Appearing before a crowd that has had little to cheer about in recent weeks, Republican Governor’s Association rose up with enthusiasm to greet Bobby Jindal when he spoke before the organization in Miami yesterday.

Several of the Governors openly acclaimed that the Louisiana’s Chief Executive was the GOP’s best hope to win back the White House in 2012, quite a statement when one considers that Jindal’s likely Republican rivals were sitting in the room—Sarah Palin of Alaska, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Charlie Crist of Florida, and Mitch Daniels of Indiana.

Jindal was blunt in his comments as to why the GOP lost on Nov. 4th.  "We gave them reason to fire us," he said.

He maintained that the GOP must not only stay true to its message of fiscal conservatism, but provide real other promises of action on issues important to the American people.  

"Our bumper-sticker message can't be, 'Vote Republican because the other side is worse,” Jindal explained.

He did stress Republicans must fight for their core issues of fiscal conservatism and anti-corruption.  "We’re not going to win debates or elections…by simply trying to be cheaper versions of the Democratic Party," he said, but it must also stand as a party of ideas, seeking reform.

Jindal stands amidst a growing conflict in Republican circles between those who argue that the party must get back solely to its conservative roots to win and those who maintain that the GOP needs to present a new reform image to younger voters--in particularly.  

Conservative columnist David Brooks has called the impending battle for the soul of the Republican Party nothing less than a looming war between reformers and traditionalists.

            That is not to say that members of either side are unconservative in their politics.  It is a question of emphasis.   While many in the Republican hierarchy have worried about the loss of the last moderate GOP congressmen in New England, for example, Conservative stalwart Grover Norquist cheered the defeat of Rep. Christopher Shays, calling for intellectual purity in the Republican party.    Norquist and his fellow Washington –based conservative activist met in Virginia last week to discuss how to purge moderates from the party.

            Jindal and his fellow GOP governors argued this weekend that such an ideological stand is exactly the wrong course if the party wishes to regain power on the national level. 

            The Louisiana Governor often begins interviews with the press with the words, “Let’s not argue whether we need universal healthcare.  Of course we need universal health care.  Everybody needs to be covered.   Instead, let’s argue the way in which we can do it.”

            Arguing method rather motive, in Jindal’s view, has always been a key for Republicans to reach electoral success.

            That is not to say that he did not have harsh words in Miami for members of Congress and the Bush Administration.   "When the Republican Party is no longer the party of fiscal conservatism, when we start defending spending that we would have rightfully criticized on the other side — whether it's earmarks or growth in discretionary spending or new programs that we never would have tolerated if the other side had proposed it — then clearly, I would argue that we've lost our way, we've lost the reason that we stand as fiscal conservatives."

While he argued, though, that the party must get back to basics, cutting taxes and spending, it must also innovate in areas like education and health care to rebuild its brand and restore voter trust.

            Jindal was not the only potential 2012 presidential candidate arguing a message of reform before the RGA.   (The Louisiana Governor is, however, the only one who has already booked a speaking engagement in Iowa in February.  Jindal says that the speech is not a campaign stop in anticipation of the Iowa caucuses, but despite his words to the contrary, few go to Iowa in winter “because I’ve heard the weather that time of year is lovely.”)

            Likely rival Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty agreed that the party's base conservative voters are important but are no longer enough. The challenge, he said, is to modernize the party of Ronald Reagan.

"He's one of my heroes," Pawlenty said. "But Ronald Reagan was president a long time ago. A lot's happened since then. So the challenge for us is, how do you take those principles from the late '70s and '80s and apply them to the circumstances and issue and opportunities of our time?"         

            Pawlenty noted what another speaker outlined, that the GOP is staring into an abyss of technology and demographics.

            Republican consultant and pollster Frank Luntz laid out some stark facts in his presentation to the Governors. John McCain won just 32 percent of the youth vote — the lowest margin in history, according to Luntz.

Young people increasingly communicate and get their information over the internet. The Obama campaign understood that and compiled a list of 10 million names and e-mail addresses.

"It makes him and his supporters the most powerful special interest group in all of America," Luntz said of the president-elect. "And 3 million of those people have donated to the campaign. We've never had that situation, where so many people are so active and so engaged, and they can be reached by the stroke of a key."

Luntz later added that "our candidate doesn't know how to use" a BlackBerry.

That paradigm shift is the narrative that Utah's Gov. Huntsman says Republicans must embrace. Otherwise, he says, a party that has trouble reaching Hispanics, women and African-Americans is doomed to permanent minority status.

"And if we're not able to identify the changing demographic in this country and the needs of that changing demographic in terms of the issues that really matter — education and health care and quality of life and jobs — then we're going to lose, and we're going to keep losing big-time," Huntsman said.

            This discussion of reform of issue emphasis versus getting back to conservative ideological basis is hardly original.   The British Conservative Party went down to a far more stunning defeat to Tony Blair’s Labour Party in 1997 than the Republicans proportionately faced with Barack Obama’s Democrats.   

            The Tories responded by attempting in for the better part of a decade to return to their Thatcherite roots, and lost every election in the meantime.  

            Then, under David Cameron, British Conservatives changed the focus of their rhetoric, with pro-environmental and quality of life stands that responded well with swing voters.   (Cameron went so far as to go dog-sledding to show the dangers of global warming to the glaciers.  He was laughed at by the press, but it worked with voters.)

            Cameron argued that the brand “Conservative” had become so damaged thanks to scandals while in office that the party had to open a new perspective with younger voters.   He even made the party’s symbol a Tree.   As Cameron put it, “We have to sound like we actually LIKE the country we wish to govern.”  

            It worked.  The British Conservatives have consistently led Labour in the polls for the last year, and are poised to win the next election.   

            Some Republicans say that their party must undergo fundamental changes in direction.  That does not mean the GOP becomes less conservative in nature, they argue, but that it seems more relevant to the average person’s experience.  

            (As one person noted in Miami, the British Conservatives are just as Euroskeptic as in the 1990s—a hotbutton issue like abortion is in America—but they just talk about their worries about the loss of sovereignty to the European Union less.  Instead, they worry loudly about access to doctors in the National Health Service, a popular stand that resonates with swing voters.)

            The first battle of reform versus tradition took place in Miami over discussions of whom would best serve as the spokesman for the GOP.    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will face off against former Maryland GOP Chairman Michael S. Steele, that state's first black lieutenant governor, for the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.  

            Both men seek to be not only the administrative head of the Republicans, but "face of the party" to which Sunday talk shows and TV interviewers naturally turn.  In emails to prominent Republicans on the eve of the RGA meeting, Steele and Gingrich both attempted to appeal to traditionalists with calls for “fiscal responsibility” but emphasized the need to do more.  

            As Michael Steele put it in his missive to GOP activists, “Most Americans today see a Republican Party that defines itself by what it is against rather than what it is for. We can tell you why public schools aren't working, but not articulate a compelling vision for how we'll better educate children. We're well equipped to rail against tax increases; but can't begin to explain how we'll help the poor. We exclude far better than we welcome.”

“Things were different as recently as 20 years ago. Back then, Ronald Reagan made it cool to be a Republican -- it wasn't just his specific policies, but the timeless truths he so eloquently gave voice to, and upon which his policies were based. That's the Republican Party we must re-establish.”

“We must articulate a positive vision for America's future that speaks to Americans' hopes, concerns and needs. It's time to stop defining ourselves by what we are not, and tell voters what we believe, how we'll lead, and where we'll go; how we Republicans will make America better; how we'll make their families more prosperous, their children better educated, their parents more secure, and all of us healthier, safer and stronger.”

            Gingrich was even more specific in his email.  “A number of people have asked me to consider running for Republican National Committee Chair.  They have been very flattering, and I am very honored by their support.  However my job as an American first is to develop a ‘tri-partisan’ approach to developing solutions for the challenges we face.”

“I use the word ‘tri-partisan’ to designate the concept of attracting Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to solutions that unify most Americans.”

Gingrich presented several concrete ideas including a “Center for Health Transformation”, funded by the Federal Government, that would develop “bold new approaches to Alzheimer’s, Diabetes and Obesity, and Cancer”. 

He suggests a platform for the GOP that contained what he called “three bold new policy proposals:  Health-Based Health Reform emphasizes the most successful approaches to health, which lead to better outcomes at lower cost; Electronic health records for every American, paid for by the billions such a system will save in fraud avoidance and detection; A Science-and-Technology-Based Capital Investment Budget, which will revolutionize how we think about and pay for scientific research and development and will lead to a new generation of exciting solutions.”

The need for a new message took on particular emphasis when in the wake of the Nov. 4th election, the GOP Governor’s say that there are only five House Republicans left representing districts that John Kerry carried in 2004, down from the pre-election total of eight. 

(The five left are: Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who survived a tough campaign against Democrat Dan Seals; Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), who narrowly defeated Democrat Darcy Burner; Charlie Dent (R-Pa.); Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) and Mike Castle (R-Del.). The three not returning are: Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) who lost his re-election bid to Democrat Jim Himes, Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) who lost in a Republican Senate primary and Rep. James Walsh (R-N.Y.) who retired.  Democrats picked up all three of those seats.)

By contrast, 81 House Democrats represent GOP districts that President Bush carried in 2004

            Still, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour told his fellow Chief Executives not to worry too much. 

"I have looked down in the grave for the Republican Party, and this ain't it," he said.

Barbour recalled the post-Watergate era, when at one point during the 1976 campaign, sitting president Gerald Ford trailed Democrat Jimmy Carter by 32 points.

"I have seen a lot worse, folks," Barbour said. "I can remember when Mary Louise Smith, the party chairman, literally appointed a committee about whether we should change the name of the party."

Within the Republican Party, governors have more reason to be happy than most. No sitting Republican governors were defeated on Election Day.

Moreover, as Karl Rove noted in a column in the Wall Street Journal on the eve of the RGA meeting, “In a sign Mr. Obama's victory may have been more personal than partisan or philosophical, Democrats picked up just 10 state senate seats (out of 1,971) and 94 state house seats (out of 5,411). By comparison, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980, Republicans picked up 112 state senate seats (out of 1,981) and 190 state house seats (out of 5,501).”

“In the states this year, five chambers shifted from Republican to Democrats, while four shifted from either tied or Democratic control to Republican control. In the South, Mr. Obama had ‘reverse coattails."\’ Republicans gained legislative seats across the region. In Tennessee both the house and senate now have GOP majorities for the first time since the Civil War.”

“This matters because the 2010 Census could allocate as many as four additional congressional districts to Texas, two each to Arizona and Florida, and one district to each of a number of (mostly) red-leaning states, while subtracting seats from (mostly) blue-leaning states like Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania and, for the first time, California. Redistricting and reapportionment could help tilt the playing field back to the GOP in Congress and the race for the White House by moving seven House seats (and electoral votes) from mostly blue to mostly red states.”

Rove concluded that if the GOP benefits from the usual historical trend in midterm elections since 1966, of the outparty gaining of 63 state senate and 262 state house seats, and six governorships, in a president's first midterm election, the Republicans should be poised for real substantive gains in Congress in the next two elections.  

Christopher Tidmore talks politics on the radio every weekday morning on WBSL 1190 AM.   Call in your thoughts toll free at 877-622-1190.

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