The GOP's ghosts of campaigns past

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But are those who cling to history doomed to forfeit their future?

That question hovers over the Republican Party, as not one but two figures from its recent past vie to claim the party's leadership in the upcoming presidential primary. A few weeks ago, that issue appeared to be limited to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who surprised everyone by jumping early into his first campaign in a dozen years. Bush skipped the more obvious cycles of 2008 and 2012, likely due to the fatigue of his brother's presidency and the clear antipathy of the electorate to anything related to the Bushes. But the burden of that past still remains, as does the ten years of civilian life that will lie between the end of Bush's last term in Florida and the general election, if he wins the GOP nomination.

Bush's early entry has prompted moves from another figure of the GOP's past: Mitt Romney. Romney did not sit out the previous two cycles; he came close to winning the nomination in 2008, when his economic acumen might have attracted more voters that John McCain got in a losing effort. Romney did win the nomination in 2012, and came closer to beating Barack Obama, but suffered a loss that disappointed Republicans to such an extent that they held a lengthy and public debate over the future of the GOP. The consensus after that debate was that Republicans wanted to leave the campaign themes of Team Romney far behind, especially the ill-conceived "47 percent" argument that Obama's campaign used to bury Romney.

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Romney's supporters says the candidate learned the same lesson from the 2012 campaign, and can bring a wealth of experience to the 2016 ticket. "Mitt learns from experience," said Romney aide Eric Fehnstrom last week. "If he does run, he'll run his strongest campaign yet." Mindful of rising skepticism over a third Romney bid in as many cycles, Fehnstrom argued that similar skepticism in 1980 would have prevented Ronald Reagan from becoming president. "Reagan ran three times," Fehnstrom pointed out.

That's true, as far as numbers go. But as Jonathan Bernstein pointed out, the difference between Reagan's runs in 1968 and 1976, when he barely missed the nomination against Gerald Ford, and again in 1980, was that Reagan went from a single-election flash in the pan to an experienced governor with a solid record of accomplishment. Reagan gave Republicans reasons to reconsider him in 1976 and 1980, whereas Romney remains the same single-term governor who missed the nomination in 2008 and who lost the general election in 2012.

Bernstein misses the broader point of that comparison, one that applies to both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. When Reagan ran in 1976 and again in 1980, he represented something new within the party. Reagan was a new voice of Goldwater-esque conservatism combined with a record of practical application. By the end of the 1970s, the Nelson Rockefeller Republicans had lost the GOP rank and file and had failed to inspire the moderates in either party. Reagan brought a new approach to Republican politics, a sunny optimism about personal liberty and a fighting spirit for freedom abroad that soared over the heads of his more pessimistic competition.

In short, Ronald Reagan represented not just the future of the Republican Party, but the aspirations of the electorate for the future of the United States. Regardless of their desires, Romney and Bush represent the past: the past of their own track records, and the past of the Republican Party.

Ironically, the GOP may have an abundance of candidates who can lay a better claim to the mantle of Reagan than either Romney or Bush. A number of two-term Republican governors, for instance, who first won office by courting the grassroots and won second terms by fulfilling promises of significant conservative reform. Scott Walker reformed state government and survived a recall challenge by Big Labor in Wisconsin, not all that dissimilar to Reagan's fight with striking air-traffic controllers. Bobby Jindal reformed state-run education in Louisiana. Susana Martinez cleaned up a corrupt state government in New Mexico. Mike Pence expanded on reforms initiated by Mitch Daniels in Indiana. Nikki Haley in South Carolina, John Kasich in Ohio, and Rick Snyder in Michigan may all make similar claims in the next few months, too.

Voters come to the polls as an act of optimism about their future, not nostalgia for the past. If Republicans are to truly learn from history, let them learn that lesson rather than offer reruns of legacies that voters have made clear they'd rather not revisit.