The Washington Post covers a fascinating speech by outgoing RNC chair Ken Mehlman, in which Mehlman diagnoses the ills of the GOP with unusual candor.

Voters were angry with Iraq and Congressional scandals, he says. But the real reason the GOP lost the midterm elections was “the erosion of the core conservative principles of small government and personal responsibility.”

As Republicans built up their Washington power base, he noted, the center of gravity shifted away from the statehouses that had been the traditional laboratories for policy ideas. The result was a vacuum that delivered little of interest to voters, while devaluing the national Republican brand.

In a trend more worrisome to the GOP, voters have grown skeptical that Republicans possess the fresh ideas needed to solve the country’s problems….

I think that’s right, but I wouldn’t blame the governors so much as the White House. President Bush has simply never been able to muster a coherent domestic policy. (Ron Suskind wrote about this years ago, in his book about former Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill, The Price of Loyalty; O’Neill spoke of a White House in which absolutely no one was interested in policy-making, only politics.) Here’s a test: Think of two things that Bush has done domestically that don’t have to do with national security. Think of one this term. The voters won’t vote for you if you don’t give them anything to vote for…

What’s the reason for this lacuna? One is the dominance of Karl Rove in the White House. He’s a politics guy, not a policy person, and he’s never shown much interest in policy except insofar as it can be manipulated to affect elections (gay marriage, e.g.). Imagine if Lee Atwater had played the dominant role in the George H.W. Bush White House…or if Rahm Emanuel had been the most powerful figure in the Clinton White House.

Second is the impotence of the Bush cabinet. Back in the Clinton years, I used to know the names of every single cabinet member, both because I’m dorky that way and also because these people were active; they had a mandate from Clinton to get things done.

Now, I have trouble naming anyone beyond Condoleeza Rice. Labor? Education? Agriculture? HHS? EPA? (Not technically a Cabinet agency, but still…) Even Justice takes a moment. (Whereas who could forget Janet Reno?)

Why hasn’t Bush appointed strong figures to his cabinet, and why hasn’t he given them a mandate to shape policy? Maybe he’s too obsessed with the war; maybe it’s because, at Dick Cheney’s desire, Bush has placed domestic policy-making in the White House. Except that, as we’ve just discussed, it’s not there either.

I really don’t know the answer to that question, and I think it’d be an important one for any Bush biographer.

Meantime, what are the new ideas Mehlman has in mind?

He singled out an effort by outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney, another 2008 prospect, to expand health-care coverage to all Massachusetts residents. “That is the kind of innovation we need at the state level, and in Washington,” Mehlman said.

The head of the RNC is singling out a Republican governor for extending health insurance to everyone in his state? (Massachusetts, no less.) That is so…jarring. Somewhere, Hillary Clinton must be laughing.

But maybe this kind of turning everything upside down and shaking it is just what the GOP needs.
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P.S. Incidentally, the piece mentions another possible GOP candidate, outgoing Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Seems implausible to me: Huckabee is best known for the fact that he was once fat.

Then again, in the United States we live in, everyone from Oprah to Kirstie Alley has done pretty well with that….