“After another year and another election, the Republican Party found itself on the downward sloping side of the hill this time. The loss of the White House along with seats in Congress proved to many Republicans that change needs to come from within their own party.”
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After another year and another election, the Republican Party found itself on the downward sloping side of the hill this time.

The loss of the White House along with seats in Congress proved to many Republicans that change needs to come from within their own party.

A task that may not be easily done according to many.

The day after the election, College Republicans President Jason Ziegler sent out an e-mail to fellow Republicans that had volunteered for the McCain campaign.

We are the new generation of Republican Leadership and we must band together and call for a shift within our own party, a shift that will begin the transition from the Republican Leadership of today, to us, the Republican Leadership of tomorrow, Ziegler wrote in the e-mail.

In order to bring change in the party, the Republicans have to examine the message they are sending out to both seasoned and new voters.

Republicans need a retooled message for the 21st century and some new messengers to deliver it, Whit Ayres, an Alexandria, Va.-based Republican strategist told a McClatchy news service reporter. We need to be looking for how we can bring more people into the party rather than pushing them out.

The Democratic Party recaptured the majority of Congress in 2006 and now the White House, leaving the Republicans with two choices.
One choice is falling back on the core of the party, which is how David Frum, a conservative columnist and former Republican speech writer, described it.

Think of Joe the Plumber-and you see the core of the Republican Party, Frum said. The Republican Party is almost entirely white middle class and older males that reside in the middle of the country.

Senator Tim Grendell appeared to be a fan of this idea. Stating that the party needs to go back to its core principals as the original message of the party has been past.

Time has come to go back to the principals of Ronald Reagan, Grendell said.

The second option, pulling in and adding to the base of the GOP.

College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats, but that their values are under threat from Republicans, Frum said in a column for the Daily Telegraph of London. There are more and more college-educated voters. According to Frum, college graduates were predominately Republicans, but since 1988 Republicans became more conservative on social issues as the Democrats became more conservative on economic issues.

Certainly during the election the endorsement of Barack Obama from former Secretary of State Colin Powell created a buzz among those in Washington. Powell served under Bush’s administration and has openly talked about the party’s need for a shift.

This is a time for deep introspection on the part of the Republican Party, Powell told CNN. They have to take a very realistic look at themselves, we do, and see where we went wrong.

Where we aren’t attaching ourselves to the hopes, dreams and ambitions of the American people, he said.

In rebuttal to this Grendell said that changing the party for one person is not a good idea.

Don’t change our core principals because Powell woke up on the wrong side of the bed, Grendell said. He said the party should go back to the real message of the party.

One idea Ziegler, Ayers, Frum and Powell were able to agree on was that the Republican Party needs to look towards the future.

Looking forward, remember that we still have to fight for what we believe in, we must band together and unite now more than ever, Ziegler said. We must call for change within our party, the road ahead will not be easy, but those of us who come together now, will be the ones to lead this party in the future.

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