GOP Must Define Its Basic Essence, Offer Clear Vision of Future

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Feb. 28, Orange County Voices carried columns on the future of the Republican Party from two thoughtful Orange County writers representing conservative and moderate viewpoints.

At that time we offered this page as a forum and invited readers to join the debate by submitting their views on the future of the GOP and what its themes, appeals and programs should be.

The comments published here are a representative sample of the responses received.

Should Anyone Care ‘What’s Next for Republican Party?’

“What’s next for the Republican Party?” This question presumes an audience exists to care about the answer. GOP activists such as Brian O’Leary Bennett and Robert Nelson care, but does the American public? For faithful Democrats and Republicans alike, the answer, alas, is “No.” America’s two-party system died decades ago, but we’ve avoided the funeral and moving on with the development of political life.

Unintentionally, Bennett and Nelson make a persuasive case for the contemporary irrelevance of an entity called the Republican Party. The same can and should be said of the Democratic Party.

Moderates in the GOP should not have to accept Bennett’s lesson of losing graciously. Nor should they have to surrender strong beliefs for the purposes of party unity, which for Bennett means the intraparty triumph of conservatives. Similarly, Nelson’s unlabeled party members, who cross conventional left-right divisions, have no party to call their own, unless they too are prepared to place partisanship ahead of principle.

There is no civic republican virtue in partisanship. America’s founders understood this, which is why they feared and loathed the emergence of political parties. Yet as realists, they also painfully conceded the inevitable emergence of parties. Madison’s account of factions in Federalist 110 makes this point vividly, and after founding the Democratic-Republican party, Jefferson conceded the same: “Wherever there are men, there will be parties.”

The Republic has long endured political parties. But there is nothing inevitable or any longer desirable about the two-party system. For decades the two-party system has been propped up by state laws, federal subsidies and, most recently, campaign finance reform. Yet both parties have failed at the tripartite responsibilities of legislation, deliberation and representation. No wonder survey after survey shows that Americans care little for either party and think them inconsequential for political governance.

Indeed, the major lesson of the ’92 election is that the party system is so fragile that a virtual political unknown--Ross Perot--could capture more than a quarter of the votes cast for president.

America does not need a revitalized two-party system. Instead of worrying about “what’s next for the Republican Party,” as though someone cared, we should focus on building a third or multiple-party system to better address and represent the diversity of ideas, interests and ideologies present in the American polity. The two-party system can no longer accomplish these ends.

Both party organizations have too much at stake to go quietly into that silent good night. But go they must. Brian Bennett and Bob Nelson are members of the “same” party in name only, as are Bill Clinton and Mario Cuomo. The sooner the public acts on long-felt instincts and forces state and federal legislators to dismantle the statutes holding up the two-party system, the sooner accountability, representation and responsibility can be restored to America’s republican democracy.

MARK P. PETRACCA

Irvine