ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured commentary from Politico, Matt Latimer tells conservatives what they should do while they are waiting to regain power.
Divorcing the GOP establishment
By MATT LATIMER
For anyone seeking to get ahead in Washington, you might not want to take advice from me. After all, my book “Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor” has left me consigned to the depths of hell by none other than Bill Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues.” While I’m still Earth-bound, I do have a few modest suggestions for my fellow conservatives who await their return to political power.
Our Republican Party is gripped with a common Washington affliction: consultant fever. This is a very contagious, bipartisan disease. It causes those in its grip to advance themselves by resorting to tactics and theater rather than the much harder work of explaining to people why our ideas are better. Over the past several years, we’ve let this disease become chronic in the Republican Party. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Imagine for a moment House Republicans willing to challenge their leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, who, for the sake of a party loyalty that sometimes demands too much, is raising money for an upstate New York congressional candidate who is more liberal than the Democrat in the race.
How about a Republican campaign operation that actually pushes candidates with conservative ideas rather than blow-dried wonders guaranteed to disappoint? (See Crist, Charlie.) How about politicians who offer a constructive, forward-looking alternative to the Obama administration rather than pander to those trying to prove the president is not an American citizen?
Continue reading here.
