Here’s the secret about the Orange County conservative plan to reverse the decades’ drift toward socialism in California: There is no plan.
Only 34% of Californians are registered Republicans. During the past three political cycles, the GOP has lost 20 of 24 state constitutional offices.
Republicans haven’t gotten near a U.S.
Senate win since Barbara Boxer beat Bruce Hirschenson by three points. That was 16 years ago.
California has rejected the Right. So, Republicans, pick one: Either our deepest convictions,our faith in individual responsibility, our insistence on low taxes and our belief that government often is enemy,are wrong, or the people of the state are. Either way, we lose.
Will the conservative party survive?
In fact, it can thrive, but only if Republicans are ready to accept some hard truths.
– Lesson One: You are wrong; the people are right.
In business they say the customer is always right. In politics, the people are never wrong. If the public happens to look wrong on any particular issue,perpetual overspending, global warming, privatizing social security or anything else,just remind yourself who’s your daddy in a republic. The people have the right to be wrong.
When the public isn’t buying the line, it’s our fault. For that, let’s take some of what Republicans believe most in: personal responsibility.
The instincts of the American people have been pretty good. As a Republican, you believe that America is the freest and greatest nation in history, right? So, was it the towering intelligence of our bureaucrats that got us there? The selfless virtue of our politicians? Please. It was the sober judgments of a free people in the past
232 years.
– Lesson Two: Make the people’s priorities yours.
Have we learned anything from the national GOP’s slow-motion train wreck? Before the 2006 election, Republicans held the presidency, both houses, even a workable majority in the Supreme Court, all the chips available in Washington. But, as the Republican leadership filled its calendars with lobbyists’ luncheons, the public stressed about healthcare, stagnating middle-class wages and gas prices.
What was the Republican response? A yawn. Where was the call for a repeal of the federal gas tax? What about taking up the lash of market discipline to control healthcare costs without ruining innovation?
If the public wants to move and you don’t lead, you lose. Worse, liberals seize the issue, grind it into a government program and infantilize the public.
– Lesson Three: No, don’t lose the faith.
The truth that every Democrat knows in his gut is that the government will fail. Governing the state of California is hard, maybe impossible, so Democrats don’t even try. Instead, Democrats sustain their majority by bartering favors to massive public employees unions and other interest groups. They can’t reform education, they can’t restrain overspending and they can’t fix the tort system or stop squeezing business out of the state. The special interests that dominate them won’t allow it.
So, in the future, California will lurch from crisis to crisis, and, with every shock, the public will want,even be desperate for,solutions, just as they were during the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Each of these crises, and they are inevitable, will open Californians to something different.
When they happen, what do Republicans have better to sell the people but the people themselves? No place in the world, and no time in history, has seen the intelligence, productivity and imagination Californians have today. Not ever. When the public is fixated on a serious problem,education, infrastructure or healthcare,let’s propose to put the decisions where the talent is: our people.
As crises arise, Republicans must argue for giving more control to parents, school districts, doctors, patients, businesses and consumers. Test every proposal this way: Does it increase my choices? Does it allow me to decide? Does it enable me to be better at being myself?
– Lesson Four: Wait, but don’t rest.
Being out of power doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be getting ready. Support OC candidates who are governing with imagination: John Campbell, Chuck DeVore, John Moorlach. There are others.
Challenge office holders to their face. Contribute to the best candidates whatever you have. Join the Republican Party of OC. Walk a precinct. Blog. Maintain an e-mail list and send articles to those on it. Talk about principles to your friends and coworkers. Communicate. Run for office yourself.
To you, these may seem like small things. Yet, every revolution starts small, builds discipline, and makes itself ready for the moment when the people are listening. And, because OC is California’s most energetic political center, we have an advantage. Nowhere are there more Republicans betting more of their money and energy that this state has a future.
Capaldi is a partner in the business law firm of Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman LLP in Newport Beach and chairman emeritus of The Lincoln Club of OC.
