Redefining Republicans

I just want to state at the outset, as the former pollster for Ross Perot, I didn't leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me.

Nor have the American people abandoned the conservative principles that twice elected Ronald Reagan in landslide victories, even if the current Republican leadership abandoned them.

Let me set the record straight. George Bush's election in 1988 was an historic accident, perpetrated by a handful of New Hampshire Republicans who were duped into believing The Great Communicator had an heir apparent. The fact is, George Bush was to Ronald Reagan what Charlie McCarthy was to Edgar Bergen. And Charlie McCarthy was better at it.

George Bush's 1992 re-election campaign was so cheap and so tawdry that it would have made Madonna blush. The President reached out to every coalition and every constituency but his own base.

In fact, 1992 could have been titled "Pinocchio Runs for Re-election." Bush pledged to cut government spending, yet he spent each campaign appearance tossing out pork barrel projects as if he were Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. He debased himself at the feet of his ex-Secretary of State, pledging to keep Jim Baker at the State Department, but then promising to appoint him Domestic Policy Czar and later Chief of Staff. Heck, to win the Catholic vote, Bush would have appointed Baker pope, but the job was already filled.

November 3rd was the electorate's version of the cold shower for the Republican Party, and it was the wake-up call was needed. If we are to rebuild, if we are to establish a new conservative majority, if we are to establish a New Republican Party, we need to redefine our priorities straight from the start.

We should begin by acknowledging what we all know deep in our hearts. The Reagan coalition is dead. The mood, the people and the issues that all came together in 1980 are gone, and we would be deluding ourselves if we thought we could recreate the coalition again.

The problem is turnout. Specifically, with the increase in Black, Hispanic and female voters over the past 12 years, the coalition that gave us our 1980 victory and reelected us in 1984 now makes us a smaller percentage of the electorate.

Let me put this in numerical terms. Ronald Reagan received 51 percent of the vote in 1980. If a future Republican nominee were to receive exactly the same percentages from exactly the same groups today, he would only take 47 percent of the vote. Our voters--the educated, the wealthy, the religious--make up a decreasing share of the total vote pool with every election.

But the bad news gets worse.

Our children, and our future, have been stolen from us. In 1984, young voters were Ronald Reagan's strongest constituency, approaching 65 percent of the vote. This year, George Bush barely received one-third of this important and growing constituency.

We should not be surprised. Half the senior Bush campaign staff were so old they could have sailed on the Titanic. For the youth of America, the Republican Party had no purpose, no dream and no vision. We shunned the future, and they shunned us back.

Because of Ronald Reagan, Republicans had begun to make inroads within traditional Democratic constituencies. Hispanics, Jews, union rank-and-file--all were trending in our direction. Yet in 1992, only 25 percent of the Hispanics, 24 percent of the union members, and just one out of ten Jewish voters pulled the Republican line.

If we depend on the Reagan coalition, we lose. We must redefine ourselves. There is no choice.

You've heard it before, but I will say it again. We must once again be the Party of the Big Tent. No voter should be excluded from our educational and recruitment efforts. We must reach out to everyone--all religious groups, all minority groups, the poor and the unemployed.

But the blatant tokenism that has marred President Clinton's cabinet selection process has no place in Republican policy. It has no place in American society.

And Bill Clinton has no right claiming that he is the new Ross Perot. He assumes that his comments about political reform, shared sacrifice, tax increase and empowerment entitles him to the Perot constituency. Well, I know Ross Perot. I worked for Ross Perot. Mr. Clinton, you're no Ross Perot. You're not even Admiral Stockdale.

Republican priorities of lower taxes, less government and individual empowerment are messages that cut across racial, income and partisan lines. And that cuts right to the heart of the current internal party debate. Republicans win not by building electoral coalitions but by building bridges--philosophical and ideological bridges.

As Republicans, we must reaffirm the basic tenets of personal responsibility and accountability. This is where the Democrats, particularly Bill Clinton, run into trouble; their societal collectivism and commitment to government intervention conflicts with a rugged, private individualism that most Americans still hold sacred.

Examples of this private individualism are everywhere, if we just look. Republicans should be applauding teachers like Jaime Escalante, the courageous East Los Angeles calculus instructor immortalized in the movie "Stand and Deliver." We must promote crime fighters like Ruben Greenberg, who united a city, empowered its people, and cleaned up the streets of Charleston, South Carolina.

Republicans must also take a different outlook on life. Media carping aside, the American culture rests on a positive, forward-looking value system. Optimism is as uniquely America as apple pie. We may grumble and ruminate about the way things are right now, and we may romanticize about days gone by, but we believe at our core that things well get better with time.

Years ago, de Tocqueville wrote that the American is uniquely endowed with an infinite faculty for improvement. That spirit survives.

Ronald Reagan wasn't our most successful presidential candidate in history because he was the Great Communicator. He won two landslide victories because he was the Great Optimist. But whenever Republican rhetoric or behavior contradicts the cultural expectation of optimism and success, as it did in 1992, we fail.

Reagan wore his convictions on his sleeve. You knew where he stood and respected him for it. We will not recapture the White House until we have a leader who has a defined platform and doesn't run away from it. As Republicans, we must define ourselves by what we are, not just by what we are against. We must develop a coherent set of policies and principles, and then run on them.

And we cannot allow the Grand Old Party of optimism and opportunity to become the party of perpetual pessimism. George Bush spent too much time warning America about the hazards of the opposition rather than laying claim to their concept of change. It was always someone else's fault--Congress, the media, the bureaucracy. Republicans should not play the blame game.

When asked why he was such a great sculptor, Michelangelo replied that the beauty of his work was already in the rock, and all he did was find the masterpiece within it.

The messages we Republicans need to find our way back to power already lie within the rock of our beliefs. And our Michelangelos--Jack Kemp, Bill Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Vin Weber--have already begun to create a new masterpiece. If we can hold together until it is completed, a new president is but four years away.

Frank Luntz is an Institute of Politics Fellow and a former Pollster for Ross Perot.