Republicans need Doctor Laura, not Doctor Phil

In the aftermath of the November 4 general election results, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was interviewed and asked what the Republican Party ought to do now after losing not only the White House, but both Houses of Congresses by even wider margins to essentially make them irrelevant for the next two years.
The governor mused that his party was in need of a “Dr. Phil moment” to reflect on itself.
But I’ll take this a step further and say that the Republican Party doesn’t need Dr. Phil.
It needs Dr. Laura.
The party’s “Dr. Phil moment” should have come after the disastrous 2006 elections, which awarded both Houses of Congress to the Democrats. That loss and the events that precipitated it should have been a wake-up call to Republicans. But instead of waking up, the party simply turned off the alarm and went back to sleep.
At that point, the party’s conservative base had thrown up its hands and declared, “No more Mr. Nice Guy.” Dr. Phil had his moment, but the advice and warnings from conservatives went unheeded. Proof of this was in the presidential nomination of moderate/liberal republican “rhino” Sen. John McCain.
As such, what the Republicans need and deserve now is not a good cry, but rather a punch in the nose.
The Grand Old Party needs someone to get in its face and tell it like it is. Republicans need a “Dr. Laura moment.” Whether conservative republicans have the gumption to hold their party accountable for its losses and responsible for ignoring them is a question that lingers on my mind.
By and large, conservatives have had a habit in the past of shrinking into their shells and politicking from the closet. The emergence and subsequent boon of conservative talk radio was the only effective antidote for getting the right to come out of its shell and out of the closet, so to speak. Because conservatives finally felt they had a voice in the political arena—and especially through the national media—they were emboldened in 1994 when the Republican Revolution and the “Contract with America” took Congress by storm.
And yet, in spite of the conservative tidal wave that swept the Democrats from power for the first time in four decades, the Republican Party still didn’t get it. Within two election cycles, the number of conservative Republicans in the House and Senate had shrunk significantly and were replaced by more moderate—i.e., liberal—party officials. By the time President George W. Bush had taken office, Congress was being run by neo-conservatives, which is really just a kinder, gentler term for “liberal.”
Now we get why the deficit ballooned under the Bush Administration. It wasn’t merely the “War on Terror,” but rather the liberal spending of moderate, neo-con legislative and executive branches. If either one or both had regarded traditional conservatism that won Washington, D.C., back for the Republicans in 1994, we wouldn’t have a deficit in the trillions of dollars and I doubt the democrats would have regained control of Congress in 2006—not to mention 2008.
Alas, a lot of the same conservatives who were emboldened in 1994 have felt betrayed, cheated, forgotten and ignored by the party that is supposed to support, promote and defend the principles of conservatism. Consequently, some have retreated back into the shadows of their closets or shells. Many more simply refuse to vote for the Republican ticket because they have felt let down again by the GOP, preferring instead to let the opposition prevail and take us down the road to ruin where the party might then see the errors of its ways.
But nothing short of a good, old-fashioned butt-kicking will get the Republican Party back on track toward and back in line with its core conservative principles. The greater challenge will be restoring the trust and confidence that conservative voters once had in the Republican Party. With all that has happened in the past decade, though, this seems so far gone that the only way the party can win its core supporters back is to swallow its pride and seek forgiveness, which won’t come right away. The only antidote to heal wounds as deep as these is time.
As Dr. Laura would probably say, eat your humble pie and do the right thing.
Time will tell if the Republican Party has simply strayed from conservatism or is gone for good.