How to save the GOP

There is growing concern over the recent loss of such American icons as Circuit City, the Pontiac Firebird and the Republican Party.

Circuit City and the Firebird are gone, done in by a weak economy. The GOP has been done in by much more than the economy, but there are those who believe the party can be saved, perhaps should be saved, if you really believe our country is better off with two political parties even if one of them has spent the past two decades bad-mouthing the federal government it wants to run.

It is not a pretty picture.

Among Republicans, there are 15 million true believers. They listen to Rush Limbaugh every day, believe everything he says and worship the airwaves he unbalances.

Then there are the moderates, thoughtful, hopeful their party will come to grips with problems that trouble average citizens. At last count, there were nine of these (eight, if Rush has his way with Colin Powell).

Even though the numbers favor Rush and the ditto-heads, Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t want to write off the moderates. Losing a “liberal” like Arlen Specter was okay, but those two women Senators up in Maine should be saved if the East Coast is not to be abandoned altogether.

Southern officeholders, those with the safe seats who can and do say the most outrageous things that leave GOP voters elsewhere gasping and changing their registration, are to do what they were taught as children: to be silent and let the adults speak.

The party has to get some new, attractive, young leaders. Newt Gingrich has been around for such a long time people often forget why they don’t like him. Minority whip Eric Cantor is a bright young man who has good ideas but comes across as someone about to foreclose on your house. He and the party also need reminding that while “no” may be a tactic, it is not a policy for rebuilding America.

Above all, the party must put a “cone of silence” over Dick Cheney. They’ve got to get the man to shut up. During his last year in office, Cheney was rarely heard from, and when the economy came apart at the seams he had nothing to say, leaving all the heavy-thinking to W (and we know how that turned out).

When they left the White House, W’s approval ratings were the lowest of any president, ever, but compared to Cheney he was FDR. A tight-lipped W went back to Texas, leaving his legacy to the Ari Fleishers and Fox News. Cheney bounded out of his bunker as if on steroids, appearing on more channels than “Law and Order” re-runs, praising torture and expressing disgust at Republicans like Powell.

Finally, Republicans have to get a grip on taxes. Despite everything Grover Norquist has told them, cutting taxes does not solve every problem. The party needs to understand that our government can’t function without taxes. Despite what Rush tells you, taxes are needed for more than just Medicaid and food stamps. Taxes pay for schools and highways and sewer systems. Taxes pay for our military war machine that the GOP leadership can’t have enough of—they keep throwing money (taxpayer money) at new weapons systems the Pentagon says it doesn’t need.

While the GOP picture may look grim now, we Democrats have been there. We know they just might be one obscure community organizer away from turning it around.

At Last

At last, Republicans have a healthcare plan. Carefully crafted by master spinner Frank Luntz, their plan is how to kill the Democratic healthcare plan.

President Obama has made health care his top legislative issue. He wants a plan that provides affordable health care for every American. Polls show that the American people like that idea and feel it can’t come too soon.

Of course, on an issue where the concerns of average people are at odds with a profit-making industry, the GOP feels compelled to step in and protect the industry.

This is in their tradition. It’s why they fought Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Often there are repercussions at the polls, but Republicans must be true to their principals, or at least the ones who fund their campaigns.

I, for one, am flabbergasted that Obama and this Congress s are this close to what we’ve been dreaming of and hallucinating about ever since President Truman first proposed universal health care in 1948.

We’re almost there, and it’s kind of scary.

You know how I first knew we might actually win? This week when Karen Ignagni, head honcho of the insurance lobby, practically begged the Congress to slap the industry with new regulations, forcing them to behave. “We have to have a complete overhaul of the rules,” she implored. Stop us before we gouge again! There wasn’t a dry eye among onlookers or the Senate Finance Committee.

Little wonder that Republicans want our dysfunctional healthcare system to stay just the way it is, even though it bankrupts families and leaves 46 million without coverage. America is the only country in the world to use a business model to provide health care. The purpose of business is to make a profit. Billions in profit. Now those profits are at risk.

Enter Frank Luntz, silver-tongued devil who can make “pre-existing condition” sound like you won the lottery. He gave desperate Congressional Republicans a 26-page memo telling them now to stop legislation that everyone wants. Pretend to be “vocally and passionately on the side of reform”, he advises, but then mislead like crazy with arguments like these:

· “It could lead to the government rationing care, making people stand in line.” (46 million people are asking where the line forms so they can get in it).
· “Scare people. Especially about their children.” (I don’t think this involves Bristol Palin, but it might).
· “Leave Obama out of it.” Luntz concedes the President is too popular even for smoke & mirrors to work.
· “It could lead to the government setting standards of care. Do you want a bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor?” Interesting he should ask. With our current system, it’s the insurance company standing between patients and their doctors. In her testimony to the Senate Finance Committee this week, Dr. Margaret Flowers observed that “health insurance administrators are practicing medicine without a medical license.”

What Republicans worry about most is the “public option” that Democrats consider essential to genuine reform. GOP leaders told reporters that government-run coverage would drive private insurers out of business. The government, they complain, could undercut private insurers with lower prices…

That’s their best argument against?

Better get back to the Luntz playbook: “Let’s talk about those long lines in Canada…”

Anyone in Canada want to trade their healthcare system for ours?

Didn’t think so.

Say goodnight, Frank.