Tom Schaller made a good point last Thursday that the Republican Party is now the party without a coherent message. Though they all do still dutifully agree that they will cut taxes, which means that the subtle distinctions between the “compassionate” Huckabee and the “I Got Mine, Jack” philosophy of the rest is actually meaningless in practice. But in the absence of a message there is always one thing they can get excited about: frantically Googling personal information about ordinary citizens in order to show the bias of the evil media. I've been getting e-mails the last two days from RedState.com asking me to sign on to their demand for a “do-over debate” that would not include questions from -- oh, no! -- people who supported John Kerry! Or people who work for a union! Or people who were spotted wearing a John Edwards t-shirt! These two things are not unrelated. A party that has lost its ability to communicate a coherent message is one that will think it's not just difficult, but actually an injustice to have to answer questions from people who don't share their premises. It's the logical extension of the administration that tightly manages its audiences, that has people arrested who might disagree with the president, and that holds its own press conferences with political aides impersonating reporters. In addition to Dana's point that it is healthy for the general election for candidates to face questions from voters outside their own party, the fact is that it is not exclusively lifelong Republicans who get to choose their nominee. In fact, looking for a good list of closed and open primaries, I found Republicanforaday.com, a site set up to encourage Ron Paul supporters either to either vote in open primaries, or even just to register as a Republican for a single day in order to support Paul. In addition to Paul, McCain and Romney are hoping for support from New Hampshire independents in that state's semi-open primary. I would like to endorse the RedState.com/Human Events demand for a “do-over” debate with one amendment: Let's have a Democratic debate in which all the questions can come from conservatives. Bring us Grover Norquist! Bring us Norman Podhoretz! Let the voters choose between the Party That Isn't Afraid Of Questions From People Who Don't Already Agree With Them, and the Party of Closed Minds. -- Mark Schmitt
