While the good ‘ol boys of the Republican Party (and that is meant to be both affectionate and critical) are offering their advice to our beleaguered GOP, Meghan McCain is offering to take us in a fresher, younger, hipper direction. For our party’s sake, let’s hope Meghan McCain’s vision doesn’t stick.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of our failed attempt to restore the GOP message, has been writing a weekly column for the Daily Beast. She has so far done an outstanding job following in her father’s footsteps, using her online space to tell us what is wrong with our values instead of what is wrong with our organization. I have difficulty accepting the criticisms of those who disagree with our party’s beliefs; we usually call them “Democrats.”
Last week, Meghan criticized the GOP’s stance on sex education, in a column entitled, “The GOP Doesn’t Understand Sex.” Liberals, on the other hand, think they understand sex, but they can’t even come up with a clear defintion of “is.”
The reason Republicans advocate abstinence-only education, Meghan writes, is because we think birth control and abortion are one in the same. Convinced we have actually made a strange link between the two, Meghan provides us with the stunning revelation: “But using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all.” Imagine that.
Meghan goes on to make a valid point about the need for parents to better communicate with their children about sex. But once again, Republicans have it all wrong according to her. Republicans fail at the sex talk with their children because they think sex is immoral, and they don’t like talking about immoral subjects. Meghan may or may not be on to something, but she might want to consider the idea that Democrats fail in this area too because they see no morality in the sex subject at all.
Abstinence-only education, she argues, fails to address the physical and emotional issues related to sex. Is liberal-based sex education any more complete, with its “well kids are gonna have sex anyway” attitude? If she wants a curriculum that really prepares young people for the heavy emotional baggage attached to sex, she should urge us to stay away from the Democrat style of sex-ed. Abstinence-only education may have its shortcomings, but the slap-a-condom-on-it-and-call-it-a-day method is even less effective.
In most public k-12 schools (mine included), sex education was presented in the mechanical, unhelpful manner that Meghan McCain opposes. It should be noted that these public schools aren’t run by the conservative prudes that Meghan depicts in her column, but the liberal, so-called progressive teachers unions. Lessons on how to properly wear a condom were never followed by discussion on what to expect after all was said and done. You learned about sex in a liberal public school the way you learned how to tie your shoe; it’s something you were going to do anyway, and you would be apathetic about the whole process. A conservative-based sex ed curriculum would tell you, and rightly so, that sex is more than just sex.
The culturally embarrassing scandal of the Clinton years should be a lesson in why liberals should not teach your children about sex. Clinton’s defenders dismissed critics for overreacting to something that was “just sex,” and nothing more. It wasn’t just a daughter coping with the realization that her parent’s relationship would never be the same; it wasn’t just a wife dealing with the loss of trust in her husband; it wasn’t just a man forced to explain himself to his loved ones and his god; it wasn’t just a young woman facing the reality that she broke up a family. But don’t worry, liberals will tell you, all of that is “just sex.”
I competely agree with Meghan that more honest and open communication is needed among families, but I would not devalue the guidance provided by conservative parents to their children when it comes to sex. The essence of being a teenager is having the inability to use freedom responsibly, so unambiguous direction provided by parents is needed.
I hope no one else in the Republican Party is banking on Meghan McCain to lead our party into the future. Despite her support for the 2nd amendment, I’m still not convinced she can restore us. If she wants to lead us, she should take Colin Powell with her, because I’m definitely not following.
If you combine Meghan McCain’s presence with the ideas and values of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and the other “good ‘ol boys” I linked to earlier, we would probably have a winning spokesperson. An effective message requires an effective messenger. Without the proper messenger, our principles are lost, since it is our principles that shape our message. Meghan McCain is young, attractive, eneregtic, and can appeal to a younger population of voters, but she is arguably liberal.
When I use the term “good ‘ol boys” to describe Newt, Rush, Cheney, Romney, etc., it is in no way a reference to race. The good ‘ol boys aren’t the rich, fat, white old men caricatured by Democrats. To me, they are the old war horses of our party who still have great ideas, but lack the charisma and the fight to fit the times. Both parties have the good ‘ol boys of my definition. They are the firmly established party elite that have too much Washington experience to pass on the reins to their sucessors. They do things a certain way, and if you don’t like it, you just have to wait a few years and make your bones.
We need the Newts, Rushes, and the Cheneys, but we need them as our party’s sages. We need people like Governors Palin and Jindal to be the messengers. Palin and Jindal (and many others who I won’t bother to name) have the ability to make the conservative message appeal to a broader audience. When Newt is on television, the grassroots conservative of any age will look upon on him admirably. The average voter, on the other hand, may watch his television set and think no one new has joined the GOP since 1994.
When a new Republican face emerges, people will want to find out more about him, and in the process, they learn more about conservatism. Ultimately, it isn’t about putting in place something new, but restoring what has been before. The Republican Restoration, not the Revolution, can take place with the right person leading it on television, the radio, and the internet. 
Reagan’s efforts offer a prime example. While we can never replicate Reagan’s charisma, we can replicate his actions. Each speech he gave was not just a about him, but about a higher ideal. His rallies were not just for excitement, but for education.
I think we already have the leaders we’ve been looking for, but the good ‘ol boys and the Meghan McCains of our party are still in search mode.
We can bring sexy back to the GOP, but not the type that Meghan McCain envisioned.
