The Republican Problem

I met a woman with an aquiline nose and a quiet air about her. She stood with a simple grace. Her hair fell from her shoulders in locks. She was plus size but held herself well in that weight. Her eyes were blue, her skin white and her manner comfortable - and yet at the same time - slightly phase shifted from the everday. She was an art school graduate, not wealthy - but she easily identified herself as a member of the social level I was comfortable with. A black dress with a pink blouse. What political party did she belong to?

I met another woman. She was tall, thin - endearing but harboring smallnervous habits such as writing notes on her left hand. Her form was proportionate and attractive, with a fall of platinum blonde hair. She was strong and confident in her speech. On her left hand was the outline of a small note she had drawn there - a half erased phone number. She dressed well but comfortably, cotton dress, sandals. What political party did she belong to?

Who do you identify with? What are your ideas? Do you keep a 24 hour news channel close by, does it make you feel good to have that sound there all the time? If you drive down the road, do you tune into talk radio? Where is the balance between what you believe as a person, and what you will do as a voter.. Are you just conservative? Just Liberal? Or a mix of both?

Government works best if there is a balance. Its like a golf swing - tense up, grip too hard and use too many silly tricks and you will eff things up. Hold the club with all the grip pressure as if you were holding a live bird in your hands, take a smooth, easy swing. Keep your head down. The ball will go a country mile.

This combination of discipline and responsiveness, a balance between liberal and conservative ideas - makes our experiment in democracy effective. Many of us are a mix of conservative and liberal ideals. There are very few real partisans in the United States, and those that are - often you will find have other agenda than the national interest.

And yet, it would seem that there is no conservative representation. The Republican Problem is defined in three simple observations.

• First, the GOP is the handmaiden of lobbyism
• The party has little to speak for its tenure of the last 10 years.
• Third, the GOP,has moved steadily to embrace status anxiety as the mechanism of their brand

Status anxiety is defined by ADB as A worry so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one. As played by the party - it is the acknowledgement that we rely upon signs of respect from the world to see ourselves in a stable position.

The GOP, unable to embrace the world in this game - became all too ready to see the use of American military might as a way to solve diplomatic problems. Bringing that perspective home, the appeal to white men - in a hypersexualized society - gave them a similiar set of issues. Their response was to brand themselves as the party of security. And wealth. Hitching their wagon to the star of money - as a vehicle for status. And crashing just as fast as the stock market.

A leadership bound tightly to lobbyism - gave us a virally toxicmarket condition that moved the entire global economy into a crash

To be a handmaiden of lobbyism, real reform like the fairtax, or shutting down the useless buildings of the federal reserve (quaintly located a 24 hour train ride from each major city, so they can put the cash on a train - as if they wouldn't electronically transfer it..) will be championed in name and then, quietly - meeting with the lobbyists - it will be a subject for review in the smokefilled room - the interests that wish to kill it will ensure that the initiative dies in this manner. The hand that rocks the cradle.. rules the world.

Massive amounts of money from lobbyist firms channel their way through the GOP. In the last election, Fannie Mae's chief lobbyist ran the campaign for the presidential candidate of the GOP. A Vice Presidential candidate was brought on that publicly decried lobbyism while having hired a lobbyist firm to pull in millions of dollars for a town that was only a few thousand people strong. She'd voted for and supported a 'bridge to nowhere' but made absolutely certain the public image of her 'fighting it' was seen far and wide. She ended up taking the money for it and keeping it.

In the pursuit of lobbyism, true reform has always been something they will close rank about, publicly and outwardly champion - and then quietly kill. Of the lobbyists. By the lobbyists. And For the Lobbyists. Of course they'll also quietly fund people like Ron Paul to help clear up the whole Earmark issue.. you know, the thing that makes legislation bloat into 10,000 page monstrosities...? So the lobbyists can do their job without being noticed..? Here's Dr. Paul on the subject.. ..

The final word on the Republican problem is responsibility. On their watch,the lockstep of corporate lobbyism and corporate unresponsibility in America - has created a glaring gap that has allowed the underbelly of the beast to be shown. Laws and Sausages should not be seen, being made - to be true. But in that same guise, to be as brazen and outwardly concerted in the denial of the legacy of the Bush Republicans, the failure of K Street, and the cynical positioning of the party with respect to their recent history is to gamble that Americans won't think it through and figure them out.

The Grand Old Party would do well for them to take a hike up to the Golgotha where the skulls of the parties that have failed, whig, tory, and so on - since 1776 that blossomed around ideas ... and then over time, became locked in contradiction ... now grin back from the grave. Lobbyism and conservatism do not mix.

Is the GOP so broken it cannot be fixed? No. But it is no different, now, in its history - than the Tory or Whig parties once were.. and it will not survive if it cannot reconnect with the grassroots constituencies. There is a bottom line: The American people welcome Obama as their leader. If the GOP should choose to rebuild itself to a connected, modern party framework that a priori excludes lobbyism - it will acquiesce that they have lost the battle of ideas, and have been misled by people like Rove.

It will involve new economics, different ways of getting paid. Different ways of doing things. And it will involve letting the 24 hour news cycle die.. The Republican Problem of complete disconnection with the American people is simple to solve.. disintermediate the vested interests that have turned it into a sideshow and make it a party of ideas, connectivity and grassroots action.

No Lobbyists. Just Right.