WENDELL ROBINSON . COM

Finally, a book that explains why I’m so pissed off at the Republican party. In his new book, Invasion of the Party Snatchers, Vic Gold the former deputy Press Secretary to Barry Goldwater during the revolutionary 1964 presidential campaign that changed GOP politics for the better (at least for awhile) speaks out in a no holds barred rant directed toward the party of Lincoln, Goldwater and Reagan.

Subtitled “How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP“, Invasion of the Party Snatchers takes no prisoners in listing what has gone wrong in the Republican party. It is the author’s contention that Goldwater’s party has been hijacked by self-serving interests who magnify the importance of their singular issues of exclusivity rather than promote the big tent philosophy that for so long symbolized the party. To some extent, Invasion of the Party Snatchers echoes many of the same themes that can be found in John Dean’s recent book Conservatives without Conscience. Where Gold succeeds and Dean failed can be seen in Gold’s continuing commitment to the principles that brought him to conservativism in the first place, whereas Dean fell off the wagon long ago. An argument can be made though that Gold (like Dean) is simply a grumpy old man who finds it necessary to make noise.

I disagree.

I decided to read this book after listening to Gold give a talk on his book at a Cato Institute forum and was impressed by the author’s forthright (and Goldwater-esque) delivery on why the GOP is in the sad straights that it now finds itself. Relying on historical reference (Gold’s resume includes stints as Press Secretary to Vice President Spiro Agnew, speechwriter for the first President Bush, co-author of a novel with Lynne Cheney and Inaugural biographer for the second president Bush and Vice President Cheney) and a Goldwater-based foundation of political principle, the author tells it like it is (as he sees it) where the Republicans have gone wrong, why and by whom.

Invasion of the Party Snatchers portrays the failure of the GOP as the result of multiple efforts: the foreign policy shenanigans of two principle players (Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld), a light weight and pliable president (George W. Bush) and transfers from Jimmy Carter’s born-again evangelicals (the Pat Robertson-led theo-cons, as Gold Calls them) who migrated to the GOP as Reagan assumed power. Gold contends that Cheney and Rumsfeld have consistently directed the White House’s Neo-Con foreign policy without interference, that the Holy-Roller agenda is a liberal seizure of the Constitution under the guise of conservativism, and that much of this became possible because “George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out-of-touch American President in modern times.” (ouch!)

What some on the Right are certain to find objectionable with Invasion of the Party Snatchers is the author’s willingness to name names and the incendiary invective with which Gold laces his prose. Referring to Dick Cheney as “Paranoid Dick” and George W. Bush as “Dan Quayle in cowboy boots,” Gold certainly isn’t going to be invited to the White House any time soon - nor do I expect he’d accept the invitation.

What I liked best about this book as opposed to others that blame the Bush administration for the GOP’s failure is that Gold actually offers a couple of principles in a section of the closing chapter that would help to resurrect the GOP:

• A Republican party that renders unto Caesar and unto God, but on separate days of the week.
• A Republican party that sees America as a beacon, not the policeman of the world.
• A Republican party wedded to the economic realism of Milton Friedman and Herb Stein, not the irresponsible debt-and-deficit economics of Arthur Laffer and Robert Mundell.
• A Republican party that sees family values as something for the family, not the state, to define.
• A Republican party alert to the danger of “a robust executive authority” and of those who, in the name of saving freedom would destroy it.
• A Republican leadership that sees power in a free society the way Barry Goldwater saw it, not as an end in itself, but as the means to an end.

Gold’s relationship with the Bushes and Cheneys demands that his views be given some consideration. His perspective on the state of affairs within the White House and the current Bush Administration contrasted to the previous Bush presidency demand a listen, and help to explain what has happened to the Republican party and why. I would recommend that Republicans who find themselves disillusioned with the party read this book - just be forewarned, it’ll only make you angrier.

Victor Gold is a national correspondent for Washingtonian magazine. Invasion of the Party Snatchers is available at fine booksellers and online here. For a different perspective on Invasion of the Party Snatchers read SusanG’s review at Daily Kos. Invasion of the Party Snatchers was published by SourceBooks.