{"id":7901,"date":"2006-07-11T11:11:23","date_gmt":"2006-07-11T15:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7901.html"},"modified":"2006-07-11T11:11:23","modified_gmt":"2006-07-11T15:11:23","slug":"what-has-the-gop-done-for-you-lately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/what-has-the-gop-done-for-you-lately\/","title":{"rendered":"What has the GOP done for you lately?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, asked to mention some of the recent success stories of his [tag]Republican[\/tag] colleagues, former House Majority Leader [tag]Dick Armey[\/tag] (R-Texas) said<\/a>, “I’m not sure what this [tag]Congress[\/tag] has [tag]accomplished[\/tag].” He’s not the only one; no one else can think of lawmakers’ accomplishments either — including the [tag]GOP[\/tag] leadership.<\/p>\n

In an election year, when one party controls every branch of government and the public is anxious for signs of progress, being labeled, accurately, as a Do-Nothing Congress is problematic. But an article<\/a> in today’s Roll Call suggests Bill Frist has a plan: look back at previous victories. Way back.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader [tag]Bill Frist[\/tag] (R-Tenn.) and other GOP leaders are developing a new political offensive for September and October that will spotlight the GOP’s [tag]accomplishments[\/tag] since the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, [tag]Senate[\/tag] aides said.<\/p>\n

A GOP aide familiar with the effort explained that since Democrats have been successful in making this election “a choice between us and them” in a broad sense, Frist hopes to use that to the GOP’s advantage by highlighting changes to welfare, tax cuts and the economic boom over the period.<\/p>\n

“The one constant over the last 12 years has been that we’re in charge,” the aide said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s largely true, but it’s also the problem. When it’s time to write up the list of meaningful accomplishments, and it’s a very short list, Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.<\/p>\n

But the truly entertaining angle to this strategy is the emphasis on accomplishments that “predate President Bush’s tenure.” As Roll Call explained, “[I]n the coming months Senate Republicans can be expected to tout issues such as the 1996 welfare reform bill and the economic successes of the mid-to-late 1990s.”<\/p>\n

You know, maybe Republicans decided being in the [tag]majority[\/tag] isn’t so great after all.
\n
\nThis strategy couldn’t make any less sense. For one thing, Republicans suddenly seem anxious to tell voters: “Vote GOP, because Clinton got us to do some stuff you liked 10 years ago.” This only helps highlight the fact that Republicans haven’t been able to govern effectively since.<\/p>\n

The strategy immediately raises the obvious what-have-you-done-for-me-lately question. If you’re drawing up a list of success stories, and you need to go back to 1996, you might as well give up.<\/p>\n

And perhaps best of all, this strategy helps Democratic efforts to nationalize the elections even more. Frist’s we-were-effective-once tack puts all the Republicans together at a time when the GOP is unpopular and trails Dems badly in generic-ballot polling.<\/p>\n

Far be it for me to give the GOP advice, but if we’re really, really lucky, they’ll pursue this strategy enthusiastically. It’s easy to believe that voters will be impressed by decade-old legislation, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, asked to mention some of the recent success stories of his [tag]Republican[\/tag] colleagues, former House Majority Leader [tag]Dick Armey[\/tag] (R-Texas) said, “I’m not sure what this [tag]Congress[\/tag] has [tag]accomplished[\/tag].” He’s not the only one; no one else can think of lawmakers’ accomplishments either — including the [tag]GOP[\/tag] leadership. In an election year, when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}