After winning a hard-fought campaign to become chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus said his top priority will be to unify the factions of the party.
“We have to get on track,” he said Saturday. “And together we can defeat Barack Obama in 2012.”
We don’t endorse that partisan goal, but it’s probably in the country’s best interest for the RNC and the Republican party to regain their balance. Thanks to the poor management of former chairman Michael Steele, and the growing influence of free-lance power brokers, the RNC has lost money and relevance.
Meanwhile its conservative factions are enjoying a strong run. Entrepreneurs like Karl Rove are raking in campaign cash, and ideologues and media stars are managing the policy analysis. What the enterprise needs is a sensible, 38-year-old lawyer from Kenosha, Wis. to work energizing Main Street Republicans, and making the GOP’s big tent more secure and orderly.
To broaden the Republican base, Priebus and the RNC should nurture the party’s moderates and rein in its hard-liners. It’s also the right organization to take on the responsibility of mediating between congressional elders and Tea Party newcomers. In the words of one party insider, the GOP desperately needs “a strategically smart and fiscally sound Republican National Committee.”
Even those who are not Republicans have a legitimate interest in seeing the party well-managed. The election of a new RNC chairman may help bring back the kind of productive partisanship that was once commonplace in politics.
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Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Nick Cowenhoven at nickc@journaltribune.com.
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