Republican Governors are still missing the real causes of GOP election losses

The thinning ranks of the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami this week hope to find ways of rebuilding their party, yet the news coming out of their gathering shows general blindness to the root causes of GOP losses nationally and locally in the November 4 election.

With 21 GOP governors still in office after the election, only 19 are attending the conference. Among them, we have seen some fingers pointing the right direction, such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal talking about too many years of excessive government spending and the recent conviction of Alaska GOP Sen. Ted Stevens on seven felony counts. His assessment barely scratched the surface.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty ticked of GOP weakness in Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, the Great Lakes states, the Western states, and the West Coast. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation." he told reporters.

Pawlenty listed other GOP problems, such as  a "deficit" among women, Hispanic and African American voters along with "people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."

Again this assessment barely scratches the surface.

The first step to recovery is the admission you have a problem, and Republican need to face a wide range of serious problems:

* Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the excessive business deregulation that allowed the U.S. mortgage banking industry to collapse and set off the chain reaction now sending us into a global recession.

*Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the largest expansion of the federal government bureaucracy in U.S history coupled with the national debt and largest foreign trade imbalance in U.S. history. Foreign powers keep lending us more money to dig our financial hole ever-deeper; the leverage they now wield over U.S trade and military policies poses a greater threat to national security than all the terrorists in the world combined.

*Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the tax policies behind the largest redistribution of private wealth in the nation's history; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer while the middle class has steadily been getting squeezed out of existence. 

* Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the atmosphere of corruption in Washington, DC, where lobbyists have ruled the roost through veiled bribery and extortion tactics in a "pay to play" system of influence peddling.

* Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the delays in arresting the Al Qaeda terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks. Although U.S. commandos at one point were within 500 yards of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, orders from the White House averted their attack, allowing him with escape into the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

* Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, an unjust and costly quagmire war that's done more to aid the cause of terrorism than anything else expect perhaps the Republican-guided U.S. policy of kidnaping and torturing suspected terrorists in known and secret prisons around the world.

* Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the assault on civil liberties that still threatens to undermine the Bill of Rights for freedom-loving Americans.

* Republicans in the White House and Congress are primarily responsible for the delays in responding to global climate change from human causes, and this delay of nearly a decade will prove extremely costly in the losses of lives and property over the coming years.

These are only some of the major problems that Republicans remain in denial about.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for example, ignored the real issues and said the solution is for Republicans to broaden their voter base. He's correct in realizing that there are not enough social conservatives to win elections, especially since President Bush alienated many evangelicals by exploiting them for his political ends.

However, Crist's call for a making the tent bigger still misses the reasons listed above for people not wanting to be inside the GOP tent.

Perhaps the only sound voice in the assembly was South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who's called  for a return to the Republican roots of fiscal conservatism and small government. Such a shift, if genuine, could win back many former friends.

If Republicans choose to emulate the social values and economic polices of Barry Goldwater, they may improve their political fortunes. They would make a dire mistake, though, if they choose to emulate the values and policies of Ronald Reagan, for much of our present economic woes originated with his sadly  misguided faith in massive deregulation as a panacea.

So, I applaud Republicans for wanting to see the error of their ways and change course. This worthy effort will succeed only if they remove their blinders and face hard realities about their party's abuse of power.
 

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