Gerson Reflects on the Future of the GOP; Suggests: 'Any Political Movement

That Elevates Abstract Antigovernment Ideology Above Human Needs Is Hardly

Conservative, and Unlikely To Win'

NEW YORK, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsweek contributor, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter and policy adviser to President Bush, and now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes about what's next for the GOP, and how the divided party should shape itself as it heads towards the 2008 election. "The future of the Republican Party depends on which party it wants to be -- the party of purity, or the party of the governors. In that decision, Republicans should consider: any political movement that elevates abstract antigovernment ideology above human needs is hardly conservative, and unlikely to win," Gerson writes in the December 25, 2006 - January 1, 2007 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, December 18).

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061217/NYSU007 )

Gerson writes that, "One Republican Party ... will argue that the 'big government Republicanism' of the Bush era has been a reason for recent defeats. Like all fundamentalists, the antigovernment conservatives preach that greater influence requires a return to purity-the purity of Reaganism ... As antigovernment conservatives seek to purify the Republican Party, it is reasonable to ask if the purest among them are conservatives at all," Gerson writes. "The combination of disdain for government, a reflexive preference for markets and an unbalanced emphasis on individual choice is usually called libertarianism ... Unfettered individualism can loosen those bonds, while government can act to strengthen them. By this standard, good public policies- from incentives to charitable giving, to imposing minimal standards on inner- city schools-are not apostasy; they are a thoroughly orthodox, conservative commitment to the common good."

There is another Republican Party -- what might be called the party of the governors, Gerson writes. "It is the party of Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who has improved the educational performance of minority students and responded effectively to natural disasters. It is the party of Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who mandated basic health insurance while giving subsidies to low-income people. Neither of these men embrace big government; both show convincing outrage at wasteful spending. But they have also succeeded in making government work in essential government roles-not a small thing in a post-Katrina world."

(Read Gerson's essay at www.Newsweek.com) SOURCE Newsweek

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