Reform Republicans's Page

The Republican Party, both nationally and in the New York state, has fractured. The coalition President Reagan built - of fiscal conservatives, pragmatic national security hawks, and social conservatives – is no more.

In the last decade the Republican Party has abandoned limited but effective government in favor of big government programs and less oversight. It has engaged in ambitious undertakings overseas but often without allocating the means or plans necessary to achieve them. It has tarnished the Republican reputation for competence and integrity by allowing corporate kleptocracy and influence peddlars to infect its ranks. Clearly, we have lost our way, and the voters have responded accordingly.

Yet, while the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan may be down and out, it is not dead and buried. Our core beliefs – of personal choice, individual accountability, self-reliance, fiscal responsibility and ethical government - are still sound. We need to reconnect with them. But we also must recognize it is not enough to dust off our old policies to solve the problems of a new era. It is not enough to just re-brand the Republican Party, we must reform and redefine it. We must do what Lincoln and Roosevelt and Reagan before us did – reconnect with our principles and make them relevant to today’s and tomorrow’s problems – not yesterday’s. We must do so by reaching out to all parts of our society – to women, young people, Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans, Eastern Europeans, legal immigrants – and not merely tolerate their presence but actively encourage their participation. We must also tolerate within our ranks differences of opinion on many issues. This does not lessen their importance - to some and in some regions they are critical. But if we insist on dozens of litmus tests for being a Republican, we will never again be a national party with appeal to a broad range of Americans.

The goal of the Reform Republican movement is to offer a place where we can debate the issues. Our aim is to start by creating an online community. We will build upon that base to encourage candidates for party and public office, first for local and state positions, ultimately for national office. We offer an online community where people of all shades of Republican can come and offer their ideas, engage with each other, and reignite the flame that our forbearers nurtured.

We welcome Conservatives, Independents, lapsed Republicans, Progressives, disenchanted Democrats, flat taxers, balanced budgeters, neo-cons, paleo-cons, pro-choicers and pro-lifers. We do not presume to dictate a new Republican manifesto out of whole cloth. We do aim to offer the threads that can be knit together into a new coalition by a new generation of leaders. Out of necessity, past political movements have often been driven from the top down. Networking technology and new media make it possible for the political movements of the future to grow from the grassroots up.

Join with us, offer your ideas, critique the thoughts of others, help us find a way to make our core beliefs relevant again. It is a daunting task, but an exciting one. It is a once in a generation opportunity to create a new political movement suited for the solving the problems of today using the technology of tomorrow. If we succeed, we will transform not only our Party, but help lead our country out of difficult times so that we can, once more, say it is Morning in America.

-KT McFarland