The GOP, Assessing the Election

Majority Leader Roy Blunt delivered a speech at the Heritage Foundation entitled “The New Way Forward: Refocusing the Conservative Agenda.”

“An honest assessment of the last few years of Republican governance in Washington reveals three distinct shortcomings. First, as the party in charge for most of the last six years, we have often become the defenders rather than the challengers of business as usual. Second, we have failed to create a culture of less but better government and too often have given in to the culture of spending so pervasive in Washington. Finally, we have allowed our efforts to defend traditional values to be defined as little more than a politically driven effort to appease ‘family groups.’ These disappointments, combined with a seemingly constant stream of ethics issues afflicting a few Members of Congress, caused some in our movement to lose faith.

Well, the GOP leadership has finally woken up from their slumber. That big, old whomp on the head finally shook them up. Now, that we have their attention are they going to correct their mistakes?

2007 and 2008 are opportunities once again for us to let the American people know what we stand for.
“We say we want to cut spending, and we will.
“We say we want to reform the welfare state by empowering citizens to make their own decisions, and we will.
“We say we want to defend traditional American values, and we will.
“We say we want to confront and defeat totalitarians who threaten our freedom, and we will.
“Our job is not to defend business as usual, not to defend everything the government does, but to challenge it and see that it is done better.
“Our job is to insist on less and better government.
“Demanding that the federal government do its job (not everyone else’s) and do it as well as it can possibly be done.
“Our job is to put our values above political expediency.
“If we do these things – we will quickly see those ideas embraced by an overwhelming majority of Americans; my party will be the majority party, and our country will see another century become the American Century.”

It's a good start. Maybe, by the 2008 elections, the GOP will have gotten itself back together to start winning elections.