Get Votes or Die Tryin’
February 20, 2009
Whether you like Michael Steele or not, you have to admit the dude is fearless.
In an interview published in the February 19 Washington Times, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee reiterated his desire to have the GOP compete for votes in every section of the country—and announced plans for a massive public-relations campaign to revive the GOP’s long-damaged image. While he emphasized that he does not plan to abandon the party’s core conservative principles, he also stated that the party must rid itself of its old-Southern-guy aura. To achieve this goal, Steele said, “We need messengers to really capture [the support of the] young, Hispanic, black, a cross section…We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
Further, he noted: “Where we have fallen down in delivering a message is in having something to say, particularly to young people and moms of all shapes—soccer moms, hockey moms…We don’t offer one image for 18-year-olds and another for soccer moms but one that shows who we are for the 21st century.”
I’d like to think that Steele will receive support from high-profile members of the GOP as he endeavors to freshen up the party’s way-past-the-sell-by-date image. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that he’ll run into resistance from Republicans who don’t want to change the way things are done.
With his statements, Steele is now firmly on the side of the party’s reformers, those who recognize that 2009 is not 1979 and conservative principles now have to be communicated in ways that a more educated, more diverse America will not find off-putting. These reformers are not “moderates”; they are clearly to the right of the Olympia Snowe-Susan Collins-Arlen Specter wing of the party. However, they understand that recycling old Reagan lines won’t cut it in the Facebook-Youtube-Twitter-Myspace era.
These “reformers” (many of whom are prominent in the conservative blogosphere) are despised by the old-school faction of the GOP. This faction believes, among other questionable notions, that the United States is actually a conservative (or “center-right”) country, and that all it will take for the GOP to return to power is the discovery of a Reagan clone. This faction feels there’s no real need to alter the presentation of the Republican message to reflect changes in the country’s demographics and culture; as far as this element is concerned, the old stuff just needs to be tried again.
Today, the Republican Party is like a church divided by a power struggle between older and younger clergy. Younger members of the church’s ministerial staff propose new ways of delivering the Gospel, ways that may attract younger people alienated by the dated, decades-old songs and sermons; their proposals are met with scorn from their older colleagues, who insist that the “old-time religion” is the way things ought to be, and that changing the way the church does business would dilute the power of the Word.
Of course, what usually happens in this scenario is that the church’s older members die off, and their children and grandchildren, repelled by the played-out preaching and stagnant spirituals, either find another place to worship, or don’t bother worshipping at all. Then the church shuts down.
This will be the unholy future for the GOP if Steele isn’t allowed to get the party’s message out his way. At bottom, Steele simply wants Republicans to engage the popular culture. What is so wrong with that? Some of the country’s most beloved conservative/Republican figures—John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston—were affiliated with the popular culture. Why shouldn’t the GOP try to compete for the minds and hearts of those who enjoy modern popular culture? We have so-called South Park Republicans, don’t we? Well, why can’t we have 106 & Park Republicans?
Despite the old-guard GOP’s wishes and hopes, there will never be another Reagan. The Republican Party’s principles are timeless, but those principles must be presented in a way that suits the times. That’s all Michael Steele is saying.
Republicans who were against Steele’s election as RNC Chairman viewed him as a “big-tent” thinker, someone who was willing to dilute the GOP’s values in order to win elections. There’s no question that Steele has mouthed “big-tent” platitudes in the past. However, it’s now clear that Steele is actually a big-picture thinker. This is a value to some Republicans. Will it be a vexation to others?
