Republicans, It's Time for a 'Second GOP'

Republicans these days are talking a good game about the need to reform—witness Bobby Jindal's plea to stop being the "stupid party." But David Brooks in the New York Times says so far it's been more about sloganeering than actual reform. In fact, he thinks it's "probably futile to try to change current Republicans" and their all-government-is-evil mantra. Better, he writes, is "to build a new wing of the Republican Party."

These new Republicans might have "recoiled" at President Obama's inauguration speech "because of its excessive faith in centralized power." But they would recognize that government must play some role in helping Americans and in narrowing the gulf between the haves and have-nots. "Would a coastal and Midwestern GOP sit easily with the Southern and Western one?" he asks. "No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible." This is Republicans' only chance. "The question is: Who’s going to build a second GOP?" Click for Brooks' full column. (More House Republicans stories.)