I’m not going to lie, most Republicans would rather face Hillary Clinton in November. She’s smart, but ultimately too many Americans just don’t like her. Many Democrats realize this (or don’t like her themselves), so I guess it really makes sense that so many Democrats are going to Obama, who many people actually do like.
Many Republicans might feel uneasy about having to face an ultimately stronger candidate in the general election, but I think it could do wonders for the Republican party. In order to win against the new Democratic machine, we will need to be innovative and think outside the box. We will need to reach out to groups of people that may not normally vote Republican. We will need a whole new strategy to win a whole new kind of election. It is just what the party needs.
A couple of months ago, I outlined some of the party’s bad strategy in Poor “Strategery”. At the time, I was not very confident anything was going to be done before the 2008 election and my general feelings were that a Republican might win, but the long term trend was not in our favor. But several things have happened since December 19th, indicating to me that these bad trends just might be turning around.
Republicans chose the most visible moderate, John McCain to be the nominee. Granted, he doesn’t have it yet, but it’s mathematically impossible for anybody else to get it at this point. Democrats began choosing Obama over Clinton, which removes the enabler (Hillary) from allowing us to win without changing some core ways in which the party behaves.
Like I said in that December 19th post, the Republican party is going to have to change in order to keep up with the Democrats. We need to be more inclusive towards people who haven’t traditionally been Republicans. If we don’t reach out and show Americans what the party can do, we will shrink as America moves forward into this century. We can’t just allow ourselves to become a group of White and Christian people - we need diversity to continue.
A species needs genetic diversity to continue to be strong, healthy and adaptive; likewise we need diversity to continue to be relevant, competitive and innovative. We need people of all colors, faiths, and people of different political ideas within the “right wing” of the political spectrum (in other words Moderates, Conservatives and even Libertarians). And we need a new understanding within the party so that we can all work together - otherwise we are just working against each other.
Hillary enables us to continue along our present path: we’ll win in November, but from then on we are in a vary problematic situation. However Barack Obama forces us to change in order to beat him. In the end, we may not beat him in November, but we will have changed for the better because of it.
Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Sunday, March 2nd 2008; 1:20 pm