Why the GOP needs its own Bill Clinton

The party of Reagan could use a figure like Bubba, who shepherded Democrats out of the political wilderness

Is there a conservative Bill Clinton out there who could get the GOP headed in the right direction?
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Since President Obama's re-election, the sense that the GOP is in the midst of an existential crisis has only deepened. A new poll from Bloomberg shows that Obama's favorability ratings are at a three-year high, while the Republican Party's ratings are at a corresponding three-year low. Another poll from Pew indicates that Americans overwhelmingly agree with Obama and the Democrats on a host of issues, from taxes and the deficit to minimum wage and gun control. The latest data, combined with shifting demographics and Obama's convincing win in November, have all added to the impression that the Republican Party has drifted out of the mainstream of American politics.

With this dire situation as a backdrop, Michael Gerson and Pete Wehner, both former speechwriters in the Bush administration, have written an article in Commentary that amounts to a manifesto for a new GOP. Arguing that middle- and working-class Americans view the Republican Party as "wholly out of touch with ordinary Americans," Gerson and Wehner lay out a broad plan that would see Republicans craft a new economic agenda focusing on social mobility; offer undocumented workers a path to citizenship; ditch a "hyper-individualistic" view of society in favor of one that promotes the communal good; make peace with gay marriage and generally tone down the rhetoric on divisive social issues; and "harness their policy views to the findings of science." All these changes, they argue, can be made without sacrificing core conservative principles.

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Ryu Spaeth

Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.