Navel Gazing

One of the results of this last election is the endless navel gazing that has come out of the conservative community. Some inside the beltway pundits and consultants are hard pressed to understand how their guy, who was so "beloved" by the media could have lost and they are trying to blame it on the "new kid" - Sarah Palin. Others, who honestly helped contribute to the loss have other things to say.

For all intents and purposes, conservatism--as a national movement--is completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

However, the facts do not bear him out.

Barack Obama won the White House by campaigning against an unpopular incumbent in a time of economic anxiety and lingering foreign policy concerns. He offered voters an upbeat message, praised the nation as a land of opportunity, promised tax cuts to just about everyone, and overcame doubts about his experience with a strong performance in the presidential debates.

Does this sound familiar? It should. Mr. Obama followed the approach that worked for Ronald Reagan. His victory confirmed that voters still embrace the guiding beliefs of the Reagan era.

One of the things that grass roots activists have been hammering the National Republican Party on is just this - there has been no compelling narrative out of the national party. Every time some intrepid activist or elected Republican stumbles upon one, the RNC comes in and co-opts it into a negative narrative and voters want nothing to do with it!

What the voters want (when you talk to them) is a government that will apply a little common sense to the issues of the day. The message that came out of the Obama campaign was much better crafted than the one coming out of the McCain campaign. As a result, the voters understood it better and voted accordingly. If conservatives are going to recover (without years in the wilderness) the RNC needs to figure this out fast. Otherwise...