Sanford Gets In On GOP Post-Mortem Action
Clearly, pinning down and dissecting the cancerous worm that is the Grand Old Party is all the rage amongst pundits and politicos these days.
It’s only been a week since Republicans got their asses handed to them at the polls (again), losing the White House and slipping even further into Congressional irrelevance, but thousands of articles have already popped up trying to explain the disaster and chart a course for the party
Today, S.C. Governor Mark Sanford got in on the action, penning an oped for CNN that compares the GOP to a corporation - one that lost sight of quality control and (as a result) sacrificed its brand identity …
A political party works much like a brand. Companies like Caterpillar and John Deere earn loyal customers by consistently delivering what they advertise — they walk the walk. The same is true of brands like Fed-Ex, the Boy Scouts of America, or the Marine Corps.
I’m always struck by the degree to which the rank and file indeed know what they’re about. I’m equally struck by the degree to which those in office don’t always act on the same.
Chick-fil-a does not say to its franchisees, “However you want to cook the sandwiches is cool with me.” They are precise in what they expect, and it’s my hope going forward more conservatives in all corners of America will be equally precise and exacting in making sure their views are reflected by the party that supposedly represents them.
The time for doing so is short. President-elect Obama proposed $1 trillion in new spending on the campaign trail with no clear plan for paying for it. As a nation, we’re on the hook for $52 trillion — that represents an invisible mortgage of nearly $450,000 held by every household in America.
We’ve thrown $2.3 trillion toward bailouts and stimulus this year with little to show for it in the way of results, and Congress is already contemplating yet another $150 billion to now bail out states that spent faster than even the federal government. I fear an Obama administration will welcome this.
First of all, you gotta love Mark Sanford sometimes.
Only South Carolina’s eminently quirky chief executive would find a way to work the phrase “however you want to cook the sandwiches is cool with me” into such a debate.
Obviously, the governor is no P.J. O’Rourke (or Sic Willie, for that matter) but it’s a decent effort, and certainly a welcome departure from all the centrist crap that’s filling the Republican airwaves these days.
For his many failings (and believe us, there’s no shortage of them), Sanford has always had a pretty good finger on the pulse of what voters want - and politicians need - to hear.
Which isn’t surprising - South Carolina’s second-term governor has been tilting at the GOP’s big-spending windmills for over a decade now, dating back to the aborted “Republican Revolution” of 1994 when he joined a small band of conservatives in protesting Newt Gingrich’s systematic rape of the Contract With America.
Sadly, Republicans weren’t listening then … nor do they appear to be listening now.
Comments
By HP on November 11th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
These “Republicans” need to take the cotton out of their ears and put it in their mouths. For two whole years.
By N Clancy on November 11th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Is Sanford pining for a 2012 run?
By me on November 11th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
i hope so, he has my vote!!!
By Upstate Democrat on November 12th, 2008 at 10:11 am
He’s got no chance in 2012. First time he gets asked a question on live TV and responds with, “Uhhh, ahhhh, lemme see here, well, there’s the thing, uhhhh, ahhhh, certainly, you know, uhhhh, ahhh. Gosh, I hate it when this happens.”
A Palin/Sanford ticket would be incredibly fun to watch, but it has no chance — ZERO — of winning.
By HP on November 12th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Gov. was just on MSNBC speaking from Miami where several governors [including Charlie Crist, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty...] are meeting to regroup from this Republican “shellacking” — as he summarized last Tuesday. Some Republicans apparently aren’t going to sit around licking their wounds. When asked what John McCain could have done differently, Gov. said he would let someone else “write John McCain’s postscript.” This Governors’ Conference in Miami is about looking forward and returning to the basic formula of the Republican Party’s original success:
limited government…individual responsibility…true freedom.
He’s a “rising star” according to MSNBC. Better coverage abroad than in our ‘fair’ city of Columbia!
By Upstate Democrat on November 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
No, the Republican Party’s basic formula of original success was a politics of division, fear and lies, first articulated by Tricky Dick and later perfected and canonized by Lee Atwater. Its success isn’t based on any actual results or confirmation that its policies and positions work, because all the evidence shows they don’t.
The Republican Party’s “original success” was purely political. It was about what wins, not about what was right and wrong.
With people like Palin and Sanford expected to carry the torch from here, the Party will increasingly become marginalized and its success limited to the most rural and least educated and diverse areas of our country.
Sanford may indeed be a “rising star” in the shambles of Lincoln’s once-great party. But if you think that means he has ANY chance of being a viable national candidate, you’re even more out of touch than your boy Howie Rich.
By James the Foot Soldier on November 12th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Upstate Donkey: don’t you have a home? Surely the dailykos or moveondotorg would love to have you grace their website.
There was nothing “purely political” about the ass-whoppin’ Ronald Reagan delievered to Carter and then again to Mondale. THOSE were LANDSLIDES! Reagan’s was a vision and a restoration of America to its rightful place as a beacon of freedom for ALL the world.
This vision was embraced again in 2004 when the American people elected President Bush to a second term soley on the basis of his projection of this beacon to 3rd world countries that had spent centuries in darkness. Trust me -I didn’t vote for w. in 2004 because of Medicare Part D or No Child Left Behind or any of his other political ploys.
Donkeys winning with a 52% plurality is hardly marginalzing.
BTW donkey - when are those middle class tax cuts coming?