..at a conference being held right now. And all this is fine, and Republicans and conservatives need to take a hard look at things. It sounds like Bobby Jindal has a good take:
"Jindal focused more on the message itself. The handsome young Indian-American responsible for helping to rebuild Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina sounded suspiciously like someone who is running for higher office, or plans to sooner rather than later. He said that while it's tempting for Republicans to come up with excuses or blame the media, he believes Americans fired the party with cause. "The Republican Party is no longer the party of fiscal discipline," Jindal said. "Our bumper sticker message can't be vote Republican because the other side is worse. American voters are right to say: 'We demand competence, we demand solutions.'" Jindal urged the party to return to first principles. He recalled how his parents registered as Republicans when they first arrived in Louisiana, a state long dominated by Democrats. "What made the Republican Party attractive to them," he said, "is the embracing of the American Dream. If people work hard and get a great education, there's no limit on what they can accomplish and as we propose solutions that address the challenges that fulfill that dream that voters care about we'll win the young vote, we'll win elections. We have to be optimistic, bold and principled." Obama couldn't have put it any better himself."
We have to appeal more to the younger, ambitious, tech-savvy people out there--yes. But I also like what Sarah Palin said:
I, like all of the Republican governors, we're focused on the future," Palin said. "And the future for us is not that 2012 presidential race. It's next year, our next budgets, the next reforms in our states. And it's 2010—we'll have 36 governors positions open across the U.S. That's what we're focused on—we're focused on providing good service."
Translation: we need good principles; shucks, we already have them. But it's what you Republican governors and legislators DO, based on those principles, that really matter. It doesn't do a darn thing for us to talk endlessly about fiscal discipline and balanced budgets if we don't actually DELIVER them. Let's start there, Republicans...
