Now is the Time for a Centrist Candidate

As 2006 comes to a close, it is evident just how close the 2008 Presidential election already is and the importance that this election will hold. There are already a wide array of candidates emerging, both Repbulican and Democrat, but the question remains will any of these candidates be the centrist nominee who can gain support from the vast majority of moderates across the country?

Gingirch Recognizes Need for New GOP Dialogue

In the past several days, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has publicly stated the GOP needs a new strategy, and a major part of that strategy is an open dialogue and a bipartisan discussion on the issues our nation faces today.
RealRepublicanMajority.org is exactly the type of forum necessary to initiate a discussion on the future of the Republican Party. If leaders in the Party such as Newt Gingrich recognize the fact that are Party has gotten off track, then it is clear we must regain focus.

What Happened to the GOP Dialogue?

In the past few weeks, news stories and commentary about building an inclusive Republican Party and creating a unified GOP have seemed to slowly decline. For the good of our Party and the good of the future of our nation, we must continue this important dialogue on the importance on getting our Party back to the center where the majority of the country aligns its views.
In the fallout of the 2006 midterm election, it was everyday that political commentators and elected officials spoke about GOP principles and that moderates were of great significance in preserving the GOP. As the Party of the Open Door, it is our duty to persevere and continue the converation on getting our GOP back to its basic principles of fiscal responsibility, small government and individual liberty.

Full Text of Romney Letter Released

On Monday, the full text of Governor Mitt Romney's 1994 letter concerning gay rights was released. In the letter written to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney states his intention to provide equal rights for gays and lesbians and claims he would be a true advocate for them.
Fast forward to today, when Governor Romney has retracted his moderate stance on gay rights and abortion, to name a few. This is the ultimate in pandering to the far right in order to achieve personal gain. Republicans and Americans across the nation deserve honesty and integrity in their elected leaders. Boston Globe Article

Frist’s Farewell Speech Advocates Bi-Partisan Approach

Below is an excerpt from outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s farewell speech on the Senate floor, his remarks on bi-partisan cooperation and “destructive partisanship” are refreshing.
"We are moving toward a body with a two-year vision, governing for the next election -- rather than a body with a 20-year vision. . . . I urge that we also consider what our work in this chamber is really all about. Is it about keeping the majority? Is it about red states versus blue states? Is it about lobbing attacks across the aisle? Is it about war rooms whose purpose is not to contrast ideas but to destroy? Or is it more?"

Click here to read the article "Upon Retiring, Frist Urges Senators to Work Together" from the Washington Post.

Resolution on GOP Principles to be Brought to RNC Meeting

This article is right on target. A Pennsylvania group of Republicans plans to bring a resolution to the January RNC Meeting stating that the GOP has strayed from its basic principles.

For Pa. Republicans, soul-searching time
By
Amy Worden
Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG - Stung by their Election Day trouncing, Republicans from
Harrisburg to Lower Merion to Washington have embarked on an intense round of
soul-searching.Pennsylvania Republican State Committee chairman Robert Gleason
summoned regional caucus leaders to a damage-assessment meeting here last
Friday. A day earlier, Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman told a
gathering of Republican governors in Miami that it was time for
"self-examination."Both were trying to explain why the GOP suffered so many
losses on Nov. 7 and to define a rebuilding strategy to take back lost seats and
retain the White House in 2008.Gleason said he and other state leaders examined
last month's election returns and began to chart a map for victory in
2008."There is concern about the Southeast - it hasn't been trending
Republican," Gleason said. "We are looking to do voter education for Republicans
and do more voter registration."On this most state and national party leaders
agree: The GOP needs to return to its "core principles" of fiscal restraint and
limited government.But moderate voices are going a step further, blaming the
party for ceding control to a minority on the far right who have allowed
spending to spiral out of control, while focusing on "wedge" issues - such as
stem-cell research - that are driving away centrist Republican voters.Perhaps
nowhere in Pennsylvania is this dynamic felt more intensely than in the
Philadelphia suburbs, which have been noticeably shifting Democratic in recent
elections.In the former Republican stronghold of Lower Merion a local party
group seeks to regain lost ground by drafting its first-ever resolution spelling
out its dissatisfaction with the national Republican Party.The resolution states
that the party has "strayed away from basic principles" and "has not reached out
to independent-minded voters." It also states support for "limited governmental
intrusion into private lives" and accuses the party of "disproportionately
focusing on peripheral issues.""We've been losing a lot of races, and now we're
losing the registration war in our township," said Tracey Specter, chairwoman of
the Republican Committee of Lower Merion and Narberth. "On Election Day, we saw
a lot of Republicans voting for Democrats. We want them to come back into the
party."Specter - daughter-in-law of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) - said GOP
registration numbers had slipped in the townships as Democratic and independent
registrations had grown.In 2000, 45 percent of voters were Republican, now the
figure is 37 percent, she said."The national party is not focusing on core
values; it's focusing on wedge issues," Specter said.Top GOP fund-raiser Bob
Asher of Montgomery County called the document "right on target."Asher, a
Republican national committeeman, said he faxed the resolution to RNC
headquarters last week and would push for its inclusion in discussions at the
party's January meeting."It's something I think the Republican Party would be
well-advised to consider," he said.Pollster Chris Borick said his Election Day
exit polls in the Lehigh Valley reflected Republican voter dissatisfaction with
the hard-right-leaning direction of the party."If the party is to regain its
stature, it has to change gears," said Borick, a political science professor at
Muhlenberg College. "This election exacerbated the tensions between
conservatives and moderates that had been brewing for a long time."But Gleason
disagreed, attributing the Republican losses in Pennsylvania to voter
disapproval of the Iraq war, dissatisfaction with bigger government and higher
taxes, and - in the case of defeated U.S. Reps. Curt Weldon and Don Sherwood -
ethical issues."The results were not a deep-seated ideological statement on the
part of the American people," he said. "That the party is in choke-hold by
ultraconservatives is not true."Still, two of the Philadelphia region's most
powerful Republican voices argued in recent Inquirer op-ed pieces that the party
must return to the center if it is to win back seats in 2008.Arlen Specter, the
state's most senior Republican leader, said Pennsylvania Republicans must
recapture the "vital center" of the electorate to succeed. He went on to say the
GOP should follow the advice of 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, a
conservative icon who said government should "stay off our backs, out of our
pocketbooks, and out of our bedrooms."Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd
Whitman, a vocal moderate who warned of a midterm Republican defeat in her 2004
book It's My Party Too, urged Bush to lead the party back to traditional roots
and to build bipartisan coalitions on immigration and stem-cell
research.Whitman, who now heads the It's My Party Too political action
committee, said the party platform drafted in 2004 was too single-issue-focused
and alienated voters. "It's too detailed, there has to be a position on
everything," she said. "They used to be general statements of principle. But
instead they started weeding people out - the moderates."Whitman said there
should be a place in the party for an evangelical Christian woman she met who
was opposed to abortion but who supported stem-cell research.Gleason said he
would meet with Specter and other party leaders as well as regional committee
leaders to determine party priorities ahead of its semi-annual meeting in
February.Gleason said he also would embark on a "reeducation" campaign about the
Reagan-era principles of fiscal and social conservatism and assure local GOP
leaders that the party and its candidates would not stray from them."The way we
differentiate as Republicans is that we are more conservative than Democrats,"
Gleason said. "I wouldn't say that we should moderate our principles."

Far Right Wing Conservative Brownback Announces Presidential Bid

Brownback Moves Toward White House Bid Right-wing favorite Sen. Sam Brownback takes step toward 2008 White House bid.
Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, a favorite of the religious right, said Monday he is taking the first step toward launching a bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. A vigorous abortion opponent, the Kansas senator pledged to make "issues of life," fiscal restraint and tax reform key components of his effort to woo supporters.

Click here for the an article on Brownback's announcement from CBS News.

Forming a United GOP

Did you see this? This is a clip to a response of a posting on redstate.org. Interesting:

Is there a definition of "conservative" that fits our modern usage
of the term? Is there, for example, a "litmus test" that characterizes a
"conservative?" From where I stand, there isn't. If there is, I'd like to hear
it. I classify the "moderates" as those Republicans who are right-of-center on
one or more issues (taxes, spending, regulation, etc.) but who are liberal on
other issues (generally social issues.) To be honest, I'm not sure why these
folks are Republicans, but we should be happy to have them on board--even if
they're a pain in the butt sometimes. Having said that, these folks DO NOT need
to be occupying positions in the GOP leadership.”

Many in politics claim that there are several types of "conservative". No doubt that there is a wide array of Americans who label themselves conservative yet can disagree on many issues. We all know that true conservative Republicans favor specific principles: small government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty and sound economic reason. It is time to move forward as a united front, and the only way we can progress is by presenting an agenda that is centered on these founding GOP tenets.
It is the mainstream Republicans-- those who can communicate with members on both sides of the aisle and fight for the real Republican values-- that are exactly the type of Republicans we need in Leadership. How can we expect to get anything done in Congress if we have leaders who refuse to compromise and work together for the good of the country? Remember, it was with a divisive GOP agenda that the Party lost its majority and therefore the ability to steer the future of our nation.

Why Ronald Reagan?

Why Ronald Reagan?

Thank you to everyone sent in responses to the RealRepublicanMajority.org blog, commercial and website, we appreciate your comments. Some of you have asked us “Why Ronald Reagan?”

We aim to shift the Party’s focus to the core agenda that is best for the American people. Now is the time for us to unite under the “Big Tent” as members of the GOP and start forwarding the ideals that are best for our nation, and to discontinue the focus on a misguided social agenda that is not supported by a majority of Republicans. Why are members of the GOP focusing on an exclusionary agenda that concentrates on select social issues when the bigger picture is something that all Republicans can support for the good of our country?

Ronald Reagan’s leadership illustrates what can be accomplished when the focus is on the core issues at hand. Reagan, who did not support choice, did not choose to use it as a wedge issue like Falwell, Dobson and Reed on the far-right are doing today. Reagan aimed to build consensus and broaden the “Big Tent”, he supported common sense Republicans like Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and focused on the issues that were best for our country.

Today we ask you, as members of the Real Republican Majority—Who are your Real Republican Leaders? Who are your elected officials that espouse the qualities of a real Republican? What leader, on a local, state or national level, can you look to as forwarding the true ideals of the GOP and forwarding the issues that are best for our nation over extremist agendas?

Welcome to RealRepublicanMajority.org

Welcome to RealRepublicanMajority.org! As Chair of the Real Republican Majority I will be blogging weekly on important issues that we, as members of the Majority, face today. We welcome your responses via the interactive blog component, and look forward to hearing what you, our members, have to say about the important issues that the GOP faces today.
The Real Republican Majority aims to unite Americans from across the nation, and regain control of the GOP agenda. If we allow the far right extremists to dictate the focus of the GOP, and if our leaders continue to pander to them, ultimately we will alienate millions of American voters. When asked by Alan Colmes if he wanted the GOP to be known as the ‘Big Tent Party’ far-right Focus on the Family Founder, James Dobson replied “I don't want to be in the big tent... I think the party ought to stand for something.” It’s time to tell Dobson and his cohorts that we do stand for something-- we stand for personal freedom, liberty, tolerance and fairness, and we’re also standing up today to take our Party back from their grasp.
Today, it is more critical than ever that the Real Republican Majority takes back the Party agenda. Now that we have joined together as the Real Republican Majority, I would encourage you to invite common sense Republicans, friends, family, co-workers and others to join you in the fight for the heart and soul of our GOP—the future of our nation is at stake.
Best Wishes,

Jennifer Stockman