Op-Ed: Ron Paul: Ask Not What Is The Future Of The GOP But What Is The Future Of The U.S.?

Former GOP presidential candidate and current Representative Ron Paul of Texas believes that the Republicans only cared about maintaining and accumulating political power while forgetting their core principles of reducing the size of government.

Ron Paul begins his commentary on CNN.com by asking why the Republican Party never cared about its future when they had control of the House, Senate and the presidency in 2000. He believes that Obama won the election because he offered ''change.'' The majority of the American voting public wanted a ''change'' from the current political regime. Paul maintains that America will soon discover that Obama won't offer any real, systemic change only more of the same and possibly worse in some ways rather than better. Goldwater, Reagan and the Contract with America in 1994 offered reducing government power and balanced budgets. The Republican Party since 1994 has strayed from these core, winning values only to be obsessed with ''big government conservatism'' which is oxymoronic and contradictory in terms. Paul attacks the Bush/Rove philosophty harshly in this quote from CNN.com : ''The Republican Congress never once stood up against the Bush/Rove machine that demanded support for unconstitutional wars, attacks on civil liberties here at home, and an economic policy based on more spending, more debt, and more inflation-while constantly preaching the flawed doctrine that deficits don't matter as long as taxes aren't raised.'' According to Representative Paul, the Republicans have to regain credibility with the American voting public and specifically state to the people how they will fix the country. If the Republicans want to succeed in the future, their emphasis and thrust must be on the country's solutions not what is good for the short-term interests of the Party at the moment. Paul predicts that the growth of government will expand exponentially with the new Democratic president and more gains for them in the House and Senate. Candidates who espouse fiscal sanity, protecting civil liberties and entangling us from unnecessary and expensive foreign wars will and should gain political traction. During the Republican presidential primary and caucus fight of 2008, Representative Paul was repeatedly questioned of his credentials. Paul answers the question in his CNN.com commentary: ''Why should one be excluded from the Republican Party for believing and always voting for: limited government power, a balanced budget, personal liberty, strict adherence to the Constitution, sound money, a strong defense while avoiding all undeclared wars and no nation-building and no policing the world.'' Paul concludes his editorial by stating the obvious: the Republican Party needs to return to these aforementioned values that brought them success in the past and never abandon them again. They won't regain political power just for the sake of getting and maintaining power. They must stand for something and follow through if they are lucky to receive it from the voters.