What Now?

Before I begin my diatribe against the GOP, I want to offer my perspective on last night and my personal standing with President-elect Obama.

If you take out the specific policies and philosophies of the players, last night was an amazing event. A black person was elected leader of the free world in a country that is consistently raked across the coals by her own citizens for being evil in regard to racism. I hope that this brings the nation to a new realization about race, and racism. I hope this new realization is the truth of the matter as I have known it for decades. Racism in this country is not, and has not been for some time, what you hear in the media and from the Rainbow Coalition and NAACP.

I say that because I was born in Montgomery, Alabama. My mother was raised in Montgomery literally on a section of street between the Governor’s mansion and Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where Dr. King was pastor. She lived there during the bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins, the Selma to Montgomery march, and the violence of the movement. I have lived in the south my entire life, with the exception of a relatively brief period in St. Louis when I was young and my trips in the military. I currently live in a suburb of Birmingham, home of Bull Conner and the 16th Street Baptist Church where bombings killed black children.

I was a deputy sheriff with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. There are people who worked there in the late 1990s who participated in some of the incomprehensible acts against protestors. There are those in the city who won’t call the police to this day because of their experiences as youth. Montgomery is a city that is divided along what many say are racial lines. Whites move east and blacks move east into the subdivisions abandoned by whites. The lines are more economic than racial. Montgomery is home to the largest Air Force training base. Much of the citizenship is comprised of retired Air Force personnel.

Race was not a factor last night, except for the segment of the black population that voted FOR a race. Were it not for enormous numbers of white dems, Obama would not have been elected. Obama won the state of Mississippi! That is the home of more institutionalized racism in our nation than any other one state. I hope that we can put some of the racial politics behind us now. (As an aside - Jesse Jackson was in tears at the Obama rally. Was he crying from happiness for Obama and black America, or because Obama was taking Jackson’s place on stage?)

I think Obama had an incredible presence last night during his acceptance speech. It was amazing to see the crowd and the way they respond to him. His speech was a summation of his campaign – hope and energy and affirmation. McCain conceded in the manner befitting his character, very gracious and supportive and complimentary of Obama. I couldn’t help but wonder last night where that John McCain had been for the last 12 months. Had his presence and persona been at the debates, it might be a different story. Regardless, Obama will be my President. He will receive my support and prayers. He will encounter my political dissent on issues at times, but we will all work for a better, stronger America.

So what does the GOP need to do for the next four years? We need to do exactly as I have been saying for about the last eight years. We need to return to our conservative principles and find new faces and personalities. We need to govern, and lead, and grow out of the moderate mold. We spent so much time trying to get in power before 1994, and then after we won we acted like the war was over! We stopped doing what we had done to achieve power, and it didn’t take long to lose it. We became exactly what we fought against – selfish, short sighted, power hungry, negligent, sluggish, and lazy. Instead of concentrating of working to make progress and solidify America, we spent our years trying to hold on to our power by being moderate.

We need new faces. Palin is hot, energetic, Reaganesque in her politics and philosophy, and not ready for the top billing on the ticket. I hope Rove works his magic and gets her ready for something in 2012. Aside from her, we have to find young energetic people. We have to refuse the coronation of the person who has earned their turn at the nomination as determined by the establishment. We have to insist that the party revert back to 1980 thinking and add to the mix 21st century methods.

We need conservatism. People want to feel safe and secure in their leaders. They want their society to be valuable, and valued. They want the title of American to mean strength, and good will. Power, and discretion. Wealth, and charity. Self-reliance, yet compassion. Marriage should mean something. Religion has a place in society, just as it has every society since the beginning of time. War has a place, as does diplomacy.

Finally, the GOP needs to listen to the base of the party. Some will say that the conservative values of Reagan and the Moral Majority have passed. That those people should be shunned from our party. The opposite is true. Those people have seen the strong party of 1984 and 1994 walk away from their beliefs and ideas. They have been left behind as we try to look good in polls. They have seen us try to be friends with Brutus.

Conservatives have work to do. In the next four years we should work with President Obama in good will and good faith. We should work toward finding those areas where we can agree. We should move forward as one in actions that strengthen America. In those many areas where there can be no agreement, we must fight every step of the way and let the citizenry decide the final outcome of the issue. We must rebuild the GOP to be what it is supposed to be, and forget polls and elections.

We must start within our house, and not worry about what is happening across the street.