Be More Like Tennessee

That is the message that Steve Gill is sending the National GOP this morning:

While the GOP nationally has lost the brand as the party that cuts taxes and controls spending, most of the Republican leaders in the Tennessee legislature cut their teeth in the battles to keep the state free of an income tax and they have continued to fight against wasteful spending and tax increases. They were even vocal in joining the chorus of “drill here, drill now.”

Even more important, when Republicans finally gained control of the State Senate they sought to GOVERN like conservatives rather than simply talking like conservatives at election time. If the GOP wants to start winning nationally they need to follow the lead of the Tennessee legislators who understand that if you don’t stand for something, there is no reason for the voters to stand with you.

The Tennessee Republican Party stood up for conservative issues, and that’s why the state stands out as a lone bright spot in an otherwise dismal election for the Republicans.

Essentially, move rightward, and all will be good. Of course, this doesn't really make too much sense if you scratch beneath the surface.

Tennessee was the outlier in an otherwise good year for Democrats. 65+ million people voted to make the "most liberal Democrat ever" the next President of the United States. While there was a small section of the country, comprising mostly of Appalachia, and parts of Arkansas and Texas, which gave Sen. McCain higher marks than they did Bush in 2004, for the most part, the country has embraced Sen. Obama's vision for America.

So, do the Republicans move right? Perhaps, on fiscal matters they would be wise to continue to promote fiscal conservatism, but rather than a reflexive anti-tax nature, they should focus on balancing the budget, and making America more fiscally solvent. The country ain't buying trickle-down economics anymore, and if the GOP continues to promote that brand of economic theory, I don't think they're going to find great success in the future.

Why and how the TNGOP managed an upset this year is going to be dissected over the course of the next few months, whether it was the battle between Naifeh and Odom which distracted the caucus, whether it was Obama (who btw did garner more votes statewide than Harold Ford Jr.) drawing out more unsavory elements of the Tennessee electorate, or whether it was simply a better run campaign by the Republican candidates (after all, Ty Cobb did manage to pick off one GOP seat), we may never know.

My guess is that some people got complacent, and complacency is the enemy of victory. We won't make that mistake in 2010, but whether it is too late remains to be seen.