In his new book, “The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America’s Promise,” former House Republican Joe Scarborough — currently the host of MSNBC’s popular morning wonk-fest “Morning Joe” — examines the crisis facing his party while arguing for the relevance of the conservative movement in an Obama moment. He spoke to The Post about what’s gone awry and how to fix it.
Is it possible to pinpoint what went wrong with the GOP, and when?
A lot of us couldn’t figure out what was happening to the party when it was happening. Four, five years ago, everyone was talking about the permanent Republican majority. If you look over the past eight years, the GOP — and I was there — we spent six years fighting to balance the budget, fighting for a more restrained foreign policy. Then George W. Bush comes to town, and the Republicans forgot why they were put in power in 1994. For six of those eight years, it was the GOP responsible for that $1.5 trillion deficit. Of course, Barack Obama’s budget takes us down a more dangerous path, and now it’s the Dems who are blindly leading us.
How much of the current GOP crisis is due to the weight social and cultural issues are given?
What I say to conservatives is, “We need to relax.” And this comes from a guy who grew up in an evangelical church in the Southeast. We don’t need DC micro-managing OB/GYN matters and same-sex marriages. We need to be constitutional conservatives and keep those battles out of DC. Let [the left] argue it. They’ll look like the extremists.
There’s a new Pew poll out that shows 38% of Americans call themselves conservative; 19% call themselves liberal. It’s not the conservative numbers that are shrinking. It’s the Republicans. Evangelicals and Hispanics are going to respond to whoever is leading the movement, and the GOP has to prove it’s not run by harsh ideologues with a narrow agenda. If we want to exclude people who think like Colin Powell, we will continue losing voters.
What do you make of the party’s response to Sonia Sotomayor?
It’s absolute insanity. Most Americans saw a picture of an African-American president and a Hispanic-American as his nominee and were cheered by that. It doesn’t help the party to have some of its thought leaders going out there calling her a racist. Right now, there is a cultural problem with a party whose faces have been Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, George Bush and Rush Limbaugh.
Who is the party’s thought leader?
I don’t know. I would say the one conservative voice is Charles Krauthammer.
What do think is animating Dick Cheney’s sudden visibility?
I think he was extremely frustrated serving eight years under a president who could not express himself articulately. But the party won’t regenerate itself if it looks backward. It can’t be run by those who dismantled Reagan’s conservative coalition.
The main criticism of the party, from within and without, is that it has become solely reactionary — that there is an ideas vacuum.
There is no doubt George Bush shattered the party and weakened the country with his massive spending plan. Those Republicans who went along with him are not in any position to produce new ideas. They are disoriented.
But this happens — it happened in 1980, 1994, 2004. When I came into Congress in ’94, the GOP dominated in the Northeast. Now, there is not a single person in the Northeast who is represented by a Republican. There’s always a counter-revolution, a response to one party seizing complete control of power. There is always an ebb and flow to American politics.
Who should re-brand the GOP?
[Political consultant] Mike Murphy. He [understands] Republicans who are moderate ideologically and temperamentally — that’s what they need. Calling Obama a communist and Sonia Sotomayor a racist is not going to win housewives in the suburbs of Philly.
What is your assessment of Obama so far?
I think his economic policies are disastrous. GWB dug a hole in our international debt. Obama will add more than all his 43 predecessors combined. On foreign policy, I’m a bit more positive. I think his keeping some of the Bush people — Jim Jones, Petraeus, Gates — it he looks like he’s going to be a realist. Same on Iraq and Afghanistan. And his rhetoric has been calming to the world.
As for you: would you ever run again?
No. Now, I get some calls from senators, asking me if I’d consider running. But I have more influence on my show than I would as a freshman senator. At least that’s what my wife tells me.