Stuck in Stupid

The Republican Party is not dead. It might be a tad stinky, but it is not dead. Right now it is just stuck in stupid. There are still plenty of Republican Senators and Representatives to raise a stink. Moreover, there is a veritable plethora of Republican Governors, including the Alaskan. After W and Cheney leave office, the GOP will be able to take a break and retool if they will unstick themselves.

Meanwhile, the conservative punditocracy has already begun its 2012 elephant race that may or may not include Palin, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, or even Newt Gingrich, as the Posts venerable Robert Novak has suggested. But, there are two questions such speculation raises – who are the Republicans and who, in their right mind, would want to lead them? Oh, yah, that would be you know. So let’s take a look at Alaska.

As of this posting there are still 90,000 absentee/early ballots being counted in Alaska to determine whether Ted Stevens, a convicted felon, will be elected to represent the Frontier State. Regardless, he plans to return to the senate next week, where Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has “ filed official notice that he will call for a vote to have Stevens ejected from the Republican Conference,” according to Mike Ross, of Anchorage television station KTUU.

Governor Palin remains at large, running off at the mouth like the comic king of double talk Irwin Corey after she and the first dude treated “the vice presidential run as a second honeymoon,” as mused Maureen Dowd in her NY Times column. Ms. Palin will join the Republican Governors Association meeting later in Miami. One wonders if the spotlight will tire of her. I am sure the RGA does too since they will be in it.

As to the condition of being stuck in stupid, as I have written, the Republicans may be a lot of things but being stupid is not one of them. After all, they allowed Palin to be on their ticket and successfully lost the Presidential election. Showtime Sarah aside, the Republican Governors are a smart bunch and I expect they will be the most influential in the party’s rehabilitation.

As a business management consultant, I would describe a lot of what I see in business families as people stuck in stupid. They are not stupid; they're just stuck in it. The primary reason they are stuck is their lack of flexibility, which inhibits change. The GOP has a lot of work to do in order to unstick itself. Alaska’s Governor Palin and Senator Stevens will not help them in their efforts.