Spring is in the air. The ground it soaked, the grass grows, and flowers spring up into the sky. It must be time for the Republicans to be doing something stupid.
In fact, they're doing a lot of goofy things. The two that come to mind are the 9/12 Project and the National Council for a New America. The 9/12 Project is the brainchild of Glenn Beck's latest hallucination, the creation of a theocracy fashioned in the image of Glenn Beck. This is not to be confused with another creation, "We Surround Them," which seems to have a similar goal. And yet the failure is spectacular in so many ways. Instead of the 1994 "Contract with America" which had just a few points, Mr. Beck insists on 9 principles and 12 open-ended "values." Is Mr. Beck running for emperor of his own private universe? An exercise in self-righteous futility, this sad effort to vicariously relive the 1980's misses the point: Principle is not a focus-grouped list of safe positions.
Oddly enough, the National Council for a New America seems to take the opposite path. An exclusive club for up-and-coming Republican politicians, it seems to eschew the masses for the rarified inside-the-beltway air of power and self-aggrandizement. In the end, it is exactly what has brought down the Republican party in 1992 and 2006.
In the end, the forms are new, but the concepts stem from the failed 1994 Republican Revolution. I know because I was there fifteen years ago. Sadly, though, the sum of one faux-populist maniac and a club of insiders trying to reform a party which has no guiding principle is failure.
If you are a freedom-lover, the major parties have left you. Come join a party that still maintains the flame of individual dignity and freedom, the Libertarian Party.