GOP speakers: Party needs positive vision

A Republican can’t win the White House in 2016 unless the GOP presidential nominee offers a positive vision for the future instead of criticizing Democratic policies, former national GOP leader Michael Steele and Steve Forbes said Friday at a Las Vegas forum.

The two Republicans also argued that their party needs to embrace immigration reform and return to its roots when the GOP welcomed newcomers and preached assimilation into a diverse America.

Forbes, a two-time GOP presidential contender, and Steele both pointed to the late President Ronald Reagan as the guiding example of how to win the White House by lifting Americans out of recessionary doldrums.

The GOP can’t afford another disappointing election like 2012 when the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, lost to President Barack Obama despite Americans’ distress over the economy and health care, they said, speaking at FreedomFest, an annual conference at Planet Hollywood.

“Reagan didn’t criticize (Jimmy) Carter the way Romney did Obama,” Forbes told a luncheon crowd of about 140 people. “Reagan had a program. People knew there was something positive going in. He offered a vision of America that comported with American values.”

Steele, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2009 after Obama became president, said the health care debate is a good example of how the GOP has misplayed its hand.

He said the party became “fixated on the repeal of Obamacare,” which helped the party raise money from its base of supporters but didn’t translate into votes. He said when the Republicans say repeal, Americans hear, “We’re going to take away something that you just got.”

“We have to show them how they can be better empowered” by taking charge of their own health care insurance instead of being forced to rely on government, Steele said. “They can take control of those decisions for their families and not have to rely on Obama to tell them … what doctor they should see.”

He and Forbes were speaking at a forum to discuss whether the Republican brand has been damaged. Their talk was titled, “Is There Any Hope for the GOP?” The event was part of a four-day annual gathering of about 2,500 libertarian-minded conservatives that ends Saturday.

Steele, who is no longer head of the RNC, said the party lost its way during a decade of big government spending and growth. He presided over the tea party-led GOP takeover of the House in the 2010 election when the anti-tax movement revolted against the GOP establishment.

“The rap right now on the GOP, I think, has been earned in some respects,” Steele said. “It’s deserved and largely of our own making.”

Still, despite his support for the tea party movement, Steele lamented the infighting in the party, particularly between far-right conservatives and mainstream Republicans in GOP primaries across the country.

“You know, Ronald Reagan would have a heck of a time making his way through a Republican primary today,” Steele said. “He probably couldn’t win a Republican primary today, and you have to ask yourself why.”

Steele said when the Republican Party “answers those questions, it will put us on the pathway” to winning the White House again.

Reagan, who served for two terms in the 1980s, was a compelling speaker who was able to unite Americans behind the idea of a free market economy, enterprise and self-reliance, Steele said.

Forbes agreed with Steele about Reagan, but disputed that the GOP brand was damaged by infighting. He said history shows that both major political parties, Democratic and Republican, always have been torn by internal divisions. He acknowledged, however, that the GOP has a negative national reputation, but he blamed it on the media.

“The problem with Republicans is the media hates them and so accentuates the divisions,” Forbes said.

Things are, in fact, looking up for the Republican Party in the short term, Forbes said, with the GOP favored to take control of the U.S. Senate in the midterm 2014 elections.

“We may be the ‘stupid party,’ but we’re going to win the Senate,” he said.

On the topic of immigration, Forbes said the current system actually punishes people who try to follow the law and apply for legal status or U.S. citizenship. He said there’s so much red tape that pricey lawyers often have to get involved, and it takes years for a resolution.

The U.S. Senate a year ago passed a major comprehensive immigration reform bill, but such measures are stalled in the GOP-led House. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has refused to call for any immigration votes.

Steele said this is a major mistake and flies in the face of the history of the GOP, which has long backed civil rights and liberties and under President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery.

However, Steele, who is black, said African-Americans have abandoned the Republican Party in recent decades.

“I’d like to see us return to who we were as Republicans,” Steele said. “We have always been the party of assimilation.”

He said Republicans should make border security the No. 1 priority, and “then we can begin to deal with the humanitarian issue” of illegal immigrants who have streamed across into the United States.

“We’ve allowed ourselves to get boxed out of this conversation,” Steele said of immigration. “We’ve played more to the fear than the solution.”

Steele and Forbes both said the Republican Party has time to get its house in order before the next presidential election and success in the Nov. 4 general election this year could jump-start the effort.

“This 2014 cycle really is the jump-off point for what we need to get ready for 2016,” Steele said.

He added that the GOP has to hone its message to excite the electorate, although he offered no specifics. “What the American people want to know is, ‘What are you going to do?’”

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Find her on Twitter: @lmyerslvrj.