On Saturday, Minnesota Senate candidate Rep. Mark Kennedy announced his “Plan to Bring the Right Kind of Change to Washington,” a 14-page manifesto of the differences he hopes to effect in the Senate.<\/p>\n
Last week, Iowa House candidate Jeff Lamberti called for “real change in Congress” and blamed Republicans for what’s wrong with Washington.<\/p>\n
And in his campaign ads, Nebraska Senate candidate Pete Ricketts decries Washington politicians’ “erosion of our values,” pleading, “If you’re tired of what’s going on in Washington, I hope you’ll listen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
These candidates — all of whom emphasize the need for “change” as often as they can — are Republicans. They’re in the untenable position of telling voters that the country will see a real difference if the party that’s controlled every branch of government for the last six years stays in power for at least two more.<\/p>\n
No, I don’t understand the strategy either.
\n
\nRepublicans are supposed to defend<\/i> the status quo. They’ve been running the show for a while now; if voters feel unsatisfied, it’s the GOP’s job to a) tell them not to believe their lying eyes; things are better than they seem; and b) tell them Dems would be worse.<\/p>\n
Instead, plenty of Republicans are trying to thread an invisible needle — promising change by sticking with what we already have.<\/p>\n
For GOP challengers, the “change” pitch might make some<\/i> sense. They’re talking about more of a micro-change (different leadership for an individual district or state, not the nation). But as The Hill noted, incumbents — including Sen. James Talent (R-Mo.) and Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.) — are running on a change platform, too. It’s almost as if the Republicans are hoping that the electorate forgets who’s been in the majority since 2000.<\/p>\n
In perhaps the most amusing example, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairwoman Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), hoping to boost GOP hopeful Mike Bouchard’s chances in Michigan, declared that Michigan voters “are looking for a change in direction.” I think that’s true, but it’s not the kind of trend that helps Dole.<\/p>\n
Far be it for me to complain. If Republican leaders and candidates want to reinforce the Dems’ message, it’s fine by me. I just didn’t expect it; that’s all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1992, towards the end of the presidential campaign, then-VP Dan Quayle acknowledged what all the polls were saying: people were unsatisfied with the status quo. Responding to the public’s desire for something different, Quayle told reporters, “Republicans are the party of change.” It was a pretty weak sales pitch. The Reagan-Bush years had spanned […]<\/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-8221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221","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=8221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}