A Lesson for the Republican Party as Taught by the Private Sector
Here is a lesson that we as a party need to learn straight from the era of Reagan involving one of America’s most beloved symbols. A symbol loved worldwide, even a point of contention during the cold war. That symbol is of course
Let me just start by saying that both Coca-Cola and its chief rival Pepsi are great companies and true examples of American success stories. This editorial is not to promote or disparage either company or beverage. I only use the brands as analogies to the current politcal environment and to make a point.
Back in 1985 Coca Cola was being soundly beaten by their chief rival, Pepsi. Their market share had dropped from 52% to a low of under 24%. So, the secretive project Kansas was born to create a new Coca-Cola for the masses, one that would be closer to the sweeter Pepsi Cola. The result was a change to a new formula, one that focus grouped well and they hoped would regain the lost market share. The result was a disastrous backlash from the American public. A psychiatrist hired by Coke to listen to public feedback described people talking as if they had lost a member of their family. Even Fidel Castro got into the rising storm against New Coke calling it a sign of “American Capitalist Decadence.”
Less then three months later, Peter Jennings broke into live television on ABC to announce that the decision had been reversed and the original coca-cola was coming back. It was described by Senator David Pryor on the floor of the U.S. Senate as a “meaningful moment in U.S. History.” The original was back and Coke was once again number one in the cola market, a position it has held to this day.
So beyond being a funny anocdote, how does this story have any bearing to the Republican Party and current events? Well I would call the current national party the “new coke” version of the Grand Old Party. They’ve focus grouped and polled the very soul out of the organization. We just lost an election badly on pretty much every level. Now the conventional wisdom of the sage media is that we weren’t enough of a “big tent party.” We weren’t moderate enough. The thing is, the party that won can hardly be called a big tent party itself. The tent is big enough to include all sorts of liberal groups and minorities so that they can piece together numbers, but requirements for admission are always left of center. There is no conserative wing of the Democrat Party. They’ll welcome you for your vote, even let their politicians run as “conservatives” when polling data supports it. But once everything is said and done you had better be lock step behind Pelosi and the party. Arlen Spector is finding that out right now after his switch from a senior Republican to a junior Democrat. The senator that rode in on the coat tails of Regan and has lived by the polls is about to politically die by them, in spectacular mediocrity.
So here’s the point. There is no future for a new “moderate” Republican Party. No matter what focus groups and polls say people want a choice. No matter what anyone says moderate really means liberal. Bipartisanship is heralded as long as its the conservative making liberal consessions. Trying to stay in the center isn’t going to bring people into the party, it will drive them out. No matter how much you make Coke taste like Pepsi, in the end if people want Pepsi they are going to drink Pepsi.
Here’s a map from the last time we were truely a conservative party with a conservative candidate. The 1984 Presidential election was a landslide. There was all the same crying and nashing of teeth from the media as we have heard lately that the president wasn’t intelligent, that his foreign policy was going to get us all killed, yet it was still a landslide of almost unheard of proportions. Why? Because Reagan was an unabashed conservative that clearly expressed his views and the course he planned for the country. He didn’t try to create a “big tent campaign” to bring in more voters. He stuck to his conservative principles and the people flocked to him, even Democrats.
Here is a picture of the latest election results. This is what being “moderate” and “bipartisan” got us. See any difference? We lost people, in droves. We lost the executive branch, the legislative branch, and even governors. The party is in shambles on a national level because we lost our identity. Now we get to sit back and watch as industries are nationalized, health care is socialized, and our deficits and debt reach numbers so unfathomable that not even China wants to lend us money any longer.
Things are grim, but we have an exceptional opportunity here. The country is now getting to see the results of unchecked liberalism. I think there is and will be a lot of buyers remorse. We have a chance in 2010 to offer the country another change. One back to the conservative values and principles that once made us great. If we can retake the legislature like we did in 1994, put it “under new management” again, hopefully we can start to turn things around before we become a bankrupt cradle to grave society completely beholden to foreign interests.
Is Sarah Palin our best hope for turning things around? Not according to the ”moderate” conservative talking heads. But then again, when has anything they’ve advised us to do recently worked out?
