As part of their new “re-branding” initiative, House Republicans, to modest fanfare, unveiled their “American Families Agenda” last week. Ordinarily, a “families agenda” driven by the GOP would include a fairly predictable conservative wish list, built around anti-gay measures and legislation to promote state-sponsored religion.
It took Republicans an awfully long while, but it appears they’ve learned that this shtick needed to be retired, and replaced it with issues that people actually care about.
Something big is missing from House Republicans’ 2008 campaign agenda for American families, and that is no accident.
There’s not a single mention in the 47-point program of such red-meat GOP issues as banning abortion, outlawing same-sex marriage, allowing prayer in the public schools, banning flag burning and protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead, the plan focuses on Republican-introduced ideas as allowing private sector workers to take compensatory time instead of premium pay for overtime worked (HR 6025) or permitting full tax deductibility for most medical expenses (HR 636).
In an effort to appeal to moderates in their uphill push to retake the House, Republicans have pushed divisive social issues off center stage and replaced them with a host of pocketbook items they hope will appeal to working women, moderates and even some Democrats.
“This may not be the family agenda you expected from Republicans,” said Rep. Kay Granger , R-Texas, who was in charge of formulating the “American Families Agenda,” the first part of the party’s “Change You Deserve” 2008 platform. “It is a change. In the past, the Republican agenda for families was about social issues. This is more straight-forward, talking to families where they are, not where you want them to be,” Granger added.
Unlike the roll-out of last week’s new Republican slogan, ripped off from an anti-depressant, this is actually a good idea. As much as I would have loved to see the GOP once again try to convince voters that gay abortion doctors are trying to steal your Bible and give your children pornography, Republicans seem to have come to the realization that most coherent people aren’t especially moved by such nonsense. I have no idea what took them so long.
The question, though, is whether any of this is likely to work.
Kevin notes the two key angles to all of this.
The 2008 agenda is remarkable for two reasons. First, the old-school social issues haven’t just been deemphasized, they’ve been completely airbrushed out. It’s like some old May Day photo from the Soviet archives. There’s a very brief mention of a reward fund for people who turn in porn spammers, but that’s it. Unless my code word radar is on the blink, there aren’t even any oblique references to abortion, gays, sex-ed, prayer, vouchers, or any of the other usual crowd favorites. You wouldn’t know there had ever even been a day when the GOP considered that stuff part of a family agenda.
Second, look at the stuff that is in the agenda. Comp time for workers! Business training for underprivileged women! Health care portability! Anti-obesity programs! SCHIP expansion! If you read the fine print most of these items turn out to be pretty weak tea, but that’s not the point. The public face of the party’s family agenda is almost pure Democratic-lite technocracy.
As it happens, I’m skeptical that voters are going to find this compelling, especially in the short term. On Kevin’s first point, the party’s far-right base won’t be at all pleased that its legislative wish list has been abandoned altogether, probably permanently. Centrist voters, meanwhile, already associate Republicans with a conservative social agenda, and rolling out a red-meat-free agenda six months before Election Day probably won’t improve the “brand” in time to make a difference. (If, however, the GOP were to move to the center on social issues for the long haul, the likelihood of a changed landscape would be far greater.)
On the second point, this is most certainly a “Democratic-lite” style approach, but I wouldn’t expect huge results here, either. For one thing, the GOP will be fighting on the Dems’ turf, and on all of these issues, Democratic proposals are better than Republican ones. For another, Republicans can embrace these issues now, but I don’t imagine they’ve figured out how to explain why they’ve been voting against these kinds of proposals for years.
After losing three special elections in three months in three conservative districts, and with the polls looking one-sided against them, Republicans almost certainly came to the conclusion that they had no choice but to change direction. That’s probably the right call, but the GOP should still keep expectations low.