Ron Paul wrote a commentary for CNN addressing it, today, and I have to admit that he’s spot on.  It seems like everyone else is addressing this in spades, so I figured I would add to what Dr. Paul has to say on the matter.

Yes, I think that straying from the party’s core message of limited government and fiscal responsibility is part of it, but I want to make note of a couple other things.  I disagree with Paul and a few others that Reagan fits into the same category as Barry Goldwater.  I like Reagan to a point, but his was one of the first Republican administrations to take the party in the wrong direction.  His was the administration that gave us George H. W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney.  1980 was when neoconservatism started to really take over the party, and Barry Goldwater was not exactly thrilled by the direction Reagan took the country in.  In particular, he had some harsh words for Reagan on the Iran-Contra Affair.

The problem with neoconservatism is, as I agree with Goldwater, it abandons conservatism alltogether in order to pander to the Christian right.  Being a Christian, I don’t mind being pandered to, but I don’t like the government sticking its nose into my personal business, and I don’t like them sticking their nose into my religion.  I see a fine line between allowing religion to dictate governing decisions and allowing governing decisions to dictate religion.  You can’t really have one without the other.

So now we have a Republican party who believes that nation building is okay.  They believe that allowing the federal government into your private business is okay.  They believe that increased spending is okay.  They believe that unnecessary war is okay. They believe that it’s okay to ignore portions of the U.S. Constitution.  And why do they believe this?  Because the Christian right needs them to believe this in order to achieve the ideal they have for this country.  Nevermind the practicality (or lack thereof) of doing these things.

The other big problem that I see is the fairly recent strategy of winning at all costs– particularly winnig by dividing the country.  The general attitude that I’ve noticed among Republicans is an “us versus them” attitude.  Phrases like “real Americans” get thrown around.  “Liberals” is a slur.  Instead of encouraging all Americans to come together and work together for the common good, there is a message being conveyed that they don’t want the best for our country and they are bad.  They are not as good as we are, and we should look down our noses at them.  They are not as moral as we are.  They are snobby elitists.  It’s never implied that they might want what’s best for this country as well– they just happen to disagree on the process of getting there.

When I heard Barack Obama’s “Red States, Blue States” speech in 2004, I knew then that he had the potential to one day be president.  Why?  Well, the message of “change” wasn’t just in government policy.  I notice a genuine desire among Democrats and moderates to bring this country back together.  It was a key element that remained in Obama’s speeches at the Democratic Convention and on election day.  I was born in 1979 and have never had the benefit of living in a United States of America that lived up to its name.  Rather, I’ve been raised in a Red and Blue States of America.

If there is only one “change” that Obama can make, I hope that this is the one– for both this country and the political parties.