Repairing the Republican Brand

On January 27, 2009, the New America Foundation hosted a panel of GOP thinkers and policymakers to discuss the current status of the Republican Party, the lessons of its defeat in the 2008 election and the challenges it faces in the years ahead.  Featured speaker Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Senior Policy Advisor to McCain for President and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, was followed by responses from New America Foundation Fellows Jim Pinkerton and Reihan Salam.  David Gray, Director of the Workforce and Family Program at New America, provided the introduction and moderated the question-and-answer session that followed.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin opened his talk by thanking New America for assisting his “therapeutic recovery from the campaign.”  He noted that, as an economist and policy analyst, he was talking outside his portfolio in addressing political issues.  Holtz-Eakin first sought to answer the question, “What happened in the 2008 presidential elections?” 

The 2008 campaign was run in the context of a deeply unpopular president and a greatly diminished Republican brand.  There simply was not a large enough Republican “base” to win, so the party had to reach out to moderates and independents.  The McCain campaign was further hampered by economic events: whenever Wall Street went through “a fit,” people looked backwards and assessed GOP economic policy failures.  (McCain’s numbers ticked upwards, however, when the campaign oriented toward the future, as in the case of Joe the Plumber’s pointed question to Senator Obama.)  Ultimately, however, 2008 was a turnout election; Obama simply had to turn out his voters to win, and in the end the GOP won not a single key battleground state. 

Since McCain’s defeat, Holtz-Eakin noted, discussion in some Republican circles has focused on returning to the “Reagan playbook.”  Holtz-Eakin contended that this strategy is not the answer: conditions in the late 1970s were very different from conditions today.  The Republican Party needs to be more appealing, more open to broader demographics.  Moreover, the GOP must have an answer for how to help the middle class and a message for urban areas.  The party must not abandon its roots entirely: American strength, national security, personal responsibility, and individual risk-taking.  However, the GOP absolutely needs a greater tolerance of intra-party divisions.  The “majority of the majority” mentality of the Republican-controlled Congress plastered over differences by turning the GOP into the “party of earmarks and special interests,” and created the image of Republicans as “cookie-cutter” in the minds of voters. 

In terms of a specific policy agenda, Holtz-Eakin argued that the GOP must be more interested in the “real economy” and should adopt a pro-manufacturing bent.  Party leaders must figure out the positive functions of a limited government and should work towards implementing their vision of a new social contract.  Currently perceived by the public as the party of “no,” the GOP must dispel the notion that it is a party against healthcare and education reform, and it must develop a more coherent message on energy and the environment.  Lastly, Republicans must look at new policies for solving the Social Security and Medicare entitlements crisis--a big government problem which only worsened under George W. Bush.  In sum, the GOP must be a party of “new ideas,” for which anti-elitism does not equal know-nothing-ism.  Republicans must “remember that it’s a center-right country, and respect the center.”

Jim Pinkerton, Senior Advisor to Huckabee for President, Domestic Policy Aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and contributor to Fox News, opened his response by stating flatly that the “the GOP deserved to lose in 2008, and voters rendered their judgment.”  The GOP failed on competence, Pinkerton noted, but continues to score strongly on values.  He believes that the financial bailout--TARP--will be a major intra-party dividing line in the future, and compared today’s political climate to that of the post-Civil War era: a time of one-party dominance, in which the main issue was railroads, and the brutal and corrupt nature of economic expansion led to the birth of populist and Progressive movements.  Pinkerton then took issue with Holtz-Eakin’s claim that today is not like the late-1970s--he showed a graph of the exploding money supply in 2008, and suggested that the coming inflation will be a major (if grim) boon to tomorrow’s GOP.  Going forward, Pinkerton believes the GOP should fight a new Kyoto, cap-and-trade, carbon tax, and other growth-inhibiting environmental regulation “to the death,” and resist the coalition of liberal coastal Americans and northwest Europeans.  Finally, Pinkerton touched on the issue of intellectualism: conservatives were historically smart (even anti-populist), and the conservative movement must continue to respect this tradition in order for it to thrive going forward. 

Reihan Salam, co-author of Grand New Party: How Conservatives Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, stated that he broadly agrees with the policy prescription that Holtz-Eakin outlined.  He noted one significant challenge facing Republicans: the Democrats have a very deep and growing bench, as almost all 25-year old centrists voted Democrat in 2008.  The Republicans will have a very hard time winning policy arguments in the coming years: political dominance leads to intellectual self-confidence, and minority status produces crabby defensiveness.  Moreover, there is a large gap between GOP candidates and regular GOP voters--Republican elites have not been responsive to a changing electorate and are too beholden to Washington’s intellectual echo-chamber.  The GOP must look at the redistribution of voters in recent decades and look at the opportunities in states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New Jersey--where the Republicans lost by less than they should have in 2008.  The GOP that wins in those states, however, will be slightly more heterodox and middle class-friendly than today’s party.  Fundamentally, the Republican Party needs to develop a new framework for talking about economic issues--marginal tax rates are simply much less salient today than they were in 1980.  Instead, the GOP must ask itself, “What are the barriers for middle-class people who want to get ahead?” and develop a new set of policies and messages around that question. 

David Gray moderated the question-and-answer session that followed.  After posing a few questions to the panelists, including issues of branding, speculating about future GOP personalities, and receptivity to a new middle-class orientation, Gray opened the floor to audience members.  Questioners touched upon how the GOP can convey its new intellectual orientation, the future of the veteran constituency, what the rise of Ron Paul means for the party, and its institutional capacity for adaptation.

-- Event summary by Daniel Mandel, Program Associate, Next Social Contract Initiative, New America Foundation

Participants

Featured Speaker
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Senior Policy Advisor, McCain for President
Former Director, Congressional Budget Office

Respondents
Jim Pinkerton
Senior Advisor, Huckabee for President
Domestic Policy Aide to President Reagan and Bush 41
Contributor to Fox News and Fellow, New America Foundation

Reihan Salam
Fellow, New America Foundation
Co-author, Grand New Party: How Conservatives Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream

Moderator
David Gray
Director, Workforce and Family Program, New America Foundation