Looking north to Canada

If the poll numbers hold up, Republicans are going to have a lot of time on their hands to figure out where to go next. They sure won't be governing.

We could do worse than look north to Canada, where Stephen Harper and the conservatives, while not winning a majority, have strengthened their ranks. Harper's government I would suggest has succeeded by concentrating on middle and working class voters open to a conservative message.*

It's too early to determine how good a leader Palin might turn out to be, but someone who got up to speed at the level she did in the time she had shouldn't be "misunderestimated." You betcha' her appeal to working/middle class voters might be a good base for a future party.

What's certain is that a big government conservative party that takes care of Wall Street and forgets Main Street is a loser.

*(From Paul Wells'  Right Side Up, on the victory of Harper in Canada: "What was the alternative? A mostly economic conservatism, a modern Canadian version of the Thatcher-Reagan phenomenon. The basis of Reform's market should be the private-sector urban middle class, and the core of its message should be free markets and low taxes...[the party] would be stitched together from those parts of the urban middle class, urban working class, and rural population that can agree on an agenda of market economics and traditional values. Compared to traditional conservatism, this version would be substantially down-market."

Sounds pretty good to me. Before the GOP can right itself, it needs to know who its voters are.

Tim Wright