Republican Party

There are optimists within the Republican Party. They look at the wreckage left behind after last year's elections, and recall 1964. That was the year that Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, was so badly trounced that pundits proclaimed the GOP dead. But it was also the year that a new breed of conservative activists, myself among them, brought a new energy to the party that eventually reshaped it and led to years of Republican domination of the executive branch.

Dick Cheney made it clear Sunday that he would rather follow firebrand broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party. Even as Cheney embraced efforts to expand the party by former Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and the House's No. 2 Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the former vice president appeared to write his former colleague Powell out of the GOP.

It was an unusual showdown pitting present and former leaders, live on national television, with President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney dueling in back-to-back speeches Thursday over how to best protect the nation against terrorism. Obama pressed his case for closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and for discarding interrogation techniques he described as brutal, while Cheney warned that doing so would endanger the country.

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned Sunday that ideological conservatives, particularly radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, had gained a hold over the Republican Party that risked driving the GOP into an extended exile from power. Powell cast his warnings in unusually personal terms as he answered recent charges from two champions of the Republican right -- Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney -- that he was no longer a Republican. "Rush will not get his wish, and Mr.

Last week the Republican National Committee released a Web-only spot opposing the closing of the Guantanamo detention center that sampled the infamous "Daisy ad" from Lyndon Johnson's 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater. Either out of sense of decency, loss of nerve or ineptitude, the RNC made an utter hash of it. More on that in a moment -- first, let me refresh your collective memory: "Daisy" opens in a field on a child, dreamily counting as she picks petals off a flower.

The dust-up between Rush Limbaugh and Colin L. Powell over whether Powell is still a Republican is more than the political equivalent of a show-business feud. It reflects the perennial -- but for Republicans in 2009, painfully pertinent -- question of whether it's good for a major political party to be a big tent or whether too much inclusiveness turns it into a three-ring circus.

Mark Sanford's extramarital excursion to Latin America is just the latest -- albeit the most lurid -- in a series of setbacks that have plagued Republicans as they struggle to recast the party and promote a new generation of national leaders. Over the last few months, several of the GOP's most touted presidential prospects have fallen away, leaving Republicans increasingly adrift at a time when voter surveys show the party in possibly the worst shape since the troubled days of Watergate.

Responding to a string of Republican attacks against the $787-billion economic stimulus program, Obama administration officials launched a full-throated defense of the program Thursday, calling in reporters to argue that the surge in federal spending was blunting the recession and staving off even deeper job losses.

Conservatives are calling it their August Revolt -- a surprising upsurge of activism against President Obama's proposed healthcare overhaul. Spurred on by the success of their efforts to dominate the news at Democratic town hall meetings, conservative groups are reporting increases in membership lists and are joining forces to plan at least one mass demonstration in Washington next month. But the conservative mobilization has also created an unusual dilemma for Republican leaders, who want to turn the enthusiasm into election victories next year but find themselves the target of ire from many of the same activists.

A freshman Kansas congresswoman said Thursday that her remark about fellow Republicans seeking a "great white hope" was not a reference to someone who could challenge President Obama or his political agenda. Rep. Lynn Jenkins said she was instead making a comment about GOP leaders in the House and was trying to reassure Republicans that the party has bright leaders there. She used the phrase during an Aug. 19 forum in Hiawatha, Kan.; someone in the crowd recorded it and gave the video to the Kansas Democratic Party.