The Moderate Republican: Pondering the Unknowns

What the Moderate Republican Stands For

Republicans came to power as the party of big ideas, and without returning to that model they could be looking at a long winter. Additionally, those big ideas need to focus on Middle America. Three issues that could work are conservation, reform and localism.

Conservation- a return to the Teddy Roosevelt model of conservation. One doesn’t necessarily have to buy into global warming to appreciate the need to protect the natural resources we have.

Reform- the federal government is bigger than ever, and won’t be getting any smaller over the next four years. Republicans need to fashion themselves as national reformers. Much of Middle America wants the government as safety net, but bloated bureaucracies breed corruption that needs to be dealt with.

Localism- this is the lynchpin that brings it all together. If we bought our food locally, shopped locally, governed locally, many of the issue we now have to deal with would go away, or at the least become manageable.

Below is a collection of writers who speak about the things that matter. Some are Right, some Left and some Center, but all intelligent and rational voices.

Listening to most of the press and blogoshphere, including this one, over the past few weeks one gets the sense that the Obama transion is going well. He is seemlessly working with the Bush administration so as not to repeat the Clinton transition which was universally panned. He is installing exceedingly competent people in important places, whether they idealogically agree with him or not, so that his administration can hit the ground running. And through well-timed and carefully-scripted news conferences he has inserted his economic influence over and above the still current president Bush. However, the honeymoon will not be indefinite.

Obama is still dining out -- in terms of public opinion -- on the fact that he is not Bush. Bush's approval ratings were so dismal and the number of people who believed the country had veered off in the wrong direction so high that his successor was almost certain to reap the benefit. Once Obama becomes president in his own righton Jan. 20 and Bush begins to recede from view, the 44th president will be less able to focus solely on competence and instead will face more persistent questions about his grand vision for the country and how he will take us there.-Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post

Much of what he is able, or unable, to do will be dependent on the ensuing financial crisis. And any international issue that comes up could certainly forestall or rush his hand. But isn't it amazing that after a 16+ month campaign, and a month of post election transition, that we still are not sure where it is Obama wants to take the nation. If anything it is even less clear now, after he has created his storied "team of rivals." Will he veer drastically to the left as most conservatives feared? Will he veer to the right as many on the left are secretly fearing now, even though they won't say it out loud- yet. Or will he succesfully float in the middle, neither angering the right, nor truly pleasing the left?

Not knowing what the future holds is making things complicated for Republicans who would like to know what they are up against. Unfortunately we will just have to wait until after those first 100 days before we know how to react to the new President-Elect. Until then....who knows?

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The Moderate Republican

What the Moderate Republican Stands For

The American Conservative » Rod Dreher

Via Meadia

Front Porch Republic

David Brooks

The Soap Box

Pondering the Unknowns

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