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Debate begins in Republican Party on how to regroup

LOS ANGELES TIMES

November 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - After their worst electoral drubbing in more than three decades, Republicans began a difficult and potentially divisive search for a path out of a dark political wilderness.

And with the fall of John McCain and President George W. Bush from the top of the party, a debate is emerging among competing GOP factions over who should pick up the Republican standard.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose positions on abortion and gun rights helped energize the Republican base during the presidential campaign, has already been embraced by many social conservatives.

Others, including champions of small government, see hope in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal or Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Some in the shrinking moderate wing of the party look to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

Also contending for party leadership could be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who both lost bids for the GOP presidential nomination, as well as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

But as Republicans struggle to come to terms with their new status as a powerless party in Washington, it is not clear how the GOP will define itself, let alone who will lead it.

"Everybody understands that we are going to go through a period of re-examining our identity," said Kevin Madden, a former aide to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who worked on Romney's presidential campaign.

"We are going to have to figure out how to rebuild the greater coalition of Republicans and independents and conservative Democrats on issues that really matter to voters," Madden said.

That could be even more difficult as they try to re-establish themselves in opposition to the new president. Barack Obama appropriated Republican messages about taxes and reform during the presidential campaign and may not push as liberal an agenda as many Democrats hope.

Amid the hand-wringing Wednesday, conservative thinkers who helped fashion the Republican rise to power a decade ago were already moving to shape the debate about renewing it. In op-ed and online essays, they heaped scorn on Bush and congressional Republican leaders for expanding government, driving up the national debt and abandoning the core small government principles of the party.

"The party that we have supported has betrayed us and abandoned us," said Richard Viguerie, a leading architect of the modern conservative political movement.

Viguerie and others have been particularly critical of the recently enacted financial bailout pushed by the Bush administration and senior congressional leaders.

Viguerie and others expressed confidence that Bush's exit would help the party return to its roots. "We're finally untethered from the big government conservatism that defined the Bush administration," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a champion of cutting spending.

Flake also urged moving away from wedge issues, such as immigration, which Republican strategists historically looked to. "That has not served our party well," he said.

Yet many social issues remain important to wide swaths of the Republican base also vying to set the party's agenda.

The Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, pointed Wednesday to the success of California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage as a great Election Day victory and a hopeful sign of what an energized grassroots conservative movement can accomplish.

Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist whose clients have included Rudy Giuliani, warned that a swing right would be disastrous.

"If the Republican Party is a right-wing party, it cannot win. It has to transcend ideology to address the common-sense problems with common-sense solutions," Luntz said. "This is a center-right country, not a right-wing one."