Monday’s Washington Post ran the first in a series of front-page articles examining the state and future of the GOP. According to Jon Cohen and Dan Balz:
The Republican rank and file is largely in sync with GOP lawmakers in their staunch opposition to efforts by President Obama and Democrats to enact major health-care legislation, but a new Washington Post poll also reveals deep dissatisfaction among GOP voters with the party’s leadership as well as ideological and generational differences that may prove big obstacles to the party’s plans for reclaiming power.
It’s no secret the Republican Party is trying to find its footing in the new Obama era – a period in our political history in which government is growing at lightening speed and threatens many of the core values of individual rights, limited government, and free markets many conservatives – if not all Republicans – continue to maintain.
Whatever one’s views of the current GOP, there is certainly a lot of self-reflection these days. So, the timing couldn’t be better for Republican insider and communications strategist Craig Shirley (President of Shirley and Bannister Public Affairs) who recently released his newest book, Rendevous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America.
According to a review of the book in Roll Call: “Like so many others who look back to the Reagan era as the golden years of the GOP, Shirley blames the turmoil of today’s Republican Party on a disconnect from Reaganism.”
I suspect a lot of voters feel the same way.
Read more about the book here, here, and here.