but certainly no mandate. The electoral vote was considerably more lopsided due to its winner-take-all approach. For the record Obama won with 66,760,924

(52.7%) to McCain’s 58,279,894 (46.0%). The electoral vote was 365 for Obama and 173 for McCain.

Voter turnout was not significantly greater, 3.4%, than the 2004 election. The estimate is 126.5 million, 4.2 million greater than the

122.3 million who voted in 2004. That was not the huge increase some expected.

We conservatives, the base of the Republican Party, need to do some introspection to understand where we have been before deciding where we want to go and how we get there. There is nothing to be gained by mincing words so some might not like what they are about to read. If so, please understand this analysis is intended to be objective, not a negative exercise in finger pointing.

This election is reminiscent of the Carter/Ford race in 1976. Carter was relatively unknown and essentially ran a campaign against an unpopular President Nixon (Ford was seen as contaminated by Nixon). There are some parallels here: Obama was/is relatively unknown while McCain has been well known on the national scene for some time and many saw McCain as too close to an unpopular President Bush although that might be debatable.

We need to understand some things about President Bush in order to understand what has happened to our Party. The single most important thing to understand about Bush is that he is not a conservative – he is a neo-conservative. (The simple, quick definition of a neo-conservative is a liberal who has seen the light.) He is an interventionist whereas most conservatives are shy of intervention. He has also willingly presided over a breathtaking increase in federal spending to the disgust of conservatives.

There are many good things to be said of President Bush. He is a devout Christian, very decent and sincere, and he sticks to his principles without regard to shifting public opinion. But none of those things are solely attributes of conservatives.

Similarly, McCain is not a conservative. He truly is a maverick.

Unfortunately, that means he can’t be depended upon politically. Anyone who has had a maverick show up in his cattle herd clearly understands the problem. A maverick is not part of the herd and often behaves at odds with the general demeanor. That is a recipe for disaster in politics.

What does all this tell us? We haven’t had a strong conservative leader since Reagan. Without strong leadership, we are left to wander aimlessly. Sure, Newt Gingrich stepped up for four years from 1995 to 1999. The Contract with America was a resounding success. But our leadership too soon forgot about it and reverted to its old business-as-usual habits. The voters didn’t forget and our conservative base became disillusioned and lost its fire. The only thing we had going for us was the Democrats’ uncanny ability to come up with mediocre nominees. And that is still true.

That didn’t really change all that much in 2008. We were saddled with a nominee who carried too much baggage: an unpopular president and a maverick image. Obama’s 52.7% of the vote and 6.7% margin of victory was not a resounding endorsement. It was more of a rejection of our Republican nominee.

To win, Republicans must first appeal to our conservative base. It is difficult to win when our choice is a “lesser of the evils” although that obviously happens (e.g., Bush 41 and Bush 43). Such wins are more a rejection of liberals than they are an endorsement of a Republican.

So, how does this happen? Easy. The Republican nominee is essentially selected by Northeastern and some mid-Western primaries before the primaries in conservative states are held. Those "blue" states are unlikely to vote for a Republican presidential nominee. The media takes advantage of this fact to support non-conservative Republican presidential candidates in order to prevent a conservative from winning the presidency. Of course they have no intention of supporting a Republican in a general election. That is exactly what happened in this last campaign. The solution is to run our early primaries in conservative “red” states before the liberal “blue” states can make our choice for us.

The media has presented all sorts of stories on how disillusioned and disorganized our Party is following McCain’s loss, even to the point of wondering whether we have permanently become a weak second party or whether we will even continue to exist. Ignore them. That is nothing more than liberal propaganda attempting to demoralize our conservative base. We have a bright future. We just need to recognize it and get back to our grassroots effort.

We need leadership and there are some promising individuals to fill that void. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin come to mind immediately. Florida Governor Charlie Christ is another possibility. If former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele is elected Republican National Committee Chairman, we will have a fresh, energetic conservative face there that we haven’t had for way too long.

How do most Republicans feel? They are very positive. For an interesting article see http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/78_of_gop_voters_say_next_president_likely_to_be_a_republican

Our conservative Republican political future looks great! Let’s roll!

Malcolm Green, Chairman

Grimes County Republican Party

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Last revised July 1, 2008