GOP: Consider role that dark money plays

Re: “GOP not dead but has two fevers to break” (Michael Gerson column, 4-12).

Gerson makes the point that in order to put a “head” on the “headless Republican Party” - that is electing a Republican president - the party must expand its narrow ideological appeal and realize “protectionism is self-destructive economic policy and isolationism is disastrous foreign policy.”

However, he points out that after the 2014 elections the Republicans were left in the best position since 1928: 31 Republican governors, control of 70 percent of state legislatures and 25 single-party-control states. Gerson is silent on how the party that falls short in national elections manages to do so well at the state level.

If he truly does not understand how Republicans did so well at the state level, we suggest he read “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” by Jane Mayer. The book exposes and documents the inordinate influence of money on state and national politics.

This story was originally published April 14, 2016 at 9:05 AM with the headline "GOP: Consider role that dark money plays."