Regaining our brand as the party of fiscal discipline will require us to rejoin Americans in the real world of budget choices and priorities, and to leave behind the fantasyland of borrowing without limits. Instead of adopting earmarks, each Republican can adopt examples of government waste, largess and fraud, and restart the permanent campaign against big government.
Republicans can tear up the "emergency spending" credit card and refuse to accept any new spending whatsoever, including for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, until Congress does its job of eliminating wasteful spending. The federal budget contains a vast unexplored area of offsets. My office alone has identified $300 billion in annual waste. Borrowing from the next generation when we haven't done our job of oversight is unconscionable.
Regaining our brand is not about "messaging." It's about action. It's about courage. It's about priorities. Most of all, it's about being willing to give up our political careers so our grandkids don't have to grow up in a debtor's prison, or a world in which other nations can tell a weakened and bankrupt America where we can and can't defend liberty, pursue terrorists, or show compassion.
Republicans Are In Denial
From Tom Coburn (OK-Sen) in today's WSJ:
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3 comments:
Tom Coburn FTW.
Yeah, I think Coburn was trying to nudge people like Tom Cole and the rest of the sad dads at the RCCC who can still deny reality on Sunday morning talk shows. The GOP looks incredibly screwed for the GE (haha!).
The Republicans should seriously consider purging most of the current RNC leadership (dump the crazy-ass fundies!) and perhaps revisiting significant portions of the platform (largely the 2000 amendments and rewrites) at the convention.
They're already stuck with McCain and need to start positioning the party to deal with a[n] [increasingly unlikely] McCain-pretending-to-be-Teddy-Roosevelt presidency, as well as conserve congressional campaign committee funds on those candidates who are prepared to usher in another 1994 in 2010. If they have any sense, and the jury is still out, they should realize that it's time to cut their losses in 2008 and start rebuilding.
I'm still hoping for a total Republican Party meltdown coupled with a Ted Haggardesque scandal involving McCain, meth shipped in from Mexico, and some [male] K Street lobbyist. Fingers crossed.
ADDEMDUM: I mentioned the "crazy-ass fundies," but forgot to mention their chickenhawk Kristolite brothers and sisters. Can't forget the neocons...
--Marc
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