Who Will Save The Republican Party This Time?

Who Will Save The Republican Party This Time?

It is no secret that an implosion is taking place across the country. It's in the headlines everyday, on the news channels every night, on blogs all across the internet and discussed in local pubs everywhere. Oh, I don't mean the economic implosion. No, No, No! I mean the implosion taking place right before our very eyes within the Republican Party. The popularity of President Obama aside, the Republican Party is doing an effectively gory job of devouring itself from the inside out. Between the sad attempts by RNC Chairman Michael Steele to revive the GOP by "urbanizing" it's image with slang normally reserved for rappers and the tired, transparent tactics of defacto GOP mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party is losing its unity faster than your average boy band.

Michael Steele has, in almost record time, managed to divide his party, embarrass himself, get publicly humbled by King Rush and ignited a call for his resignation. The absolute worst part of his missteps during his brief tenure thus far is his obvious belief that the most effective way to reach his African-American constituency is to speak in slang, using terms such as "bling" when referring to parts of the stimulus and other nonsensical references to serious matters. It is blatant, it is disappointing and it is astonishing that he would seemingly believe that he was somehow going to do his party some good by performing so bad. The sad irony is the GOP's favorite target, President Obama, gave him the blueprint on how to garner respect in all quarters of the African-American community and not insult his audience by assuming he needed to lower his level of rhetoric to get his point across. If this is truly Mr. Steele's state of mind then he is, sadly, probably mistaking the handwriting on the wall as graffiti.

Rush Limbaugh. The name evokes so many different responses and for that, you must respect the audience he commands…to a point. The truth of the matter is if Rush's devout followers decided to mobilize into one vote, they still would not be enough to lead the GOP's agenda. They can, however, be the kingmaker between two evenly matched candidates next year when the madness of the Presidential primaries begin again. The problem now though is that Rush has been allowed to fill a void as defacto leader and Rush is a dinosaur, soon to be extinct. Michael Steele's recent public knee bending and 180 degree turn on his thoughts on Rush's recent rhetoric combined with Rush recent attire at the recent CPAC Conference has cemented Rush's position as the Tony Soprano of the Republican Party. You want to have a smooth ride through GOPland, make sure Uncle Rush gets his taste.

His simultaneous acceptance and dismissal of Michael Steele's public apology only served to make the RNC chairman look weak and make Rush look like he was content to have effectively splintered his party once more. The distraction he causes also manages to drown out some good points being raised by members of his own party, such as Senators John McCain and Ron Paul. His recent attempts to bait President Obama into an exclusive interview were mind boggling in their simplicity and laughable in their execution. Somehow, Rush thought he had Jedi mind tricked the public into believing that the only way for President Obama to "prove" that he was really bi-partisan was to come to Rush's bunker and talk to him directly, all the while denying that this was not a ploy to get an exclusive interview with The President. Huh?

One humorous aspect of all of this is this; they were both absolutely right about the exact same thing. Neither one of them is the leader of the Republican Party because the Republican Party has no leader. Rush is a little too country and Michael is a little too rock n roll, I mean hip hop. John McCain will certainly not run again, the GOP has done a very effective job of labeling their most out of the box thinkers such as Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul as squirrelly and Mitt Romney seems almost too cosmetic. The GOP is in trouble right now with no apparent "uniter" on the horizon. Actually there is one and it's almost scary in its truthfulness and eerie at the same time. 13 year old Jonathan Krohn addressed the same CPAC Conference and got rave reviews. Based on the universal appeal of children, young Mr. Krohn stands a better chance uniting the GOP than either Mr. Steele or Mr. Limbaugh. Unfortunately for them, young Jonathan is constitutionally ineligible to run for any office other than Student Council President. In the meantime, many lifelong Republicans are now finding themselves wondering……..

who will save the Republican Party this time?