Ever since the American voter gave Mitt Romney a drubbing in the November election, the best minds in Republican circles have been debating how to revive the battered GOP brand.
You might think this would be a special priority for New York City, where Romney captured just 18 percent of the vote. You might think in a sluggish economy, there’s an opening for a party that distinguishes itself from the usual run of candidates vying to out-spend, out-tax and out-regulate their rivals. You might even think conservative and Republican leaders would be looking for ways to make this year’s vital mayoral race a contest of ideas.
You would be wrong.
Take the effort to get Adolfo Carrión — a two-term Democratic Bronx borough president who just finished an undistinguished stint in the Obama administration — onto the Republican ticket.
Now, anyone who admires Ronald Reagan can hardly oppose Democrats turning Republican. But when Reagan switched, it was over ideas, and that’s what he brought into his new party.
In contrast, all Carrión offers is that he’s a Latino with a $1.2 million campaign kitty. Yet, in New York City’s modern GOP, two of the three county chairmen whose OK he needs to get on the Republican primary ballot have signaled they’ll give it to him.
Or take Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro.
True, Molinaro is a registered Conservative, but he’s successfully run three times for office on the Republican line. So what’s his answer? Endorsing City Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the leading Democrat in the race.
Is this opportunism the best conservatives and Republicans can do? At a time when Democrats are fielding candidates beholden to more spending, more taxes and the public unions, isn’t there an opening for an opposition party that makes the case — moral as well as practical — for the markets that create this city’s wealth?
This may not be a recipe for instant success. But we guarantee that treating the GOP as a flag of convenience instead of working hard to bring its message to new voters and new constituencies will only guarantee that Republicans will forever remain a New York minority.