Tuesday Night – It’s Just Going to Suck for the GOP

By Kirk Shelley

I’m not going to sugar coat it, if you are a hard core conservative Republican thank your lucky stars that you can go to the liquor store on election day. You are probably going to want a stiff drink.

To make matters worse, on Wednesday the inside the belt way GOP apologist will announce that the GOP lost because it lost moderate voters and will push for more centralist rhetoric from the grassroots.

I’m going to suggest that the real reason the GOP is going to lose is because it has strangled its grassroots.

How?

#1. Bush’s fiscal policy. W ran on a platform where we would privatize social security, but somehow we ended up with the Prescription Drug Benefit – the largest government giveaway since The Great Society.

#2. George Bush Bipartisanship. Ted Kennedy got his way on education issues and we get No Child Left Behind – the biggest involvement in local schools ever. Keep in mind that this is from the political party that just 15 years ago was still advocating getting rid of the Federal Department of Education.

#3. The GOP Congress who forgot who brought them to the dance. What were the issues that put the GOP in charge of Congress? We were tired of the scandals, the lobbyist, the inside deals. We wanted them to get rid of programs, and not spend money. During the six years of the Clinton Presidency with a Republican Congress the GOP didn’t spend money and we got welfare reform. During the Bush years, the GOP spent money like a drunken sailor and started to get very cozy with lobbyists like Jack Abramoff.

What has been the net result? The GOP got a bump following 9/11. The grassroots was much more concerned with Islamic Fascism than fiscal policy, but since we basically won the wars, the GOP leadership has ignored the concerns of GOP activists.

What is a conservative supposed to do? Vote for the GOP and get ruinous federal spending and devalued currency or vote Democrat and get ruinous federal spending and higher taxes? Elections since 2006 have been a sucker’s bet for conservatives. The bailout deal was straw that broke the camel’s back. You can give me every argument you want that the deal was vital for our economy, but on principle it created the hypocrisy that Republicans are conservative when there is profit involved, but socialist when it comes to losses. Ever since the deal was announced, the GOP ship started sinking like a stone.

All of this doesn’t prove that GOP grassroots support has died. How do you measure grassroots activism? There are some indicators that we need to look at.

Membership in conservative groups – conservative groups have been successful in getting money from small numbers of large donors, but small donors are drying up.

When was the last time you received a letter from a conservative group asking you to return your survey, petition or postcard to your congressman? I’m on large number of these lists and it has been a long time since these groups have asked me to contact my legislator.

Why? Mainly because too many of these groups are tied into the beltway elite and pushing for fiscal sanity would be embarrassing to the Bush Administration. There have not been any good battles for conservatives to fight.

Remember the Republican conservative revolution began with Carter’s giveaway of the Panama Canal. It created a huge number of new conservative donors. A new grassroots movement began as we found out there were conservatives in America and they were willing to finance political battles outside of political parties. These new conservative groups reshaped American politics and gave us Regan and were still there when Clinton came in and created the GOP Congress.

Unfortunately when the GOP took over too many of these “conservative leaders” cashed in to major corporate influence brokers. The disconnect between limited government and corporate desires to get more taxpayers money or less accountability for their excesses cut the GOP off from the grassroots.

While the GOP and major lobby firms have been getting better acquainted what has the political Left been doing? Creating Move On and other grassroots organizations that are connected to vast numbers of people. They have a huge number of low dollar donors and activists. While conservatives have been dismissive of these groups, you can’t deny their growing power and influence. These groups have a sense of community that conservatives don’t have at the moment.

So on Wednesday morning and we look over the political battlefield and you see the smoldering ruins of the GOP it is not a time for conservatives to give up, it is time for us to reclaim our country. There are going to be some serious battles in the next few months and there is not much time to get ready for them.

The biggest battle is going to stop the Card Check Bill. It is legislation that would get rid of secret ballot elections for union representation AND would only give small business a few months to sign a union contract or have the federal government write a two year contract for them. When the Democrats took over the Congress they passed the bill within a month in the House and it was stopped by just a few votes in the Senate.

Then we must stop the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine which would kill talk radio.

We are not going to have time to cry, conservatives are going to get ready to roll. But take heart, simply by fighting these battles we can rebuild the grassroots networks and reconnect the GOP to reality.

Mr. Shelley is President of Shelley Strategic Services. He is finally able to resume writing after a very busy campaign season.  His consulting for pro-business organizations has included successfully completed projects in Iowa, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, Mississippi, Arizona, Louisiana and Alabama.  Mr. Shelley lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and four children.