The Republicans Try and Reinvent Themselves

Struggling Republican Party announces plan to rebuild itself

That was the headline in a Washington Post article a couple of weeks ago. The story was about a report put out the Republican National Committee titled Growth & Opportunity Project.

I read a little of it and it is a laugh riot. Here are a couple of things from the report:

We have to blow the whistle at corporate malfeasance and attack corporate welfare. We should speak out when a company liquidates itself and its executives receive bonuses but rank-and-file workers are left unemployed. We should speak out when CEOs receive tens of millions of dollars in retirement packages but middle-class workers have not had a meaningful raise in years.

This is a joke right. The notion that Republicans are actually going to criticize corporations has to be a joke. This from the party that believes corporations can do no wrong. This from the party that wants to gut the regulations passed to rein in Wall Street. Allowing Wall Street to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear that got us in the financial mess in the first place.

Here’s another one:

For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view. Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.

If our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out. The Party should be proud of its conservative principles, but just because someone disagrees with us on 20 percent of the issues, that does not mean we cannot come together on the rest of the issues where we do agree.

Wow what a whopper this one is. The Republican Party is not inclusive at all. Unless you agree 110 percent with the right wing of the Republican Party you’re viewed as not being a Republican. Thus the reason for the rise of the tea party. The reason any “moderate” Republican is called a RINO (Republican in name only). The Republican Party is completely rigid. It denounces anyone and everyone that doesn’t agree with their far right “moral” agenda. This shows in the last election with candidates attacks on just about every minority group imaginable. See Romney’s 47% remark and the Republican obsession with rape as examples.

Those are just two of the examples in this report that made me laugh out loud.

But to show how completely unserious the Republicans are in changing the party is look no further than the press conference by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus had at the National Press Club a few days after the report was released. This from a column from Dana Milbank in the Post:

“We know that we have problems, we have identified them, and we’re implementing the solutions to fix them,” the chairman said.

But he dismissed the notion that these problems could be related to positions the GOP has taken. “To be clear, our principles are sound,” Priebus asserted, moving on to read a flurry of numbered recommendations: “Nine, work with state parties, sister committees. . . . Third, I want to hold hackathons in tech-savvy cities.”

And that is a problem in a nutshell. This is all style and no substance. What’s just as important was the reaction from the far right Republicans, which come to think of it is just every Republican these days. They have no interest in changing at all.

Here are a couple of reactions:

“Americans and those in the tea party movement don’t need an ‘autopsy’ report from RNC to know they failed to promote our principles, and lost because of it,” said Jenny Beth Martin, head of the Tea Party Patriots.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said that the RNC report draws the wrong lessons from 2012 and said Republicans should focus more on abortion and other divisive social issues.

“Social issues are keys to reaching certain minorities the GOP yearns to attract, as well as to motivate millions of voters who first gravitated to the party as Reagan Democrats,” she said in a statement.

In other words batten down the hatches full steam ahead.

If you want some hilarious late night reading you can find the report here.

If you want a good laugh read this report. The notion that this is some how going to lead to a change in the Republican Party is well laughable. It is all smoke and mirrors, style over substance. To be blunt it ain't changing a damn thing.