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Buy Grand New Party

Submitted by Patrick Ruffini on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 14:53
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There are two must-buy products this summer. One is the iPhone 3G. And the other is Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. I just picked it up on Amazon.

Aside from being all around great guys, Ross and Reihan have made a compelling argument that the Republican Party needs to turn its attention to bread-and-butter economic issues to win. I'm not sure I agree entirely with their prescription, but this is the kind of vibrant debate that The Next Right was created for. You can expect to see us covering the arguments on both sides in great depth in the coming days and weeks.

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interview

Submitted by josephcollins on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 15:16.

NRO audio interview with Douthat.

Just ordered my copy, can't

Submitted by Cerebral Alpha on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 15:37.

Just ordered my copy, can't wait to get in to the discussion.

Look, this is nothing new.

Submitted by davidfarrar on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 19:03.

As many here have pointed out, our core value of fiscal conservatism hasn't changed. Most people, if their voices were actually being heard by the political elites, would support this type of a political agenda. The problem is the Republican and Democratic Parties aren't about representing the middle class and its values, they are about force-feeding their own political reality down our throats.  

Good luck getting the Republican Party leadership to address the issues of the middle class when it means divesting themselves of power. Better to keep the grunts in their holes with their heads down.  

ex animo

davidfarrar

Tread Carefully

Submitted by josephcollins on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 21:37.

From some of the reviews I'm reading online it looks like Compassionate Conservatism Lite.  Or perhaps "Competent Compassionate Conservatism"

Take the wage subsidy issue.  Intellectually, it's much better (i.e., less bad) than raising the minimum wage in that it distributes the pain throughout the tax base rather than just on the very employers we're depending on to employ the low end workers.  But as I indicated, that is an intellectual argument, and any argument with more than two moving parts is a tough sell.  As a matter of pure demagoguery, the D's can just call for raising the minimum wage.  People have a visceral reaction to that, even if they don't understand the consequences.  If they want to get fancy the D's can play up class differences about greedy businessmen, but that's just the icing on the cake.

(As an aside, I'd argue that a wage subsidy doesn't go 100% to the wage earner, but is shared between the wage earner and the employer in some proportion.  And if I'm thinking about this correctly it would incentivize DOWN the median wage as an employer could then  -for instance- pay $8/hr for a $10-post-subsidy employee, but must pay $11 for the $11 employee.)

What I see in the reviews is a softer version of trying to out-promise the Democrats, which can't be done.  Maybe a marginal race here or there can be won by something like this, but eventually the rubber meets the road and either people are made to understand that the Democrats' plans are disasterous or they aren't.

I agree...I think.

Submitted by davidfarrar on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 23:25.

..But I do agree with your last point, "Maybe a marginal race here or there can be won by something like this, but eventually the rubber meets the road and either people are made to understand that the Democrats' plans are disastrous or they aren't."

It is to this last point we must focus our attention if fiscal conservatism is ever going to regain the support of the people after the last eight years of Bush's "print and spend" Republicanism.

How do you make people understand the Democrats' plans are disastrous without actually allowing the rubber to meet the road? You can't. The rubber has to meet the road. It's the only way and the quickest way.  What we have to do is be ready to rebuild the party and keep our message loud and clear after this election. We did it before. We can do it again.

A good start is to limit the eligibility rules to the Republican primaries to "registered" Republicans only.

ex animo

davidfarrar

Airplane reading

Submitted by ethan on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 08:16.

 great minds think alike. 

 

With the caveat that I

Submitted by Tom Readmond on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 15:14.

With the caveat that I haven't yet read the book, so I'm not in a position to comment intelligently, I'm a little uncomfortable with what I've read in some of the reviews, in that it appears they're advocating we try to outdo the Democrats on who can give you more or better goodies at the expense of taxpayers.

I'm concerned we're playing on the Democrats' terms here.  We will never beat them at their own game, and further, voters don't want us to.  Our job is to be the party of freedom, not the party of slightly-less-big-government.  The latter amounts to the "me too" Republicanism that kept us in permanent minority status for decades.

On the wage subsidy specifically, josephcollins is quite right that it would help to depress wages, but also would have the very un-conservative effect of shifting wage burdens from the private sector to government, particularly when employers figure out they can cut their labor costs on the backs of taxpayers.

 

great

Submitted by gopcommguy on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 16:44.

i've been wanting to read this for awhile now. thanks for the reminder.

i'm ordering it.

Grand New Party advocates the Michael Gerson/Mike Huckabee model

Submitted by St. Louis Conse... on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 13:09.

They may have some points in emphasizing bread and butter issues and instituting more pro-family tax benefits (although I think a simple flat tax with no deductions is the way to go ultimately).

In the end, the authors seem to argue that the GOP needs to just accept the left's premise, embrace the New Deal, and advocate for a big activist government that does "conservative" things (a contradiction in terms, IMO).

The GOP DOES need to concentrate in being the party of the middle class, the small business owner, the traditional family, and traditional values.  The GOP needs to speak to these votes and teach conservatism in their language, but I think the prescription is off, as Patrick notes in his introduction above. 

If you want a really good book on the political future of the GOP, I suggest "Leave Us Alone" by Grover Norquist.