By Rick Pearcey
Sean Hannity offers the GOP something it lacks: A unified platform for victory in 2008.
Back-sliding Republicans co-opted by the ways of Washington would do well to consider adopting something like this 10-point plan.
But for a strategic solution to what ails the GOP, a 12-step program may be in order.
Thus, to Sean's Top 10, consider adding these 2:
1. Attention to the issues of life, family, and marriage, so that human beings from biological conception onward and their foundational, God-given social institutions are afforded a dignity and respect consonant with science and with inalienable rights endowed upon each individual by the Creator.
2. Renewed commitment to the U.S. Constitution and the Founding worldview, centered on that very Creator affirmed in the Declaration of Independence and set forth in the verifiable data of the Biblical information.
Note: The dream of freedom, shining cities on a hill, and last best hopes for mankind is not just for Republicans or Americans. It is for all people and all times.
America didn't make it; it made America. And it can make any nation, any people, exceptional. American exceptionalism is not exceptionally American.
And America at her best is great insofar as she realizes, and insofar as individual Americans act upon, that dream as an information-rich vision of a liberated humane existence, a vision that springs forth from the Creator, from the mind of God.
To the degree that Ronald Reagan understood and articulated this, to that degree he inspired.
Question: Do Republicans "get it"? Not yet, if you go by GOP House Leader John Boehner's interview with Hannity on radio yesterday.
Here's the interview, from YouTube. Boehner's webpage excerpts are here.
Boehner appears a likeable fellow, but his performance reminds one of an actor sleep-walking through a role. His message is uninspiring, to say the least.
Prediction: If present trends continue, the GOP will be thumped mightily in the House and Senate. Any "Conservatism" worth advancing will remain in exile and fighting a losing battle until it finds its way home via points one and two above. "Conservatism" may be too tame a word for what's needed.
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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).
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1 comment:
I am an arch-conservative, yet I struggle with Hannity's list for the simple reason that it is unrealistic.
Nearly every suggestion he offers comes down to one issue: money.
It might be possible to fund all the projects he believes should be funded, but not all at once and not to the extent he certainly wishes. Funding the war in Iraq, potential war with Iran, fighting the war on illegal immigration, fixing Social Security, revision of national energy policy and new energy initiatives--all require massive amounts of money. While I certainly agree that our government is ridiculously wasteful and should be pared down to the bone, Hannity's responses here show a great deal of naivete when it comes to financing it all. Especially when our economy is tanking and the big three automakers are on the verge of collapse (taking 4 percent of our GDP with them).
Also, many of the issues he says we must confront (such as fixing broken public schooling) are not federal issues, either, but are best handled locally from the bottom up, not from the fed down.
We don't need a president and Capitol Hill bureaucrats mandating all this for us. Instead, start dismantling the bloated Fed, turn more power and money over to the states, eliminate the IRS and go with a VAT, and trust the American people to make wise choices rather than continuing to drive this country into the ground with stupidity coming out of D.C.
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