Posted by
A. Wild on Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:57:45 AM
With all the talk of "rebranding" the party, I am left wondering why we don't just reintroduce our brand, and let the American people decide if they wish to reject it.
The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln. It is the party of emancipation, of the preservation of our national union. The Civil War was our Second American Revolution, a war for unification of inner resolution, to finally make real the words of our founding. We must remind ourselves that Lincoln is in our DNA. The GOP has stood for freedom, both economic and political, ever since.
(Not all Democrats have failed to support Lincoln's enduring, world-changing legacy, but most have failed to carry out its implications. This is why Republicans dominated American politics in the 20th century, and should continue to do so in the 21st.)
The Democrats will caricature us. They will say that liberating Iraq and defeating Saddam Hussein was wrong, and deny their own words in support of that act. They will pretend that no progress has been made, and that Al Qaeda is stronger because we have established two beachheads. We must use their words against them. If they are a party of democracy, then they must be forced to acknowledge the righteousness of freedom agenda on Constitutional and human rights grounds. If they do not, they must be called out as hypocrites.
We must positively cite Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton for their conservative approaches to foreign policy, and use the thrust of their policies against Obama's neoradicalism.