GOP Mojo

How does the GOP get its mojo back? By staking out core conservative principles, not watering them down, and attracting people to the cause rather than repelling them.

Two things stood out from two articles I read a few Saturdays ago. Peggy Noonan (I know, she's a Sarah-hating snob, but bear with me) said the following about President-elect Obama saving Senator Lieberman's chairmanship:

Politics is a game of addition, take the long view, don't throw anyone out...

Mark Sanford is a successful GOP governor I admire. He once turned a pig loose in the South Carolina Statehouse to chastise the state's pork barrel spending legislators. He has the following advice for the GOP:

I believe Republicans and conservatives must agree on our core principles. St. Augustine called for ‘unity in the essentials, diversity in the nonessentials, and charity in all things,’ and while I believe there should always be a big GOP tent, there must also be a shared agreement on the essentials.

Peggy Noonan's comment highlights a mathematical fact: The GOP cannot win another national election without expanding the 2008 voter base. You win elections by attracting people to your cause. Torch-carrying pogroms expelling the infidels from the party may be the path to emotional self-satisfaction, but it spells ruin for a political movement.

So the key lies in agreeing on core principles (the essentials) and expelling politicians who violate them, while tolerating a diversity of thought on the non-essentials, all the while being civil, optimistic and charitable towards those we disagree with.