GOP knows they must appeal to new voters, the question is how

The Grand Old Party isn't so grand anymore. After two straight beatings in federal elections, party leaders are struggling to find a way to appeal to a broad base of voters.
Republicans must return to the message that veteran campaigners like former President Ronald Reagan and former Sen. Jesse Helms used. The modern GOP must be able to appeal to voters across the aisles like these two stalwarts of conservatism did. While both could be polarizing individuals, both were able to draw support from Democrats. But right now the party is not in such a position. Allow a clarification please - I don't mean for divisive politics by using Reagan or Helms (although as a colleague points out, Helms was quite divisive) but to design a message of fiscal and personal responsibility that can appeal across party lines.
To the average voter the party is fractured highlighted by a squabble between Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. While this type of perceived infighting can be damaging to the party, it can also be cathartic as well. The party must organize and return to grassroots efforts in order to retake the White House and the halls of Congress. But the question is how.
During a Lincoln Day Dinner in DuPage County last month, Steele called for the Republican Party to tailor its message to all voters, not just conservative voters. Steele said the party message must be something that would appeal to voters who most likely would align themselves with Democrat candidates.

We need a new approach that assures Republicans play in every state; take nothing for granted. We may not win everywhere we play, but we certainly won’t win if we don’t play everywhere we can... Once again, we need to speak directly to the hopes, concerns and aspirations of Americans. So let’s stop telling Americans what we’re against and instead articulate a compelling vision of what we’re for, how we’ll lead and where we want to go.

During last week's Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Washington, D.C., Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty made a similar call. Pawlenty said the GOP must appeal to what he calls “Sam’s Club voters,” socially right-leaning middle-class voters who may have once belonged to a union, and who now care more about whether they will see their next paycheck than about issues like abortion or gay rights. Like Steele, Pawlenty said the GOP needs to do a better job appealing to voters who are not rank and file Republicans.

“We don’t have a big enough party to be throwing people overboard, and so while we may not agree all the time, if somebody agrees with us most of the time, they need to feel welcome, and there needs to be a spot at the table for them, too,” Pawlenty said. “You don’t win elections and you can’t govern and you can’t make a difference if you aren’t able to get a majority. So you have to be adding people, not subtracting people.”

The problem has been identified, but now comes the hard part - implementing the change.

Limbaugh, Steele fight over GOP while Democrats laugh

So, who is the top bull elephant in the Grand Old Party?
Is it Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele?
Is it radio show host Rush Limbaugh?
It's an interesting question and since so much of politics is about perception, it's a question that deserves to be answered. First look at the reality of the RNC. The RNC exists to provide national leadership to the Republican Party, including the development of a national platform, coordinating fundraising efforts and promoting electoral strategies. The RNC works with Republican leadership in the 50 states.
Limbaugh is the host of the biggest, and perhaps most influential, conservative radio program in the nation. During the Clinton years Limbaugh was called the "voice of conservative principles" by National Review. Limbaugh is enjoying high ratings now thanks to being targeted by the Obama administration following his comments that he hopes Obama fails.
There's where perception comes into play. With the attention Limbaugh is receiving from Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, he is the chief target of the Democrats, which gives him more power within the party than he actually had. according to multiple news sources, On Sunday, Emanuel called Limbaugh "the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party," on CBS’ “Face The Nation." On Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs described Limbaugh as "a national spokesperson for conservative views and many in the Republican Party." In January Obama urged Republican leaders in a private meeting to quit listening to Limbaugh.
While Limbaugh is enjoying relevancy during the Obama years, it's clear the majority of Republicans don't acknowledge him as the leader. According to Rasmussen Reports, an independent polling organization, only 11 percent of Republicans believe Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party while 81 percent disagree. But when it comes to Democrats, 44 percent say Limbaugh is the party leader while 41 percent disagree.
When it comes to those identifying themselves as conservatives, moderates and liberal, without the party moniker, "76 percent of self-designated conservatives do not see him as the Republican leader. Fifty-two percent of moderates share that view, but the plurality of liberals,45 percent do see Limbaugh as calling the shots for the GOP."
While Rush may not be the leader of the Republican Party, he sure is a powerful voice in its ranks. So far no high ranking elected Republican lawmaker has spoken out against Limbaugh. And here's the reality of that - Limbaugh speaks to millions of people each day. Steele does not have that kind of voice. Limbaugh can urge people to not give contributions to the RNC as well. But would he do that in electoral times when every vote counts toward victory?
This is clearly something GOP officials want to go away and they're attempting to make it happen. According to a Wednesday article in The Hill, GOP lawmakers are stressing that people are more concerned with the state of the economy than they are with Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele.

"This is nothing more than a distraction created by the administration to take people’s attention away from the fact that they’re going to raise taxes and grow the size of government,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Wednesday following a weekly GOP policy meeting.“The White House started this … I was in the room, going back to the day after the Inaugural, and it just kind of escalated from there."

Boehner has it right. It's a non issue, yet the Democrats will encourage infighting in the GOP as often as possible. Remember, there's always an election around the corner and fractured opposition is much better than a united opposition.

RNC Chairman Steele offers new hope for GOP

RNC Chairman Michael Steele wowed DuPage Republicans Friday night with his call to return the party to its traditional tenets of fiscal conservatism.
Steele, who was the keynote speaker at the 48th annual Lincoln Day dinner, said the Republican's inability to hold to those tenets were the reasons for losses in 2006 and 2008.
“We learned one important lesson from the 2006 and 2008 elections; you can’t please everyone all the time, but you can anger everyone at the same time,” Steele said.
Steele said the GOP lawmakers who went to Washington forgot the principles of the 1994 Contract with America and “began drinking that Potomac River water” and got drunk off the perks of being in charge of the nation. Steele said the party deserved the setbacks in the previous elections, but now it’s time to rebuild and refocus on core conservative values.
"We got an old-fashioned whooping and we deserved it because we walked away from the good old-fashioned principles that defined us for 150 years," he said. "We're in the 12-step recovery program and we've got a brand new attitude. There’s a lot of fight left in this party.”
, Steele laid out his hopes for a more responsible and effective Republican Party. Steele said Republicans need to expand their base and target voters who may lean more to voting Democrat. He said the party has a duty to package traditional Republican ideals in a way that will appeal to those voters. Steele said the Republican Party can take a lesson from Howard Dean, Steele’s Democrat opposite, by adopting a 50 state strategy and target vulnerable seats in those states. Steele lauded Dean’s plan because it won Democrats seats in traditionally Republican states, like Montana, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina.
Steele said the first challenge for Illinois Republicans is the seat of embattled Sen. Burris. With the possibility of Burris losing that seat and a special election to replace him, Steele said this is the race Republicans need to win.
Pointing out problems for the party is the first step on a long road to recovery, but the proof will be in implementing plans to restore the viability of the Republican Party.

Michael Steele has big task ahead of him

It was announced on Monday that newly elected Republican Party chairman Michael Steele will be in Dupage County later this month as the keynote speaker at the GOP Lincoln Day Dinner.

Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, is the first black leader of the Republican Party. Steele won his post after six rounds of voting last week. Following his election, Steele hit the Sunday talk shows and began to sketch plans of what he hopes to accomplish. Does this mean taking the party in a new direction, or continuing the same message that failed in the last two elections? Steele is a more moderate Republican. He helped found the Republican Leadership Council which favors gay rights and is more pro-choice.

On Fox News Sunday, Steele said he intends to hit the ground running to make up some of the seats the GOP lost in 2008.

We're going to be on the ground and engaged in all of those campaigns that are going to be important opportunities for us to re- establish the brand for the party, number one, but most especially, reacquaint ourselves with the voters and help them appreciate exactly what we stand for and what we believe, putting good candidates in a position to win.
That's my job, is to put good candidates in a position to win. Now, we're not going to win all of them, but we're going to start to win again in important races that matter, and we've got three of them coming up this year.

Steele recognizes that the GOP failed to act like conservatives while the party held power the bulk of this century. He said that's the primary reason the GOP lost their seats.

They moved away from us because we behaved badly. We came to Washington, and we became like the people we were sent here to replace, and they replaced us.

But how will he accomplish this turnaround, that remains to be seen. Hopefully he will share his plans and energize the party when he comes to Illinois.