I have an earlier post, attacking Colin Powell's rationale in publicly endorsing Barack Obama. I stand by those criticisms, but I believe Colin Powell is fundamentally correct here. There is no doubt that John McCain's losing a third of Bush's 2004 Hispanic support was largely due to an anti-GOP backlash following the 2007 Immigration Bill failure, due to hysterical attacks by media conservatives, even though Bush and McCain were strong proponents of immigration reform. We saw similar backlashes in Pete Wilson's divisive final campaign for governor of California; with the exception of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose appeal is based more on his celebrity than his party credentials, Republicans are having a hard time winning statewide elections.
We have departed from those ideals Emma Lazarus immortalized in her poem, "The New Colossus":
Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
As a pro-business Republican, I am appalled by xenophobic rhetoric, broken foreign worker programs, lax border security, dysfunctional employer verification systems, and chained (vs. merit-based) migration. The status quo is not acceptable; according to a 2005 Pew Hispanic Center study, somewhere in the neighborhood of up to 40% of illegal Mexican immigrants are out of work for a month or longer, and some 82% live with relatives. (At least some illegal immigrants are eligible for path to citizenship because of chained migration but may be backlogged because of annual quotas.) There is no doubt that the status quo without a defined process for criminal background and health care checks (i.e., contagious, ill immigrants) is a national security concern. The 2007 Immigration Bill was not perfect but a good compromise. The media conservatives vehemently objected to it, not only alienating new generations of immigrant Americans whom see the objections implicitly directed at them, but thwarting our attempts to focus on higher-knowledge/skilled immigrants whom bring entrepreneurial aspirations or fulfill in-demand skill shortages (e.g., nurses).
Colin Powell, who reasserted his GOP membership, is fundamentally correct. Rush Limbaugh and his media conservative colleagues aim at excommunicating those not conforming to their configuration of neo-Reaganite policies. This is a prescription for GOP suicide. Already we now have a situation where New England has no GOP Congressmen. States which once regularly had GOP senators or governors, like California and Illinois, are now voting solidly Democrat. Barack Obama co-opted the middle-class tax issue from John McCain and threw in some sweeteners, including for those not making enough to pay income taxes. The GOP has almost nothing in its arsenal to motivate those voters beyond half-hearted attempts to providing private school or charter school vouchers, largely squashed by opposition from teacher unions.
First of all, we need to bridge to minority communities. One good hint comes from California Proposition 8, reinstating the traditional concept of marriage between a man and woman, which passed with 70% of the black vote, heavily motivated by the national candidacy of Barack Obama. The concept of family and traditional cultural values are particularly relevant to Hispanics. We need to address an agenda that touches on everyday struggles in urban neighborhoods, including law-and-order issues, employment/training, underserved consumer needs (e.g., supermarkets, loans, and transportation) and entrepreneurship. Note that Barack Obama is willing to accept skyrocketing utility bills that will hit the poor and middle-class hard in order to pay environmentalists back for their political support, e.g., cap-and-trade. We also need to provide higher profiles for GOP minority members; for example, naming someone like Colin Powell, Condi Rice, or Michael Steele as head of the RNC.
Second, we need to reassert our commitment to limited government and government spending, establish more of a problem-solving, pragmatic approach to resolving national problems, including putting all options on the table, and focus on streamlining government, improving taxpayer services and responsiveness, and emphasizing managerial competence.
Third, just as Barack Obama and the Democrats have tried to co-opt bread-and-butter issues like middle-class tax cuts (easy to do when the liberal mass media only pay lip service to the issue of how you can do that while increasing spending), the GOP needs to co-opt social welfare programs (e.g., flatten middle management while maintaining/improving end user services).
Fourth, the GOP needs to explicitly support the legitimacy and respectful expression and acceptance of a diversity of opinions, including social issues like abortion. I have strong pro-life views, and I am intolerant of politically expedient rationales, e.g., "I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I don't believe in imposing my religious beliefs on others." But I can understand why some on principle would resist government interference in medical decisions.
Fifth, the Republicans need to commit themselves to solving and not simply window-dressing or passing off to future legislatures fundamental public policy issues, like imminent funding crises for Medicare and social security, a crumbling infrastructure, and catastrophic health spending.
Sixth, unlike the Democrats who largely won the economic battle of 2008 by default simply not by being Bush, the GOP must provide a constructive opposition with bipartisan vehicles. It's not enough to simply dissent or to attack Democrats on a personal level; we need to provide a comprehensive proposal with market-based, limited-government solutions. There is no doubt that the Republicans will benefit if the legislative and executive branches under Democratic control bomb on the economy over the coming 2-year cycle; the United States cannot afford for the GOP to stand back and watch the Democrats drive a recession into a depression and fervently pray for a global war to bring our economy back up or run up the bill on our grandchildren with ineffectual make-work projects and government giveaways.
Finally, the Republicans need to freshen up policy ideas. Pushing tax cuts when 40% of the voting public doesn't pay income taxes is not enough (although skyrocketing food and energy costs are pernicious side-effects to counterproductive Democratic policies). Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" was an inspiration for the 1994 campaign. Former Speaker Gingrich has suggested updated issues for the 21st century (americansolutions.com), and Congressman Paul Ryan (WI-R) has proposed a competing agenda for America's future (americanroadmap.org).
