I'm Back!

Well everyone,
I am back. I have not been posting because of a lack of news, rather I just have a lack of time. I have started writing a paper on how the Republican Party can return to dominance. I will be posting it here, piece by piece. I expect it to be a while since it is low priority, and I will be taking 21 hours of school. So, without further ado, here is the first section, which is a brief summary of the Republican Party.


Republican History
Is there a need for the Republican Party? This is a difficult question, and ties in with the next section. History repeats itself, so I will start with going over the history of the GOP.
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 in opposition to the Kansas Nebraska Act, which would have allowed the expansion of slavery into Kansas. At the time, the two major parties were the Democrats and the Whigs. The Republican Party was just filling a niche, somewhat like the Libertarian Party of today. They started gaining power through Congressional elections.
In 1860, the party’s second Presidential nominee—Abraham Lincoln—was elected to the nation’s highest office. The Republican’s platform was for "Free Soil, Free Labor, and Free Men".
The Civil War was followed by roughly 30 years of Republican dominance, with the Democratic Party limited to the South. This came to an end in the 1880s as the Democratic Party became competitive, winning the White House in 1884, and losing it in 1888. In 1892, the Democrat’s took control of the government, and the economy crashed. In 1894, in response to the economy, the Republicans won the biggest landslide (130 seats, comparable to 158 seats today) in their history.
In 1896, the Republicans recaptured the White House. This was seen as the resurgence of the Republican Party, brought about by honing their message, reviewing their policies, and the Democrat’s policies failing.
In 1912, the party split, allowing the Democrats to win again. In the 1920s, the party again gained power. They pushed through the agenda of big business. At that time, “social conservatives” were members of the Democratic Party. When The Great Depression came, the country turned to the Democrats, who established firm control of the nation. While the Presidency would go back and forth between the parties, the Congress would be controlled by Republicans for only 2 years between 1934 and 1994.
During the period of time following the Great Depression until the 1980s, the Republican Party was controlled by moderates. They also were repeatedly defeated. The first time the conservative showed their strength was in the nomination of Barry Goldwater, who was defeated by Lyndon Johnson.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan led the conservatives to victory. It was during this election that social conservatives abandoned the Democratic Party, and joined the Republicans. The moderates lost control of the party, and briefly regained it in 1996, followed by 2008, both of which ended in defeat.
In 1988, George Bush was seen as the heir to the conservative leadership. By 1992, conservatives saw that he was not a true believer and he lost to Bill Clinton. The majority people did not support Clinton, but many conservatives thought that Bush had lost his way, and would not vote for him, and Clinton won with only a plurality.
In 1994, America had had two years of liberalism, and decided that they did not like it. In combination, the Republicans defined their message with the Contract with America, and were brought to dominance in the House.
In 1996, the moderate candidate won the nomination, and was defeated. The Republicans retained control of the conservative House, however.
In 2000, the conservatives nominated George W. Bush, who many saw as a true conservative. He united both economic and social conservatives. The Republican Party rode his coattails to take tie control of the Senate. In the 2002 midterm elections, America had had a taste of conservatism, and they liked it. They gave complete control of Congress to the Republican Party for the first time since the 1950s. When the GOP took power, however, they lost sight of their goals, took part in wasteful spending, became corrupt, and failed at being decisive leaders. In many instances, you could not tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. In 2006, the nation resoundingly rejected this type of leadership. The aftershocks of this were still being felt in 2008, resulting in the GOP losing more Congressional seats, as well as the Presidency.
The one caveat to purifying the brand is that while it is needed at the Presidential level, the Democrats proved in 2006 and 2008 that they can run moderates on Republican turf, and win. Republicans may have to put this into their formula for finding candidates.
The Republican Party has accomplished many great things over the years, and they can again, if they follow their ideas, and don’t compromise to liberal pressure.