What should the GOP do?

If you listen to talk shows and the mainstream press, you may have heard an increasing amount of banter by liberal thinkers that the GOP is dead; that as a party the Republicans have lost their way and need to reinvent themselves. Some official members of the Republican Party have echoed this same sentiment. General Colin Powell has talked recently that the GOP needs to moderate on issues and that we basically need to take a good few steps to our left.

At the same time, others in the party, such as former Vice President Cheney have said that we need to stick to conservative principles and that General Colin Powell has basically left the Republican Party.

What should we do?

The answer is pretty obvious when you take a step back. The Republicans blew a prime opportunity when they had it and when the economy tanked they were the ones left holding the hot potato. Hence, they had two very bad elections. They didn’t lose by landslides, but they did lose handily.

However, the Democrats have come to power and have done exactly the opposite of what the Republicans did when they were in power. The Democrats have stuck to their liberal ideology. They’ve held to their principles and are moving in lightning fashion to the left.

And the country is starting to realize this might not be the way to go.

In a recent poll, which is a regular Rasmussen poll repeated every month or so, the country seems to be rejecting the liberal ideology and starting to favor Republicans.

However, the Republicans are the minority party. The candidate that we had for president was not the candidate we needed. Although he is the type of candidate the Gen. Powell says that we need (although he supported President Obama). We have no clear leader at this point. We have several promising, conservative prospects, but nobody has emerged as a clear leader of the party.

Fortunately Republicans are gaining ground without a clear leader to rally around, and conservatives are becoming more dominant within the party. This is good news.

The smart players in Congress can see the writing on the wall. They know they are facing some tough elections and while so many (mainly OUTSIDE the party) are telling Republicans to take a step to the left, the Democrats in Congress are finding that they need to take a few to the right… just to survive.

One of the first things that President Obama did when coming into office was sign an executive order to close the prison in Guantanamo within a year. It doesn’t look like he is going to be able to do that. While it is in his realm of authority to do this he has to go to Congress to get the funding. And yesterday his Democrat led Congress said – NO. Overwhelmingly, NO. By a vote of 90 to 6 the Senate voted to REJECT an amendment to a war funding bill that would have funded the closing of GITMO and the movement of the prisoners to US soil. In fact they also stipulated that no funds already approved could be redirected toward this effort. Ouch.

Despite a still fairly rosy opinion of the President, he is not winning any policy victories with the people.

On top of the tide moving against the liberal policy flood, the country is also moving toward a more conservative moral stance on abortion. 51% of people now call themselves pro-life.

So in an increasingly favorable climate, why on earth would the Republicans move toward a more moderate position?

Forget the fact that I firmly believe that conservative principles are the only moral, intelligent, and historically proven way to run a country successfully. Look at it from a strategic perspective. The country is shifting in your favor, against your opponent. Do you take this opportunity to grey the lines between you, or do you pull out the Sharpie and make that line as clear as possible.

Fortunately this is not the first time we have seen this. Or the first time that the Republicans have been told that they need to moderate. It has happened repeatedly and there is an appropriate response:

"Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?" Ronald Reagan 1976 CPAC

Don’t pull out the pale pinks and mint greens now. Listen to the man who won real landslides with a Democratic congress and a hostile press.

Bold colors.