BARACK OBAMA'S VICTORY has left the Republican Party and its allies reeling, groping frantically for a path back to power. Luckily, or not, the conservative establishment already has a handful of recently published critical works to guide its meditations. These include David Frum's Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again and Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam's Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, as well as columns by the New York Times' house conservative, David Brooks. All of these emphasize the need for a new social direction for the GOP and conservative movement. These sources teach that Republicans have foundered because they have failed to move with the times. Whether it is Brooks asking us to treat homosexual marriage as an expression of "family values," Frum exhorting the GOP to ditch the Religious Right on abortion and gay rights--but obviously not on Zionism--or Douthat and Salam pushing for government subsidies for the working poor and "earned legalization programs" for undocumented aliens, the common theme is that the Right and the GOP should downplay, if not concede, contentious social issues and engage more purposefully in income manipulation. This move would supposedly help the Right get into sync with voters.
