Why Can't Republicans Explain Economics Like Reagan Did?

It is but one of many questions about today's Republican party and how Ronald Reagan did transform basic GOP thinking on issue after issue.
But one thing that eludes those seeking office is what is a fundamental difference between conservative economic policy vs. liberal/left economic policy.
This piece by Henry Olsen at The Corner on National Review Online seeks to remind today's GOP that a big reason why people who might be aligned with conservative economics but find those explaining it not so engaged with the average American, working man and woman.
As Mr. Olsen noted that Mr. Reagan made clear that all of America was involved in the concept of job creation. Essentially, Mr. Reagan made clear that he probably would not dismiss, out of hand, the labor union-backed efforts to get fast-food workers a "living" wage of about $15 an hour. He would use the opportunity to point out how the worker is as important as the entrepreneur.
What I see, and yes have been part of, is that most conservatives see the entrepreneur as the hero and the worker as some kind of lout. After all, the entrepreneur is putting his or her money on the line. The worker should be glad to have the job. Mitt Romney blew his whole campaign by saying the infamous 47% line at a private fund raiser that was videotaped by an intrepid lefty truth-sqauder.
Note to GOP candidates for office. Assume that nothing, not even a private fund raiser is private. Don't say anything that you would not say in any other campaign appearance.
I admit that while Mr. Romney had a correct point, it did kind of sort of play right into the hands of the class warfare warriors. I mean, Mr. Reagan talked about Welfare Queens. Yet with a negative, there was the positive with Mr. Reagan.
What the left has done with success is create the impression that they are always on the side of the worker. Maybe they pay lip service to the small businessman/woman. But when one looks at the modern Democrat party, they are in the hip pocket of the hip, lefty billionaire businessmen/women. Yet the Republican party is to this day seen as the party of the rich. Again, compare Mr. Romney and Mr. Reagan in articulating the basic economic message.
If you don't get that, here is the one time Mr. Reagan even discussed the entrepreneur in a speech in the 1980s as president:

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are not heroes, they just don’t know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter, and they’re on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They’re individuals and families whose taxes support the government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. Their values sustain our national life.
Now, I have used the words “they” and “their” in speaking of these heroes. I could say “you” and “your,” because I’m addressing the heroes of whom I speak — you, the citizens of this blessed land.

There was no 47% reference I read. There was no us vs. them that the left promotes. There was nothing along the lines of class welfare.
What Mr. Reagan was saying is that anyone can be and should aspire to be that entrepreneur. But that the worker is as much of value as the entrepreneur.
Thus, what Republican today does that?
It appears that Sen. Mitch McConnell was sort of trying to do that in a speech at an American Enterprise Institute, AEI, conference last week.
I know, I know.
Why would I quote something from this RINO*? He is not a conservative at all! He is part of the problem.
Well, I think that Sen. McConnell fits the He's been in Washington too long category. But in my theory of the broken clock, which is right twice a day, Sen. McConnell stumbled into some truth.
This is the highlight of what he said. And a warning, he does take a swipe at Ayn Rand. But not really if you open up and read what he said:

And yet, I think it must also be admitted that in our rush to defend the American entrepreneur from the daily depredations of an administration that seems to view any profit-making enterprise with deep suspicion — that we have often lost sight of the fact that our average voter is not John Galt. It’s a good impulse, to be sure. But for most Americans, whose daily concerns revolve around aging parents, long commutes, shrinking budgets, and obscenely high tuition bills, these hymns to entrepreneurialism are, as a practical matter, largely irrelevant. And the audience for them is probably a lot smaller than we think. So I do think we’d do well as a party to get down to the basics. As Mona Charen recently put it, ‘Less talk of job creators and more talk of job-earners would be welcome.’”

I think that Sen. McConnell is correct. The average voter is not John Galt. Sure, they may get a lot of his overall point, but they don't want to get government that completely out of one's life. And many understand that a government that gets so big can take away a lot of what we come to know as rights and or basic forms or norms of everyday life.
I recommend reading Mr. Olsen's article in National Affairs that I have linked as a brief history primer and a good road map to getting the Republican party on track to explain what makes conservative economic policy superior to liberal/left economic policy.
Basic Republican governing philosophy is simple.
Government is necessary. But it should be a little and limited as possible. It should be bottom-up and not top down. Government is best starting at the local level, cities, counties and states. The federal government should be as limited as possible. It should not be concerned with Podunk, Iowa as much as New York City.
Mr. Olsen is onto something here. And another actual politician, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, also gets it.
That the GOP must be a party that working class voters and women can and should be a part of.
Hello?!
That is what we call today the Reagan Democrats. Most of those voters are already Republicans today.
But, what does the consultant class that dominates the current GOP think about those voters? Eh, not so much. Thus they push so-called comprehensive immigration "reform". They do not care to really explain how allowing many low-income workers to become Americans will help them. Hint: It won't.
When Mr. Reagan dealt with immigration reform, he at least had the stones to say it was amnesty and it was when the economy was in the middle of a full-steam recovery.
Reagan Democrats are out there for the picking. They will become good Republicans and already have a lot of conservatism already in their bones. They are the ones that sign up to join whatever branch of the armed forces. They are the ones that are traditional in outlook. Many are church-goers and temple-goers and mosque-goers. They do make for the best workers anywhere.
And they go beyond race. Anyone can be and is right now a Reagan Democrat that would love to look at the Republican party. But they don't look at the party because they have rightful misgivings about it. And no, it's not because of their stand on immigration policy.
It is because most of those that want to look at the GOP and are still Democrats and or "independent" still think that the party is the environs of the eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll, filthy, stinking RICH folks.
Of course I can show how untrue that is, but why use that? Because most of those people will not believe it. That at this point, much of corporate America is in the hip pocket of the Democrat party. It does not matter.
One needs to speak to the people in a way that Mr. Reagan did. And one of the reasons is that at one time, Mr. Reagan was a Democrat. He was at a time that Democrats were more like Harry S Truman and John F. Kennedy. That they spoke of a better America for all and not for a fill-in-the-group of the moment.
Of course it would be hard to find a lot of former Democrats that become Republicans and can explain a simple fact the way that Ronald Reagan did. And yes, how the United States is a great nation and that the sky's-the-limit, not a time of restraint and or malaise. And yes, that there are rights and wrongs in the United States.
So it does come down to people like Mr. Santorum to talk to the regular folks and say to them, yes, there is a place for you in the Republican party. Yes, I understand the economic anxiety you feel. Yes, the tax structure is out of touch with how every day people live. Yes, the United States has lost it's moral way. Yes, the United States is the greatest nation in the world and I am not ashamed of it.
It is because people like Mr. Santorum and Mr. Reagan believe those ideas. And yes, even Sen. McConnell finally treaded to that understanding.
Here is the thing.
The Republican party will expand beyond the White middle class when it can articulate that those ideas are not just the purview of Whites but of all Americans. We can not have one of the wealthiest men run for president and essentially write off 47% of the potential voting public as government freeloaders. And on that point, Mr. Romney had it somewhat correct. But it can not be done flippantly or off the cuff.
I don't know if Mr. Santorum is the one to carry the Reagan mantle in 2016. He currently has a great position being out of government for making the conservative case to a wide audience. Some like Sen. Marco Rubio have the opportunity as well.
But if we do not reach out to the next generation of Reagan Democrats effectively and in governing, the conservative cause and the Republican party will truly be on the margins of political life in the United States.

Michael Gerson, The GOP Establishment And The Tea Party

One of The Washington Post's supposed conservative writers, Michael Gerson, just simply does not get the Tea Party whatever.
That is why he writes dreck like this.
First its the choice of establishment Republicans like Mr. Gerson to beat up on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) and rocker Ted Nugent. But the long knife is always out there for the former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. Note this line from the column:

(save Sarah Palin, who finally lost her long, sad struggle with ideological delirium)

Actually, Mrs. Palin is much more in touch with many Americans than is Mr. Gerson, now a total captive of the Washington Beltway.
Well, right after that gem from Mr. Gerson, here is this paragraph:

No political movement can persuade a great democracy without displaying a measure of democratic grace. And any ideological movement that claims to be inspired by faith and morality is discredited by language that dehumanizes its opponents.

For a moment, I thought that he was describing the current occupant of the White House, the Dear Leader, President Obama, and the current Democrat party.
But no, Mr. Gerson is in his mind describing the current state of the Republican party as he sees it.
One of the reason's there is a Tea Party movement is because the feeling among many Americans that the politicians just do not listen to them about anything. That there is a disconnect between the people and the politicians. And the evidence is much more on the Tea Party side than Mr. Gerson's side.
Now I do agree with the fact that we do have to have candidates that can win in November. And yes, some Tea Party candidates have not been all that. And yes sometimes conservatives to show how much they are against the establishment will back clear losers to the bitter end. Yes, Christine O'Donnell comes to mind in Delaware.
But that does not mean that long-time incumbents should never be challenged. If that did not happen in Utah for example, there would not be a Sen. Mike Lee. In Texas it was an open seat that now Sen. Cruz was running for. The establishment GOP in Texas was lining up behind the Lt. Governor, David Dewhurst, against now Sen. Cruz. And not only did he win the two-stage primary (a candidate has to get at least 40% in the first round, which neither did) but easily win the election for his seat. In Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio was a little-known state legislator that took on the worst of the GOP establishment in that state, former Gov. Charlie Crist. Of course the establishment all lined up for Mr. Crist. But Mr. Rubio not only prevailed but won the general election in a landslide. Oh, and lets not forget that Mr. Crist is now a Democrat running for his old job as governor in Florida. Good luck to that.
As I look at it this time around, the same thing is happening but the candidates are not as good as was in the 2010 and 2012 election cycle.
But it shows desperation when the GOP establishment seems more hellbent on beating up the upstarts over the potential Democrat challenger.
One of the clear realities of the Tea Party movement is that there is not one unifying leader to it. Thus it does lead to some things being done right and some being done wrong.
And thus we see that while Sen. Cruz is right on the overall point that O-Care needs to be repealed, doing so will not happen until there are more Republicans elected. And they need two things at the federal level. To win the senate, which they should be able to do this election in November, and the White House, which is a good possibility in 2016. I would really like to see Sen. Cruz work to get Republicans elected who can lead to that. Until then, we will still have this abomination known as O-Care.
The problem is that Mr. Gerson does not get why people aligned with the Tea Party movement on the right and the Occupy movement on the left is that it is the very groups as the United States Chamber of Commerce and big money donors on the Republican side that do not want the real change the Tea Party seeks. The big money donors are pretty much our crony capitalists. They just want the federal government to help them out and not the American people as a whole. When the United States Chamber of Commerce seem more interested in legalizing 10,000,000 illegal aliens over having a strong economy where American citizens get the jobs, it is just wrong. These two groups have narrow interests that the Tea Party is against.
Mr. Gerson is totally right in what this little fight among friends is all about:

Republicans are sorting through what kind of populists they hope to be.

The problem is that big money and establishment groups within the GOP are not exactly prone to populist notions. They are almost always perceived, and usually rightly so, as always willing to cut a bad deal especially with Democrats. Democrats that are like Lucy Van Pelt pulling that football away just as Charlie Brown gets that foot up to kick it. In that sense, many of us see Sen. Cruz as one who will at least fight, albeit not always smartly.
So here is something I look at in one race. That for the senate seat in Kentucky.
The incumbent is Sen. Mitch McConnell and the challenger is Matt Bevin. I wrote about it here. I know some people will suggest that I am everything like a RINO* and sellout and all the bromides that some can muster. But Mr. Bevin is not a good candidate. He can't explain why he was for TARP before he was against it. That is a big issue for Tea Party people. He wants Tea Party support and some will sink with him to show how much they don't like Sen. McConnell. If he can't do well against Sen. McConnell, imagine if he does win the primary and how he will do against the Democrat candidate, most likely to be Allison Grimes? Look, Sen. McConnell's biggest problem? He can't explain things in simple English when he goes on the radio or especially television. He sounds like he is speaking Washington double-talk, gobbly-gook. That is kind of why he is being challenged. But in this case, I would have to go with Sen. McConnell. Because in the end, I want to keep this seat in the Republican column, and that only has a chance with Sen. McConnell. Really.
Unlike Mr. Gerson, there is nothing, not one thing, wrong with having a challenge. There is nothing wrong with the party having to have an open debate on the issues. But we must absolutely unify when the primaries are over and get the winning candidate elected. Whether it is an establishment or Tea Party candidate. We can't have whiners like a Charlie Crist. Or a Mike Castle in Delaware. Or a Richard Lugar in Indiana. We can't have losers act like losers and not support the Republican candidate. That, more than anything is why we will lose any given election.
Without the Tea Party in the GOP orbit, there will not be major victories. With the establishment not being with Main Street instead of Wall Street, there will not be GOP victories. With people like Michael Gerson, we will be a minority party when we should be the majority party throughout the United States. The key is how to work together to get to those wins. That is what primaries are for.


*RINO-Republican In Name Only