When Winning Is Losing

02/12/2006

Paul Munnis

When Newt Gingrich met and spoke to Conservatives this week he was right on one point and dead wrong on another.

He was right to point at Katrina as an example of the failures of government by the GOP. It is a case study of what is wrong with the GOP. Pointing the finger at a government that would leave dead bodies on the streets for a week following a natural disaster made his point. It is a case-study of failed governing and unfortunately it has strong parallels in economics, foreign policy, and fiscal management.

He was dead wrong to tell the GOP that a new ‘Contract With America,’ is needed. The GOP has a much different problem than a need for more gimmickry.

The GOP suffers from the very notion that the Conservative movement has the only solutions for our American problems and refuses to accept input from the rest of the nation. In a representative system of government that failure is pure political suicide because the GOP is denying voters the very representation that an election was fought for in the first place.

Then add to that an arrogance arising from the power gain plus an Administration based upon cronyism plus a political reward system that is not based upon merit and quality. That is a formula for guaranteed failure.

That is the state of the GOP today. It is an ethos that causes the GOP to continually split and purge itself in order to win Party battles. That action then results in a shrinking of the GOP base and driving those who were purged into the other camp. That finally leads to a total loss of power. It is the stuff that revolution is made of.

The basis for the Conservative movement is patently false and it is the reason behind all of the GOP’s political woes.

You see, it takes a united citizenry to make a political solution succeed. For them to be united they have to see that it is a good solution for the majority of the nation. Citizens want a win-win outcome that unites us as a people. Deny the voters that comfort and you will assure Party destruction in politics.

The GOP has specialized in the politics of division. Karl Rove’s strategies may get a win of a particular campaign effort but they cannot win the war for the hearts and minds of those being governed. Indeed Rove seeks to divide citizens in order to create a vote plurality of just one percent, that is enough to ‘win.’ Yet without the support of the people then the war is lost in the act of attempting to govern.