Sometimes, being a Republican feels like being a Bears fan.

Over the years, there’ve been good seasons, and legendary seasons; there’ve been plenty of 9-7 and 8-8 seasons, as well.

Of course, the past two election cycles feel a little more like that stretch after Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus got too injured to play, but before the days of Peyton and Ditka and Singletery and Dent and McMahon; the Abe Gibron years; the years when Wes Montgomery led the team’s rushers with 240-odd yards (on the season); the years when quarterback Bobby Douglass was the team’s top gainer.

The seasons where Bears fans muttered “we’re rebuilding”, year in, year out.

Of course, how one “rebuilt” is always a dicey question – because so many people have so many wildly-different visions of what a team, or a political party, should be.

Patterico tackles David Brooks’ take  take on the GOP’s future.

Brooks:

In one camp, there are the Traditionalists, the people who believe that conservatives have lost elections because they have strayed from the true creed. 

Yep.  Not even just “traditionalists”, but people who are Conservatives first, Republicans second.  It’s one of the reasons we at True North opted to distance ourself from the party, to base our message on “first principles” rather than a party identifier.

To regain power, the Traditionalists argue, the G.O.P. should return to its core ideas: Cut government, cut taxes, restrict immigration. Rally behind Sarah Palin.

Patterico responds: 

Cutting government, cutting taxes, and restricting immigration (at least illegal immigration) sound good to me.

And by the way: “rally behind Sarah Palin” is not a “core idea” of the Republican Party, David. It’s true that most Traditionalists have rallied behind her, and she may well be a Traditionalist candidate in some future race. But however much Traditionalists might like her, let’s not load the dice by suggesting that supporting her is a “core” Republican idea.

Maybe Brooks misspoke mis-wrote; Palin is, indeed, not a “core value”. 

But finding, or if needed cultivating, party leaders that put first principles first is in fact the big mission for “traditionalists”.  Right up there is finding and promoting candidates that not only follow them, but can make the case for them to the people.  It’s something Reagan excelled at; it’s a trait at which Sarah Palin has great potential (which is why the media-industrial complex is spending so much energy trying to destroy her). 

Back to Brooks:

The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously. They tend to be intrigued by the way David Cameron has modernized the British Conservative Party.

Moreover, the Reformers say, conservatives need to pay attention to the way the country has changed. Conservatives have to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters. They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts.

Patterico: 

I don’t think the future of the Republican party is to be Democrat Lite.

There lies the Way of Sturdevant, the Way of Rockefeller. 

The way to “appeal” to any voter, young or Hispanic or Nigerian lesbian, for that matter,  to show them how our beliefs are in synch with their own enlightened self-interest.  I’ve observed this on the blog and on the show almost to the point of cliche: if you could get people to strip away groupthink and tradition and just-plain-bigotry, the inner city should be chock-full of conservatives.  Nobody is more sour on the debacle in our educational system than inner-city blacks (and audacity and hope aside, the Obama administration isn’t going to change a thing there); Hispanic catholics (and the growing number of hispanic evangelicals) are socially-conservative right out of the box, and while the immigration issue polarizes the community now, there’s evidence that that peters out among Hispanics who’ve been in American more than a generation or two; Asians are, of course, stereotypically free-enterprise and strong on education.  Why would they vote Democrat?  It’s a question Brett Schundler asked, and a code he cracked for three terms as the conservative mayor of Jersey City back in the nineties.  The fact that the New Jersey GOP gundecked his further aspirations in favor of a series of gutless moderate hamsters proved the NJGOP should have nothing to do with engineering the national GOP’s road back.

Patterico:

While I disagree with the Traditionalists on some issues — gay marriage, the environment, animal rights, and the like — I tend to fall into what Brooks calls the Traditionalist camp on the major issues.

I still think people believe in cutting taxes and limiting government. They just want a party that is actually going to do it.

And that’s part of the key right there:  not only do we need a party that can translate Hayek for the NASCAR crowd and  sell Friedman to the “soccer moms” and convince Mainstreet that we’re better for the pocketbook and the safety of this nation (which we can do, and have done!), but we need to actually deliver. 

Which is something that Reagan did, and where Gingrich fell a little short, and where the post-2000 GOP was an abominatal failure.

Which is why I support Michael Steele in the battle for the GOP leadership with Newt Gingrich.  There’s no denying Newt’s place defining the roots that the party needs to return to; I just believe that Steele is a clean break with the baggage of the past (ignoring Gingrich’s personal baggage completely, by the way), and a nod to the bench of new talent that the GOP has neglected for far too long.