The National Council for a New America

By Jennifer J. Foster

When I first heard about the series of town hall meetings U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) has set up to help the GOP find its way in the wilderness, I thought, “Oh boy, here we go.“

When I heard that they were billing those meetings as a “listening tour,“ I thought, “Sheesh. How humiliating.“

Here’s what a listening tour implies: We’re going to listen now, because we weren’t listening before. It may be true, but I don’t think you get your sea legs by reminding everyone of why you were draped over the side of the boat to begin with.

That’s all intro.

I watched the first of these meetings last night on C-SPAN. (Yes, I watch C-SPAN. It was already on because I had watched Prime Minister’s Questions in the previous half-hour. Now, fellow political junkies out there, PMQ is great TV.)

Anyway, I watched the meeting and found most of my snap judgments about this event justified.

For example, while Cantor said in his intro that the “listening tour” was open to folks of all political persuasions, it didn’t take Mitt Romney long to alienate anyone who isn’t a conservative Republican (something cerebral about free pizza not being available because “this isn’t a Democratic event”). And the people who were called on to ask questions reflected that sentiment.

Secondly, while Cantor and Romney talked about how they were there to “get the egos out of the way” and begin the process of rebuilding the GOP, what did Cantor and Romney talk about? Stuff they have done as elected officials. Romney especially was evangelizing himself. When discussing health care policy, he referred to Massachusetts’ health care plan—widely viewed as a success and a possible starting point for the overhaul of national health care—as “our little plan.“ Such transparent self-deprecation is one of the big reasons Republicans are struggling to gain traction on the national stage: They just aren’t believable.

And then there was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. I don’t know what compelled him to join these other two at this event, but it was a picture of all that is wrong with the GOP next to so much of what could be right about it.

As you know if you’ve followed my work for any period of time, I am a Florida native and worked in the Florida House of Representatives while Bush was the governor.

Jeb Bush was a terrific governor.

He had his detractors, sure. But he governed with a vision and a determination that allowed him to make significant changes to big issues in Florida and still leave office with an approval rating at or near 60 percent. That’s incredible in a state that is as purple (and increasingly blue) as Florida.

Bush isn’t without his negatives. As I said on Twitter last night, his biggest negative is his last name. It’s unfortunate that so many people will automatically tune him out because his last name is Bush. That’s too bad for them—and too bad for this country—because if they would listen to him, they might be pleasantly surprised.

SIDEBAR: Incidentally, many people in Florida believe that had Jeb won the governorship the first time around, it would have been him, and not brother George W., as the Republican presidential nominee in 2000. Chew on that for a bit. END SIDEBAR

Saturday in Arlington, Va., Bush made the case for a new kind of Republicanism—a post-Reagan Republicanism—that will allow the party to restructure, regenerate and reach out to the millions of voters who have decided that they have nothing in common with the GOP.

Bush’s comments may border on heresy among longtime conservative Republicans, the so-called “footsoldiers” in Reagan’s ideological army.

But that doesn’t make them any less true.

Here’s an excerpt, from The Washington Times:

You can’t beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that,“ Mr. Bush said.

The former president’s brother, often mentioned as a potential candidate in 2012, said President Obama’s message of hope and change during the 2008 campaign clearly resonated with Americans.

“So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause,“ Mr. Bush said.

“From the conservative side, it’s time for us to listen first, to learn a little bit, to upgrade our message a little bit, to not be nostalgic about the past because, you know, things do ebb and flow.“

Simple, pragmatic and firmly based in common sense. Just like most of Bush’s initiatives as governor.

As I watched the meeting unfold, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through Jeb’s mind as Cantor and Romney preened for the crowd. We might have gotten a window into those thoughts when he quipped that if he looks like the happiest guy in the world, it’s because he’s out of politics.

It’s too bad he is. The GOP would find a stronger, sounder voice in Jeb—and a new kind of Republicanism that would give the party a chance to draw Americans back to the fold.

See also:

The town hall/listening tour/GOP-image-remake group is officially called the “National Council for a New America.“ You can check out its web site here. And when you do so, take a peek at the makeup of the “National Council” and “National Panel of Experts.“ Notice anything strange? With the exception of two women, both white, and a certain Louisiana governor with Indian heritage, the “National Council” and “National Panel” is a glut of white guys.

I’d say they need to put that on their list of things to discuss.

RIP, Jack Kemp

By Jennifer J. Foster

I was saddened to hear of the death of Jack Kemp over the weekend.

Kemp will by most remembered for his belief in and advocacy of so-called “supply-side” economics—tax cuts that encourage investors and entrepreneurs to reinvest and take more risks that create more wealth and, in turn, more taxes. This economic principle became the cornerstone of President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign and first administration. “Reaganomics,“ Kemp fans know, was really Kemp’s idea.

But Kemp was just as committed to racial reconciliation and equal rights for minorities, and this fact is often overlooked because of his success in the economic policy department. The New York Times noted in its bio of Kemp:

Mr. Kemp was a founder and president of the A.F.L. Players Association. In January 1965, he supported a boycott of an all-star game in New Orleans by the league’s black players after they had been barred from nightclubs and cabs in the city. Mr. Kemp helped get the game moved to Houston, where the black players participated.

Kemp went on to serve as President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development. As HUD secretary, Kemp was as passionate about increasing opportunities for minority home ownership and fostering economic opportunity in depressed areas as he had earlier been about incorporating across-the-board tax cuts into the federal budget. As the Times notes, Kemp’s Affordable Housing Act lives on; the block grant program has spent about $1.5 billion a year since 1992.

Kemp comes from an era when partisanship wasn’t poisonous. He was, as U.S. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said Saturday, an “thought warrior”—someone who believed in the simple concept that the efficacy of a good idea can render fearmongering, demonizing and political one-upmanship both ineffective and unnecessary.

Kemp knew that if the idea was strong and good enough, such combative partisanship wasn’t needed.

Unfortunately for America and Americans, there aren’t as many statesmen in Washington as there once were. As a result, the ideas are weaker, and to make up for that weakness, partisans on both sides have ramped up their rhetoric.

It is a sad irony for Republicans that their party is in the shape it’s in now because they have forgotten the lessons Jack Kemp taught them.

But Kemp also left an important lesson for those of us who aren’t politicians ourselves. As Pence said in his statement:

On occasion, there are giants among us—men like Benjamin Franklin and Booker T. Washington—who never held the highest elective office in the land but shaped their times by strong moral persuasion and political activism. Jack Kemp was such a man.

Translation: You don’t need to win any elections to make a difference for and in your country. You need only to care, and care enough not to quit.

Rest in peace, Jack Kemp. Our country needs more men like you.

See also:

GOP pundit Rich Galen’s column on Kemp’s life and contributions to American politics

Kemp’s obituary in his hometown paper, The Buffalo News