Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
All signs point to a rout of the Democrats in November, but the Republican Party can do itself a big favor by avoiding the “M” word. When a party begins to believe it has a mandate from the people, all good sense seems to fly out the window, and the feeling that it can do no wrong flies in.
While I believe it’s true that voters will want to put a stop to many of this administration’s initiatives and its profligate spending, it doesn’t necessarily translate into a mandate for the other side’s wide-ranging initiatives and their own flood of expensive legislation.
Americans seem to like incrementalism and, even when they lurch from one party to another, it doesn’t mean they expect a lurch from one extreme to the other from their government.
There is a large and growing suspicion that neither party is up to the task, and, while the Republicans may be the beneficiaries of Democratic overreach in this upcoming cycle, they need to beware of misreading the message. Imagined mandates merely lead to hubris and, as both sides are learning, voters are far more willing than ever to “throw the bums out.”
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Jul '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
It's when Republicans act (and vote) like liberal Democrats and/or self-serving, power-hungry, Constitution-deniers that the trouble begins. It is our duty to elect Republicans who are intrinsically different from the other party in that they are not trying to conform us to a socialist, European-style country, but who know and hold dear the principles on which America was founded.
May '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
I dunno, Mr. Sajak. If, the Good Lord willing, Republicans do take control of Congress, we are in for at least two years of political warfare. And I'm not one given to tossing about war metaphors. 1) Even modest checks on Leviathan are met, invariably, with howls. 2) Our President goes out his way, even when it does him no good, to be devisive.
The next Congress will be less about legislation and more about subpoenas, I'm afraid.
Aug '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
The main thing that voters are looking for is to stop the hemorrhaging. They want the government to do with spending what BP was finally able to do with that oil well: kill it, seal it, cap it.
May '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
The signs are starting to unnerve me, with two of the scummiest characters around, Crist and Reid, seemingly coming back from the dead.
But I do agree that we need to select a couple of things to stop cold, and a couple of things to reverse. Concentrate fire, to use another war metaphor. You can't go all out after everything, so just strategically leave certain legislation gathering dust and don;t appropriate cash for anything stupid.
You can even fight everything, but do it behind the screen so that the press can't do the cluck-cluck stories as easily without going into eye-glazing detail. It's the big pronouncements, like Newt announcing a coming budget "train-wreck" that gets grandstanding camera hogs into trouble.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
I believe the message they need to get in both the Senate and the House is that they are not leaders, they are servants. Their incredible arrogance at rewarding themselves with raises and benefits that none of us will ever see while burdening us with garbage like the HealthCare bull (sp. intended) needs to end. The work for the people who elected them. That isn't a mandate that is a job, a job that they need to understand is for the benefit of the electorate, not the elected. If the Republican candidates it is not merely the swing of a pendulum. It should be a sea change, complete and totally different than has been the wont of politicians since the Roosevelt era. As Laura Ingraham says, Power to the People.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
I apologize for the typos. I was a touch emotional.
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
Understood. These days, I'm surprised anyone on the Right can type anything properly!
Jun '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
I agree. If things play out and the Republicans take the House, they need to show discipline and restraint (that may be an oxymoron when speaking of politicians).
They need to focus like a laser on undoing as much of health care as they can (which won't be much, given the Senate and Obama). The House should pass the kind of reforms that matter (competition across state lines for health insurers, tort reform) and then force the Senate to defeat them, or Obama to veto them.
No pork and don't go out of their way to turn the House into a Star Chamber. They need to be very disciplined in what they investigate.
Above all, they need to view this as step 1 in a process that solidifies the House, allows the Republicans to take the Senate in 2012, and put a Republican in the White House in 2012. Then they can really undo some things and replace them with legislation that really means something, and that doesn't beggar the country.
Will they have the ability to do that? I sure hope so.
Jun '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
I'm tempted to turn this another way. The mandate is upon us, as the citizen class. Too often we go to the polls in November, and then go back to the sidelines and disengage until the next election cycle.
Our mandate should be: 1) To elect principled legislators at all levels committed to doing the hard work of preserving this Union for future generations; 2) To stay vigilant, involved, and knowledgeable about the existential issues we face; 3) To commit to serve as watchdogs over the votes our Representatives/Senators take - and to be willing to throw out anyone who kowtows to the influences of the political class at the expense of the citizen class.
The only mandate, as it were, that the political class should own is the knowledge that if they screw this up, their figurative rears will be unceremoniously roasted and handed back to them on a platter by the citizens that put them in office.
But that only happens if we accept OUR mandate and follow through.
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
So I'm curious, all. If we head into winter with a functioning GOP majority, what do you most want to see done -- or undone? Obamacare? Or is it something else?
Second question: in your judgment, what kind of results, if any, would a Republican Congress need to show within a year or two?
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
James Poulos, Ed. So I'm curious, all. If we head into winter with a functioning GOP majority, what do you most want to see done -- or undone? Obamacare? Or is it something else?
Second question: in your judgment, what kind of results, if any, would a Republican Congress need to show within a year or two? · Aug 3 at 3:35pm
We can't repeal Obamacare, not until 2013 at the earliest. But we can defund it and we should -- we must. The Right must educate the public, in advance, that the House will not fund the additional IRS agents, HHS staff and all the various bureaucracies required to put teeth into Obamacare. Without money for implementation, the entire edifice doesn't amount to much more than an unwieldy mass of paper.
This strategy keeps the issue hot while avoiding the inevitability-creep accompanying most of the phased-in-slowly utopian legislation from our friends on the Left.
Jul '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
Pat, your piece is great. It's hard to have confidence in the guys on our side of the ledger, having let us down so often in the past. It's difficult to believe that the Minority won't sign a no-earmarks pledge in the Senate, confirming worst fears. It's not enough to win, we have to stand for something; perhaps we'll see an agenda after Labor Day going into the season.
Until this administration is voted out of office (hopefully in 2012), the best the GOP can do is stand for something, obstruct and (sorry, post-er above) subpoena and investigate. For now, throwing sand in the works and passing our budgets are our best bets.
Jun '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
It would be interesting to find out which winner has declared a mandate with the smallest margin of victory. I always find it laughable when a politician declares that their 5-10% margin of victory was a mandate from the people. No matter who we send to Washington, or the state capitols, we should make sure they always remain on their toes and remember who they are serving.
Aug '10
Re: Let's Have an Election Instead of a Mandate
The President and Democrats in Congress have spent the last 18 months portraying the Republicans as “Obstructionists” and “The Party of No.” This was always nonsense, but the MSM had little interest in explaining what the Republicans alternate ideas were. Should the GOP take the House, they should push some of these ideas (tort reform and insurance across state lines, among others), and, now in the majority, force these ideas out into the open—make the public aware that there IS another, better way.
This strategy becomes even more powerful if the Republicans were able capture the Senate as well. In this case, they could actually pass some number of these bills, or at least force the senate to filibuster or Obama to veto them. Then “The Party of No” shoe would really be on the other foot.
One other idea, if the Republicans were able to hold themselves to it, would be a total moratorium on earmarks. Obama campaigned on eliminating earmarks, yet we have more than ever. Earmarks seem to be pretty universally reviled among voters, so this could be a principled stand in the voters’ interest, as well as a way to highlight the hypocrisy of Obama.