When the dawn of the morning in America first broke, Americans knew the country was about to experience something special. After a landslide victory over a gutless, unpopular, and ultimately disastrous Democratic President, Americans found themselves more proud of their country than ever. Americans finally had a leader that would take them out of the dark days of the Carter era. Ronald Reagan was a great President, and a great leader. But Republicans are in need of something more than a leader.
When Abraham Lincoln accepted the Republican nomination for the Chicago Senate seat, he said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." While Lincoln was speaking primarily about the state of the Union, he is also famous for uniting the Republican party on various issues and taking on the opposition, be it the Democrats or the Confederacy. Lincoln was able to rally different sections of the Republican party; the Copperheads criticized Lincoln for being too rigid on slavery. The Radical Republicans also criticized Lincoln, but chided him instead for being too lackadaisical in regard to abolition. In spite of this, Lincoln brought the party together to defeat a common foe and changed the way the public thought of the GOP forever. Lincoln was not only a leader, he was a reformer.
One of the biggest headlines of the past few days has been the controversial results of John Zogby's election day poll of Obama voters. While the poll's commissioner, John Ziegler, believes that it is the media's fault that 57% of Obama voters failed to correctly identify which party controlled Congress, it is really further evidence that the general public can no longer identify a difference between the two parties.
In order to restore the democratic process in America, one of these parties needs to change. The Democrats have essentially remained the same for the past 30 years (perhaps moving ever so slightly to the right). The Republicans, under George W. Bush, have taken a radical shift leftward and by doing so, became a different party altogether. Gone is the party of small government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility, and in its place rests a neoconservative hybrid of the old GOP which is now slowly dying. Who can turn this party around?
While there are many candidates in line to lead the party, (Romney, Gingrich, Jindal, even Palin) there has been little talk of someone who can fundamentally change the party. The next leader of the GOP must be able to unite the Ron Paul Republicans, Libertarians, religious conservatives, and even neoconservatives under one tent. A Reagan alone cannot do that, but a Lincoln can. Conservatism is not dead, but it is on life support. Only a reformer can bring it back to life. The Republican party has a "rendezvous with destiny," and hopefully it meets its new challenges with an "increased devotion" to restoring the principles the party has long clung to.
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." - Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address. November 19, 1863
