the post 2008 GOP/LPC dilemma

Yesterday night, with the election of Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, the political landscape of our neighbour down south was swept with a tide of blue. Not only did Obama make history as the country's first ever African-American president, he also became the first Democrat in decades to win typical GOP-strongholds like Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. The Democrats also saw increases in their majorities in the Senate and the House. It was a great night for the party of FDR and JFK.

So where does this leave the Republicans? Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Krugman predicts that it will take a while for the GOP to get themselves out of an identity rump and their disconnect with the average American voter. An interesting point Krugman makes is that, after an anti-incumbent-protest election (like the one we had yesterday) occurs, moderate politicians like Senator John Sununu (R-NH), Senator Libby Dole (R-NC), and John McCain usually lose or get voted out off office, leaving party hardliners from conservative states like Senator Saxby Chambliss from Georgia, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, and Alaska's favourite hockey mom governor, Sarah Palin to take control of the party. These conservative hardliners slowly become out of touch with moderate voters, who now make up a fair portion of large urban centres in what are typically GOP-held states.

You know the party is in a rump when there is much talk about failed US VP candidate Sarah Palin being the future of the party. I can draw a sad, but true, comparison between the soul searching of the GOP and that of Canada's federal Liberal Party. After two years of misguided leadership under Stephane Dion, the LPC is in dire need for strong leadership with conviction and clarity. Yet, an IPSOS-reid poll shows Liberals would prefer kindergarten teacher and rookie MP Justin Trudeau to be their next leader. As a card-holding member of the party, I fear the worse for my own team, as some members unrealistically and foolishly yearn for the days-long-gone of Pierre Trudeau, as the GOP is doing with the years past of Ronald Reagan.

Democracy is like the economy. Major political parties like the LPC and the GOP, if not wiped out by a great depression, will go through its up's and down's and go in and out of government. It's just a question of how long it will take them to climb out of their political-identity recession.