DCRepublican.com

Fri 28 Dec 2007

I saw an excellent documentary on HBO earlier this week, Hard as Nails, which documents the life Catholic lay-minister, Justin Fatica and his quest to get more young people involved in the church.

Normally, I’m not one who is a fan of proselytizing evangelicals (yes, I’m still a Republican), but I noticed something in different in how Fatica approached young people: he called them out on their imperfections that nobody wanted to talk about. In the movie, there was a larger girl who was getting made fun of because of her weight. Now, most people would just tell her “you’re not that fat” or “who cares what they think” but Fatica took a completely different approach.

He told this girl straight-up, “you’re fat” and of course, silenced the crowd of teens that was in the audience. However, he wasn’t doing this to humiliate the girl, but instead was doing it as a means to cut through the political correctness and get to the core of the problem. The problem wasn’t the fact that this girl was fat, but instead the problem was that there weren’t more people who were willing to stand up to those people who talked down to her.

So how does this apply to the GOP?

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen this applied in the party yet, but after awhile I came to the conclusion that if the party is truly going to be successful, there needs to a serious discussion of what the party, not just the President or a few individuals have done wrong.

Instead of focusing on why one person is the way they are, or why they have done something, the party should be focusing on everyone surrounding that person. In this case, those surrounding would be the party itself.

Too often do I see Republicans here in Washington who surround themselves with people who have a little bit of power, and use that power to write their own agenda. Unfortunately, if these “mavericks” build a strong enough of a following, their feux-GOP beliefs can easily become those of the party.

Just look at the Bush Administration. Yes, they have done some great things for the conservative movement, but at the same time there has almost been more harm than good. Government has grown out of control, earmarks take up more paper than actual legislation and the spending has increased significantly.

Like Fatica says consistently throughout the documentary, “so what are you doing to do about it”.

This is a question that really needs to be asked as we approach the 2008 elections. So far, I’ve only seen attack questions and softballs, all questions that have some significance to the candidate on a personal level, but very few actually have value to re-building our tattered party.

If we don’t fix it, there are going to be major factions throughout the Republican party. Eventually, these factions will fade into smaller groups, and before you know it, being a member of the Republican party will be no different than being a member of the YMCA.

At least the YMCA lets me use their pool.

Maybe I’m the only one who understand the tie-in of “Hard as Nails” and the problems facing the Republican party, but if anything, you should definitely check out the documentary.

Here is more info: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hardasnails/