The New Republican

Last month I blogged about the premature obituary being written for the Republican party. Sure all of their voters are old and white in a nation that is rapidly becoming less of each, but there is no need for Republicans to go quietly into the night. Well...actually there is a need for some Republicans to go quietly into the night, which is exactly what I blogged about, but it now seems as though I'm not the only one saying it.

In his op-ed yesterday, David Brooks, a man I cite frequently as one of my favorite Republicans, wrote about "The Republican Glasnost," lauding Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Paul Ryan for recent speeches they gave for the Jack Kemp Leadership Foundation Award. In their speeches Ryan and Rubio sought to distance themselves from the callousness that has become official party platform. In doing so they also distanced themselves somewhat from the stupidity, acknowledging for example that extreme poverty is both morally unacceptable and an economic drag. In essence, they disavowed much of what their party has become. While these new Republican "revelations" are nothing that decent and intelligent people don't already know, they still represent an important step forward for a party that has spent most of the last three decades rotting in a moral and intellectual vacuum.

But while Brooks lauds Rubio for his soaring rhetoric, it was Ryan's comments that most illustrate the significant step the Republican party COULD take. Said Ryan when discussing how to combat poverty, "The truth is, there has to be a balance. Government must act for the common good, while leaving private groups free to do the work that only they can do.”

This is actually spot on though still lacking specifics. Still these kinds of speeches aren't meant for specifics, they're meant for laying out big ideas, and Ryan nailed it. Where was this guy during the Presidential campaign? This is exactly what we need to hear, because it is exactly what we need. The public and private sectors are not mutually exclusive, they are partners. Until we realize that and work on harnessing the power of both entities, we are doomed to remain in the rut of mediocrity, with a dysfunctional system that cannot solve our problems.

By no means does this mean that the Republican Party is a reasonable and responsible party ready to contribute to the national conversation. It's possible that the extremists will again show their ugly heads during the upcoming battle over the fiscal cliff, but there was really only one direction for the party to move given how low they have sunk recently. It is encouraging to see Republicans starting to eschew fringe ideology for respectable and effective centrist ideas. If they can now figure out how to drop their ugly social values and contribute positive ideas about streamlining government and applying market solutions to our nation's woes then we may very well see a resurgent Republican party, and we may very well benefit from it.

The new Republican is a work in progress, and there is still a lot of work to be done, but it seems as though the electoral drubbing has shocked some sense into the party. For America's sake, I hope that is the case.