Guess what? The Republican Party (as well as conservatism) is dead. The death occured on November 4th, and the funeral was on November 5th.
Not only is this hogwash, but it’s served as a rallying cry for me. I know conservatism is alive and well, and I still know that the United States is a center-right country. Anyone else who tells me otherwise gets a fierce debate beat-down from me.
If conservatism is truly dead, then why did Democrats use it in 2006? Why did Barack Obama abandon any talk of his socially liberal positions and talk explicitly about tax cuts (even though his liberal voting recrod proves otherwise) and his hawkish talk on getting Osama bin Laden? It’s strange how they label these tenants of the Republican party as dead, but use them in elections to win power. The saddest part of all is that they’ve been better at it for the past two years.
I’ve seen and heard a lot about what the Republican Party has to do to get back on their feet. Some say we need to move to the center, some say we need to move left of center, and some say we need to move further right. I ask, why does this have to be about left vs right?
Democrats have proven (at least for now) that you can include many socially conservative people in a party that has a pretty liberal view on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, the war on terror, and taxes. This is how everything started in 2006. Sometime after 2004, Republicans lost the ability to court more centrist voters, mainly because most of the Washington Republicans governed like Democrats, and also because we weren’t inclusive of many people who weren’t 100% conservative on all issues.
Instead of focusing on the differences, we need to focus on the similarities. Republicans in Texas, for example, have a lot more in common than Republicans in New York than we think, so how do we get this done?

I believe all true Republicans believe in limited government, fiscal conservatism, strong national security, and lower taxes. These are four pillars of the Republican party. Lately, the first two pillars have either been damaged or removed completely. A lot of the Washington R’s decided to spend, entitle, and expand like Democrats, so when 2006 came around, a lot of them had no viable comeback for the criticism. If we attempted, then we were made to be hypocrites. Sadly, they were right.
Whether or not you’re a Republican in rural Texas or urban New York, you believe in those first two pillars, and you long for them to be put back in the foundation. Where I think the divide has started to take place, however, is the social issues. I know I’ll take some fire for this, but this means that we need to stop attempting to demonize or expelling people that are pro-choice or favor gay marriage. I oppose both, but I also know at the same time we need to be inclusive to those that may not be on the same page with us on those issues but still think government involvement should be limited and being smarter with our tax dollars. I know a good deal of “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” people that vote Republican because they still hold out hope that we’ll return to keeping government out of our lives, spend our money more effectively, keep us safe, and lower our taxes. On the other hand, I also know some of the same type that vote Democrat because the Republican party got too liberal in these aspects. If we’re truly going to talk about growing the base, then we need to start looking to reality. I don’t want another four or eight years with no check to Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. We can do this, but we need to focus more on our similarities rather than our differences.