Lovers of Ronald Reagan: Avert your eyes. A leading Republican strategist said the beloved leader is dead and that the GOP of the future needs to move on and quit looking to the past.
Ford O’Connell, a former campaign worker for Sen. John McCain’s failed bid for the presidency in 2008, said in his newly released book that the Republican Party has been hit hard with “obsessive Reagan disorder,” an unhealthful state that is stymieing growth, The Hill reported.
His top advisement in the “Hail Mary: The 10-Step Playbook for Republican Recovery,” is “Ronald Reagan is dead. Accept it.”
Mr. O’Connell went on, The Hill reported: “The Reagan fixation is a drag on the future success of the GOP at the national level. It undermines the candidates because it becomes a crutch for their inability to articulate an actual agenda or a forward-looking vision.”
The guidance is sure to irk those who see the GOP as falling fast from traditional conservative views and pine for what they see as the golden days of Reagan.
But Mr. O’Connell said he was only trying to propel the party forward.
“This was an honest attempt to say, ’Hey, if you want to win the White House, you’ve got to understand the obstacles and what it’s going to take to get 270 electoral votes, regardless of who the nominee is,” he said, in The Hill.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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