The Incredible Fecklessness of Being Republican I shouldn’t listen to talk shows, especially by conservative Republicans.

With a national economic crisis created under a Republican’s watch, Rush Limbaugh’s answer is to bash President Obama and ridicule the GOP’s new leader Michael Steele. At home, it is Bob and Kendell Erhlich whining about Martin O’Malley on their Saturday radio show in Baltimore.

Is it any wonder that the Republican Party has such little support?

To be fair, there are some serious commentators out there – Ron Smith at least strives to provide an intellectual basis for his arguments.

The rest, from Limbaugh to the Erhlichs just want to rant. They keep reciting the same old arguments and mistake the noise from the echo chamber as wide support for their positions. But their arguments are tired and old.

What do they rant about? Big government! Wake up! We have had big government since the days that Lyndon Johnson was President. And since LBJ, we have had Republican presidents 28 of the past 40 years.

A remarkable fact is that since Johnson, every democratic president has increased revenue faster than spending while the opposite has been true with the five Republican presidents increasing spending faster than revenue since that time.

With that kind of track record, they should like what Obama is doing.

We face an economic crisis of monumental proportions. Yet all the Grand Old Party can do is come up with the same old nonsense. John Boehner, the GOP leader in the House of Representatives answer to the crisis is to reduce spending. Even conservative economists say the economic crisis warrants increased government spending. Is it any wonder few take them seriously?

There are legitimate criticisms to be made about President Obama’s budget and spending plans. But most of those arguments are coming from democrats like Paul Krugman who think we need even more spending, and Tom Friedman who thinks the money we are spending should go into new tech industries and not to prop up the auto companies which are dying.

Today’s GOP is mostly bereft of new ideas.

If the national party is unserious, then the state’s GOP has become, or more accurately, has gone back to being irrelevant. Bob Ehrlich had a chance to make a mark as Governor but he was more interested in lecturing the legislature than offering serious legislation. He had no notable successes much less good ideas compared to, for example, Republican Governor Mitt Romney’s health care for all program in Massachusetts.

It is too bad. Maryland would benefit from a Republican party that offered up good government policies beyond cutting taxes and cutting programs. The party has been hostage to its right wing since Ellen Sauerbrey beat Helen Bentley in the 1994 GOP gubernatorial primary. The most recent example of the republican right eating its own occurred last year when Congressman Gilchrest was beaten by State Senator Andy Harris. At the national level, Steele’s capitulation to Limbaugh was in this tradition.

The party should focus on new ideas to improve services that are delivered in the state. Meaningful progress on improving schools in poor areas still eludes us. Individuals and businesses struggle with ever escalating health care costs. This state has a woefully inadequate public transport system. It takes too long to get things done – Baltimore's Red Line is a case in point. They could find ways to streamline government and improve services.

They are also going to need a leader who is willing to take on the party’s ossified old guard. That is no small task given how nasty they have been, especially with their own.

The party has become too comfortable with complaining. It has become morally rigid and intellectually lazy. It is, after all, far easier to rant than to do the hard and serious work of coming up with new ideas.

But if they don’t, they will deserve a new name – the Feckless Old Party.  8:26 AM •