Republican Party Should Go Upscale

Michael: The voters whom the Republicans lost in the suburbs are not coming back, and the Republicans should not want them. They only believe in the public school system because they live in jurisdictions where the NEA's monopoly on education is tempered by the local district's enjoyment of the special funds contributed by the parents. Those parents will never support freedom of choice in education, whether it is by charter school, vocational education, home schooling, vouchers or the abolition of compulsory education itself. They favor restrictive environmental regulation because they are its primary beneficiaries; they make their livings in "clean" jobs in offices, not "dirty" ones in restaurants, garages, farms, factories and construction sites. The Republican Party has to decide whether it wants to represent waitresses or unionized school teachers, truck drivers or DMV employees. The Democrats already have the loyalty of the groups in our country who are insistent on being paid higher than market wages, never being laid off, and never, ever being fired for being bad at their jobs. There is no way that the Republicans can ever compete successfully for the votes of the people who confuse diplomas with wisdom and talk with work. When the Republicans as a party finally have the courage to embrace their origins as the party of hard money, limited taxes, and reduced government, they will recover the majority they enjoyed when genuinely humble men like Grant, Coolidge and Reagan were their leaders.

LetUsHavePeace of CA 11:43PM February 03, 2009