Junk Bond - how former Republican National Committee chairman Richard Bond has damaged the Republican Party's organization and cohesion

National Review, March 1, 1993 by Edward J. Rollins

RICH BOND, the departed RNC chairman, is a friend of mine and a man I have respected over the years as one of the best political operatives in the Republican Party. That is why I was so disappointed by the farewell speech he gave to the National Committee meeting in St. Louis. In his swan song to the party faithful, political tolerance took on a double meaning. His injunction to tolerance was part of an intolerant attack on some of our party's most loyal supporters.

Indeed, there is a pattern here. Rich Bond was wrong at the Republican Convention last August when he condemned the Democrats with his statement, 'We are America; these other people are not America." He's wrong now when he says in effect, We are the Republican Party; these other Republicans are not.

If Republicans like Rich Bond can learn from past mistakes, it should now be apparent to them that we need to make room in our party for a broad and diverse range of ideas and lifestyles. We should not shut anyone out--including the more conservative elements of our party.

Looking back at the Bush Presidency, it's clear that the Bush camp attempted to substitute an attitude for ideas. Not only did they not have the "vision thing," they mocked it as something trivial compared to how well they were managing the status quo. As a result, Americans who were struggling to shed a pessimism brought on by a downturn in the economy concluded their President simply didn't understand their problems. Nor did they believe he offered them any hope that things would change in a second term.

Ronald Reagan had attracted the most impressive coalition in American politics since FDR. When he passed the baton to George Bush in 1988, all the pieces were still in place. It included economic conservatives, moderate Republicans, neo-conservatives, blue-collar Democrats, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, fundamentalist Christians, and--perhaps most important]y-it included younger voters. The secret of making this coalition work was that there were many strong voices at the table, and differences over certain policy positions didn't cause excommunication from the party.

Ronald Reagan awakened a new sense of patriotism in America, but he didn't do it with sharp-edged partisan rhetoric. He also had an economic message that offered hope and promise to every American, not just a few. Ronald Reagan valued family life, yet he knew from experience that one American's notion of family could be quite a bit different from his neighbor's. More than anything, Ronald Reagan had vision and he knew how to communicate it.

In three short years with George Bush in the driver's seat, all the wheels came off. From day one the Bush Administration put out the message: Reagan people need not apply. By August of last year, they had alienated so many people that they had to try to push themselves across the finish line on the backs of the one constituency that remained with them. It obviously didn't work. But that's no reason to attack the people who stood by the President in his final hour.

To condemn the most active Republicans, the backbone of the grassroots conservative movement--and over a quarter of the Republican voters last November--is absurd. Fundamentalist Christians and pro-life groups are not the ones responsible for the failures of George Bush. The Clinton people said it best: It was the economy, stupid.

They Read His Lips

GEORGE BUSH'S trouble began with the disastrous budget deal of 1990. Besides breaking his no-new-taxes pledge, it pushed a teetering economy over the brink of recession. Then, for the next 18 months, while Americans became more and more pessimistic about the economy, the President refused to admit we had a problem at all. And once he acknowledged we had a problem, he appeared both unwilling and unable to do anything about it.

From November of 1991 until January of 1992, we were told he would fix everything in his State of the Union address. When he finally delivered his speech, it was less than inspiring, but he had at least thrown down the gauntlet to Congress over taxes and spending--giving them a hundred days to act or he would take his case to the American people. Newly installed Party Chairman Rich Bond even hung a banner from RNC headquarters across the street from the Capitol to count the days remaining before George Bush took off the gloves. What happened? The banner disappeared. The gloves never came off. And George Bush again failed to make a case--any case--with the American people.

Now the job of trying to resurrect a phoenix from the ashes falls to a new party chairman, Republican leaders in Congress such as Senator Bob Dole and Congressman Newt Gingrich, and some of our outstanding governors around the country.

Haley Barbour is as smart a pol as there is. Though he has worked in Washington, he and his family have continued to live in Mississippi. He didn't learn his politics inside the Beltway, as so many of the Bushies did. Haley has been a party operative at the grassroots, winning Republican victories in the Democratic South. He was an early and important player in the Reagan years. He has been a candidate himself. And most important of all, he understands what inclusion really means.