As we’ve been seeing, the Republican Party has been flagellating itself over a perceived need for better “outreach” and a more appealing “brand” of conservatism in order to win any more presidential elections. What increasingly seems like the Grumpy Obsolete Party has now lost the ultimate popular vote five times out of the last six elections.
At the same time, some of its ideological keepers, including Sarah Palin, have been waxing nostalgic over the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. He was, they take pains to point out, the last president to slash both taxes and the federal budget.
Thus, he’s now revered in certain GOP circles for not only presiding over a 1920s “golden age,” but for a quote that more than resonates with today’s Party true believers. “If the federal government were to go out of business, the common run of people would not detect the difference,” once noted Cal coolly. Ronald Reagan merely updated the sentiment a half century later.
The only problem with citing Coolidge, beyond his well-chronicled charisma bypass: his fixation with supply side economics and the deification of an unregulated Wall Street and banks. Recall that they were key catalysts in the crash that blindsided America shortly after he left office.
It’s bad enough for Republicans that RNC Chair Reince Priebus looks like Forest Gump and seems enamored of that Party self-critique (aka “autopsy”) that misses the part about the actual Republican message. He wouldn’t compound the Party’s general-election challenge by encouraging GOPsters to channel their inner Cal Coolidge. Or would he?