The GOP plan to change the subject

March 20, 2006

The Washington Post ran a front-page item today suggesting that congressional Republicans are “struggling to define” their 2006 campaign strategy. As it happens, that’s not quite true. As the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes explained, they have a plan, it’s just not a very good one.

This spring and summer, Republican leaders in the Senate and House plan to bring up a series of issues that are popular with the Republican base of voters. The aim is to stir conservative voters and spur turnout in the November election. Just last week, House Majority Leader John Boehner and Whip Roy Blunt met with leaders of conservative groups to talk about these issues.

House Republicans, for their part, intend to seek votes on measures such as the Bush-backed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a bill allowing more public expression of religion, another requiring parental consent for women under 18 to get an abortion, legislation to bar all federal courts except the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, a bill to outlaw human cloning, and another that would require doctors to consider fetal pain before performing an abortion.

As Kevin noted, they seem to have overlooked “the legislation to bar atheist lesbian physicians from adopting cloned children.”

Nevertheless, the “party of ideas” has been reduced to embracing old, tired culture war agenda items. My hunch is this won’t work, for a couple of reasons. First, voters seem to want a serious change in direction in this country and Republicans’ wedge issues are just tiresome for any serious person looking for any kind of substance out of Washington.

Second, I think most Republicans would probably acknowledge that Congress won’t really pass any of these measures; the GOP just wants to be able to talk about them to help rally the base and put Dems on the defensive. It makes for a rather pathetic midterm campaign pitch: Vote for me — I didn’t actually pass legislation that matters to Americans, but I helped force a vote on a flag amendment.

The Dems’ favorite word during this torrent of far-right gimmicks should be “desperation.” Republicans are showing how “desperate” they are by embracing this divisive nonsense. The GOP is panicked over its inability to govern, so they’re pulling stunts in “desperation.”

Addressing these stunts on the merits is pointless; just dismiss the whole crusade as a cheap election-year gimmick that helps prove how unserious Republicans are about matters of state.

On the face of it, all of these measure are ridiculous and gimmicky. But all of these measures pander to the Republicans far right constituency. The hot button topics for the religious right are all there: abortion, fear of human-animal hybrids, government’s “recognition” of God and the continued marginalization of homosexuals. The religious right has complained the GOP has taken their money and votes and ignored their demands for too long. I’d look at this as a big payoff. It’s a shrewd move on the GOP’s part. Democrats should take this seriously.

  • You missed their previous achievements, such as the Representative from Virginia’s 1st district who passed a non-binding resolution protecting Christmas Trees. Jo Ann Davis, who sat on the same two committees as Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham, has time to put this crap though congress but not to keep Duke from ripping off the American People and endangering the U.S. Military in Iraq by directing contracts for anti-IED systems to worthless manufacturers.

  • us/them culture issues work best in affluent times when there is nothing else to get excited about. my guess is only dingbats will rally ’round them this cycle.

  • bogeyman: an imaginary monster used to frighten children. Sometimes parents will, as a way of controlling their children, encourage belief in a bogeyman that only preys on children who misbehave.

  • As CB and others have mentioned before the Congress has been Republican controlled for a good long time, much of it with a republican president. They have not delivered any of these issues to conservatitves so far. Even righties who believe in these things are not stupid. They will eventually figure out this is nothing but a political stunt. My guess is it will not work.

    I read an article in the local city newspaper in my Minneapolis suburb about the precinct caucus held last week. The Democratic turnout was high and a many of them were first time atendees. The Republican turnout was low. One local Republican politician noted that he was nervous that poor turnout would carry over in to poor turnout in November. I for one think he is on to something and I hope he is correct.

  • Most curious, if this is their strategery. Not a time
    for them to pander exclusively to their ignorant,
    bigoted base, because that’s all the support they
    have now. Not a winner, in my opinion.

    Why not more tax cuts for the wealthy? That seems
    to please the working poor and middle class
    across party lines. How about a phony balanced
    budget amendment, too? Americans are too
    dumb to appreciate the irony there, but it tends
    to please them.

  • The Dems’ favorite word during this torrent of far-right gimmicks should be “desperation.” Republicans are showing how “desperate” they are by embracing this divisive nonsense. The GOP is panicked over its inability to govern, so they’re pulling stunts in “desperation.”

    Key word: “should.”

    Clearly, the best hope for the GOP is that Dems will continue to focus on responding to the GOP points, not the GOP process. Unfortunately, nothing Dem leadership has done in the past decade or so has managed to cut past the details and throw the light on the sweaty, rich little skunks cooking up this dribble.

    When the GOP reverb chamber gets going, it doesn’t focus on the actual merits of ideas Dems and liberals put forth (when they manage to put forth anything), but instead focuses on personal attacks and broad character indictment. Dems are now faced with a weak GOP desperately grasping at straw men to fill in the gap left by huge deficits, joblessness, Vietnam II, and the GOP’s total lack of concern for anything but their own checking account.

    CB’s point was a good one: show the desperation. Throw the spotlight on the men and women who have led this country down the tacitly wrong path, not whatever gobbledygook they put forth as “issues.”

    And ET, is there a GOP issue that your post doesn’t apply to?

  • Beside “desperation,” I have a better counterpoint: the need to finish Congress’ business–the budget and spending bills–on time and before election day, November 7, 2006. Since the Republicans gained control of Congress, they have been notorious for their post-election legislating. Wasting time on these “cultural issues” is going to delay the real business of government.

    For two reasons, the Republicans should wise-up to the need to wrap-up Congress’ business on time: 1) they bear the responsibility to effectively run the government, and 2) they’ll need the time to campaign in the fall.

    Of course, if they don’t finish on time, they will give two campaigning advantages to those Democrats back home who are running to replace them: time of the campaign trail and the issue of wasting time on unimportant issues.

  • bogey gays-
    bogey sex-
    bogey abortion-
    bogey bible-
    bogey flag-
    *******************************************************************
    bogeyman: an imaginary monster used to frighten children.- ET
    *******************************************************************
    The scaremongers have their own bogeymen. Those who deal in fear must have powerful fears of their own.

    bogey falling polls
    bogey iraq
    bogey globalization/ ports
    bogey katrina
    bogey abramoff
    bogey energy prices

    and worst of all bogey democratic congress with gerrymandered districts and bogey democratic president with “unitary” presidential powers.

  • I sure do agree that “Republicans are showing how “desperate” they are by embracing this divisive nonsense.” Let’s not forget that these tactics have worked before and from where I sit, (involuntarily in the middle of two bible-thumping southerners) these tactics are effective. As long as voters don’t have to pass an IQ or political knowledge test, these tactics must be taken seriously lest we lose more ground to the radical right.

  • Now is the time for Congressional Dems to focus and get behind a clear unified message. It can be theme based (I’d go for competence) or not, but it ought to only address the sham legislative efforts of this GOP congress indirectly.

    Dems should talk about national security, foreign policy, fiscal sanity, protecting our forests and wetlands for future generations (yes, including today’s and tomorrow’s hunters and fishers). Everytime we run against the GOP we are providing energy to Rove and his jujitsu inspired tactics. We need to work toward our vision and when they respond to it use their energy against them. Go Dems!

  • If the Dems agenda is to cut and run, the Republicans now want to cut and walk–like Lot’s wife.

  • Desperate, yes, but I wouldn’t be confident that it would be ineffective. They are trying to bring out their base, the homophobes, misogynists, (probably racists too,) etc, who are sufficiently deranged enough to be mobilized again and again by these issues despite their constant failure to enact any real change on them. This pattern has been occurring within the anti-abortion movement since the early 90s. (Ref: What’s The Matter With Kansas.)

    They will come to the polls and buy into the bullshit that Boehner, Mehlman, Rove, etc are selling them, but what they are not, and will not be is “voters [who] seem to want a serious change in direction in this country and [who find] Republicans’ wedge issues … just tiresome for any serious person looking for any kind of substance out of Washington.” These people will not grow disaffected and turn Democrat on culture issues, nor are they likely to turn on Bush. The business elite may turn on him, (and appear to already be doing so,) but the right-wing evangelical Christians, they are the faithful, they will not turn from Bush unless he proves sufficiently weak on their issues and they can rally to someone to the right of him. They are too strongly convinced of basic facts such as that Democrats are hardcore communist, Satanistic, sodomizing, baby-slaughtering, frog-eating, America-haters. By basic facts I mean they take that to be self-evident as much as we understand that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights, or that all men are created equal.

    The Democrats are still going to have to do their jobs and rally voters who believe in basic patriotic stuff like their Constitutional freedoms, checks and balances in government, and the rule of law if they want to challenge the GOP’s deranged base and earn any seats in Red America.

  • From the Wa Po-
    Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks.
    __________________
    Repubs need a sideshow swiftboat style carnival.

  • The kind of people who currently call themselves the GOP “base” have proven over and over again – not just recently, but through Reconstruction, jingoism, Jim Crow, McCarthyism, and the Silent Majority – that they are moved most effectively by politicians who pander to their anger, fear and greed. True, the politicians never follow through; they just keep dangling the carrot…but the base always jumps.

    Never underestimate the power of these raw emotions…or, for that matter, a few hacked electronic voting machines.

  • rally voters who believe in basic patriotic stuff like their Constitutional freedoms, checks and balances in government, and the rule of law if they want to challenge the GOP’s deranged base and earn any seats in Red America.

    I disagree. Those voters are not won over by discussions of rule of law and checks and balances. We need to convince them that we are strong if not stronger, and more competent, on national security. Katrina could have been a terrorist act, and they know how ineffective Bush and the GOP were in predicting and responding to it. This is an outstanding opportunity to take the one issue that seems to really matter to the vast center away from the GOP.

  • Its not clear to me that pushing the anti-gay agenda will help Republicans. In my home district, we are trying to defeat Marilyn Musgrave (of Marriage Amendment fame). She has largely run from this issue ever since she was elected. Apparently she fears that voters will think that she is focusing too much of her time on this secondary issue when there are more important problems to address. This was one reason that Democrats took the Colorado House and Senate for the first time in 30 years. Pushing these socially conservative issues may get out the base, but many others will view it as negligence on the part of politicians.

  • Re #17:

    That was just one example. There are plenty of excellent opportunities for the Democrats to take advantage of. Voters agree with Democrats on most issues, more so than on what the GOP is actually proposing to do (not just the empty culture war issues they hide behind every two years), national security and Iraq policy included – Democrats just need to figure out how to effectively remind them of that.

  • Speaking of Barnes, has anyone read his list of ”new ideas” in this mornings WSJ. Definitely from another world. One wonders why the management of the WSJ allow their editorial staff to publish this rubbish.

  • Democrats just need to figure out how to effectively remind them of that.

    Rian, I agree. Its just that it would seem that a large portion of the non-partisan voters don’t think very hard about the issues, thuse appeals to them based on “restoring checks and balances” or “rule of law” aren’t very powerful. They apparently vote with their “guts” or their heart, not with their brain. Thus, we need to articulate our issues at that level. IMHO.

  • This is where Harry Reid’s “war room” needs to get preemptive and get these ideas spun into ways even the right would hate. When they pull out the flag burning amendment, call it the “Arrest the Boy Scouts Bill” since they burn old flag as a respectul method of disposal. Pounding on the image of Boy Scouts in jail with hardened criminals would give the anti-sodomites fits. Tell the public they’re going to go after the folks that have shredded flags by flying them outside of speeding cars where they’er also being defiled by dead insects next.

    Abortion? Spout talking points that if abortion is against the law, they be arresting rape victims next who don’t want a child that’s the spitting image of the rapist, victimizing them a second time. I mean what if that was your daughter or wife?

    Regulating gay marriage? Tell the public that they’ll be imposing rules on straight marriage next. Marriage will be turned from a sacrament blessed by God into a bureaucratic institution. More government regulation of our private lives. Soon they’ll be expanding the size of government by creating a Department of Marriage Sanctity.

    Then turn around to the public and say, “Show me how you spent the money?” to the Republican Congress. Show that conservative fiscal habits are even more dangerous that anything the Dems could possibly do.

    Fight flames with flames, baby!

  • This is a really good sign. The Repugs are succumbing to the “Special Interest Group politics” that destroyed the Democratic Party!

    No grand message. No inspiring hope. Just raw meat to a few powerful special interests. They’ve started doing interest-group-math like Democrats used to do: “Hey, we got one gay-bashing, one anti-abortion, and one 10 Commandments. It’s a slam-dunk!”

    I hope they keep this up.

    • Comments are closed.