Dispatches from San Juan.

A Road Map for Republican Victory.

By the blogger known as Teddy Roosevelt


The Republican Party has been fighting with itself trying to decide which road leads back to power. Is it the road to the right or the road down the so called middle? Can a party of ideological purity win or do we need a big tent.

The fact is that we can not win without the conservative base but we must also attract Independents. This election cycle has shown us how to accomplish both.

Our candidates need to be fiscal and social conservatives but they should only talk about fiscal issues. Both Chris Christie in NJ and Bob McDonnell in Virginia are pro life, pro family candidates that social conservatives should be very happy with. But that is not what they spoke about on the campaign trail and they refused to get dragged into that conversation (and boy did their opponents try). Their message was less spending and more economic growth, fiscal responsibility and less taxes. Both of them focused in on that message like a laser.

The Independents generally don’t care about the other issues that much. They only get worked up one way or the other when that’s what the candidates focus on. Sure the militant feminists and gays are not going to vote for us but quite frankly, most of them wouldn’t anyway. However the Independents love that fiscally conservative message. They can eat that up all day. That’s what they really care about, the pocket book.
With the people that do care about the other issues we already have the advantage. Gay marriage has failed in every state where it has been put to a vote. I think the count is 32 now. Poll after poll shows that for those who vote strictly on the life issue, pro life voters out number pro choice voters by two to one. Recent polls have shown that pro life people are in the majority now. My point is, being socially conservative is not as bad a thing for a politician to be as many pundits would have you believe.

That being said, why alienate those people who think they have an opinion but really do not want to discuss those types of icky issues. Say where you stand once so the base of your party knows and then hammer home how you are going to make the vast middle prosperous.

Yes there are other things we need to work out. We need to find a coherent national leader. We need to think about our foreign policy. Let’s face facts even if you agree that Iraq was the right thing to do it is pretty clear that the majority wants us to be more selective in how we use our military. Those issues are for another day. The key however is our base plus the middle and Governor ELECT Christie and Governor ELECT McDonnell have shown us the way.

The Monmouth Bull Moose.