Steele: GOP ‘screwed up’ after Reagan

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele offers a simple explanation for why the GOP all too often lost touch with typical Americans since the Ronald Reagan era: ”We screwed up,” he claims in a new book offering a blueprint for the party’s resurgence.

That ”we” includes the last two Republican presidents and the most recent Republican candidate for president.

In ”Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda,” released Monday by Regnery Publishing, Steele says the GOP should acknowledge where ”we most glaringly compromised our principles” in the past decade and hold its elected officials accountable.

”We must support Republican officials who assert these principles,” he writes. ”When elected Republicans vote against Republican principles, the voters must withhold their support — withhold it vigorously and consistently.”

On Tuesday, Steele said the focus of the book was to “lay down a definitive roadmap” for Republicans to “re-anchor” themselves to core principles.

Steele told The Washington Times’ “American’s Morning News” radio show the book also attempts to apply those principles to “everyday policies … not policies that grow government.”

Steele called himself a “grassroots guy” challenging the Republican old guard in Washington.

“My only connection to Washington is that I was born and raised there,” he said. “This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever licked a stamp or stuffed an envelope for a candidate,”

Steele on NBC’s ”Today” show accused the Obama administration of pursuing an inconsistent policy toward terrorism.

He said the administration is wrong in putting terrorism suspects on trial in civil courts, saying ”the public doesn’t view them as having rights in the criminal system.”

The GOP chairman also defended former Vice President Dick Cheney’s harsh criticism of President Barack Obama, saying that he, too, believes Obama tries to avoid directly acknowledging a war on terror.

Steele focuses much of the book on familiar GOP denunciations of President Barack Obama’s overall policies (”a roadmap to failure”), the $787 billion stimulus bill (”a reckless, wasteful, pork-laden spending spree”), liberal views on manmade global warming (”A threat to life on Earth? Depends on whom you ask”) and other issues.

To regain the public confidence, Steele says the GOP should, among other things, expose the ”reign of error” inherent in liberal policies, contrast conservative and liberal principles, and highlight the damage caused by Obama’s policies while explaining conservative solutions.

More surprising, the GOP chairman directly or indirectly criticizes:

—President George H.W. Bush for raising taxes two years after President Ronald Reagan left office, though Steele ignores the fact that Reagan raised taxes too.

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