Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Do Republicans Need Another ‘Contract With America’ in 2022?
Amidst debates among Republicans, such as the extent to which the U.S. should support and defend Ukraine, this has emerged: Do congressional Republicans need a positive, pro-active agenda to run on for the 2022 midterms? You know, like the 1994 Contract With America? Will it help? Is it politically necessary?
I will tell you right now that I will support no candidate, PAC or other organization whose appeal starts with “Do you want to stop Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the Democrat’s radical agenda?” I think it is a losing strategy for 2022. With rampant crime in our cities, erosion of our personal freedom, embarrassment on the international stage, institutionalized racism in the form of set asides, quotas and rationing of health care, coarsening of the national dialogue, denigration of our country and our culture, surely the Republicans can tell us what they stand for, even if they don’t get into specifics.
How about this for a platform:
“…form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
Or they can sing it:
Agreed. That’s boilerplate PAC mass-mailing grift-o-speak aimed at the people who click on the ads that say “Should Biden Be Impeached? Vote Now!”
Short answer is yes. You know all the personalities. Just thinking about what worked in Virginia. So no more than 5 points:
A smart post. Do what Biden and the Dems didn’t do: figure out the 70/30 sweet spot and stick to that.
Many conservative positions are easily spun – or at least people easily believe spin – such that we are nut-jobs/haters/etc.; the more we talk, the more we get taken out of context.
Not if they’re not going to deliver. If they don’t have the guts to shut the government down until Biden gives in they don’t need to make any promises. They should fight to give the democrats the same medicine we’ve been given since trump was elected. They should turn the entire congress into a giant investigative and impeachment committee when they’re not sending hard bills to bidens desk.
Agreed
From the perspective of simply winning elections, I don’t think the Republicans need to put out an agenda or do anything in particular. They are so far ahead in the opinion polls that they can literally rest on their laurels.
It is very common for candidates who are substantially ahead of weak opponents in polls to opt out of debating them in public forums. It irritates me no end when they do that, but it is a political calculus that balances the chance that the leading candidate will say something stupid in the debate and alienate many of his followers vs. the chance that he will lose only a small portion of followers by not debating.
I don’t think the example from the 1994 mid-terms applies so much to today. The republicans were operating from a point of weakness in that the Congress had not been in Republican hands for 40 years. They had to try something novel, or even desperate. And it worked! Clinton had provided them with an opening by being just progressive enough that Americans started waking up. But he was no running disaster leaving flames in his horrible wake like Joe Biden.
I’m all for putting out a conservative agenda, as are most of you, but we are in the minority. We are political junkies who actually follow policy matters. Most people couldn’t care less. All they see is the bungling and gross incompetence of democrats and that’s good enough for them to go out and vote republican. There’s kind of an old saying that it is easier to get people to vote against someone or some issue than it is to get them to vote for a person or issue. Trump’s ouster in 2020 is the perfect illustration of that.
The Democrats are putting out the Republican Agenda on their own, without any help from Republicans.
I can’t imagine a better platform than this right here.
It doesn’t really address the GOP’s credibility problem. New Gingrich’s Contract with America was almost 30 years ago. The problem with the GOP since then has been an absolute failure to keep any of their pledges apart from tax cuts. “Repeal and Replace Obamacare? Nah. Secure the Border? Big Nah. Fiscal responsibility? Most certainly Nah.”
We all know that should the GOP win the House (the Senate’s most likely out of reach), we’re just in for two more years of “We only have one half of one branch of Government. How can you expect us to do anything?”
Any agenda that doesn’t include more limits on emergency powers isn’t worth having. Emergency powers executed by executives (at all levels of government) should require legislative ratification in order to be kept in effect for long periods.
I don’t think it is up to the Senators to have a “contract”, it is about the GOP. The party should have a simple list of priorities with broad appeal and then run on that in every town and state for every position from dog catcher to president. This is part of branding. All product brands that you know spend a lot of time and money establishing their image, because it works. Coke tells you that it is cool and refreshing. Coke does not spend money telling you to replace your Pepsi bottles. Likewise, the GOP should work to establish what they stand for: strong families, prosperity, safety & security. Keep it simple and say it very often. Let individual politicians fill in the details. The goal should be to get 60% of voters to choose straight-ticket ‘R’ in each election.
One podcaster summed it up by saying, “The Republicans need a better selling point than ‘We’re not Democrats.’ ” I have to agree. Voters have shown they will elect Democrats if Republicans don’t deliver, so another Contract With America is a good idea . . .
McConnell is essentially wanting no accountability. And don’t you just love his quote – “when **I** win back the Senate.” Perfectly sums him up and will be a good thing when Republicans see the back of him.
I disagree. I understand where you;re coming from (I think), but that will just get a hollow victory characterized by the likes of McConnell saying “we only have one-half of one third” and complaining that there’s no political mandate for him to do a damned thing. If we cannot get rid of McConnell (but thanks as always for the Supreme Court work!), then we must support him so very well that he has no excuse for inaction. And this minority-leading cockroach seems timeless.
There are two sports analogies. One is to football, wherein a team well ahead close to the bell simply runs out the clock — risking as little as possible. This is overwhelmingly safe. Another analogy is to a ring fight (boxing, MMA, whatnot) where making up for a points deficit doesn’t take a chipping and sanding approach — everything can change with one punch. Points ahead don’t matter when you wake up staring at the ceiling.
Remember that Trump was walking away with 2020 until 2020 actually happened.
Zackly.
McConnell seems to remember things his way — well the Tea Party remembers it differently.
First, Newt’s Contract With America promised to hold a vote on ten matters within the first hundred days, IIRC. They did not give themselves trapdoors for non-accomplishment (see Boehner and Ryan’s BS about “returning to 2008 spending levels”). Instead, the 1994 Army of Newt made promises that were utterly within their power to keep.
Second, McConnell had little to do with taking the Senate in 2014 or whenever he says he did this remarkable thing. The much-maligned Tea Party who somehow failed to deliver the Senate in 2010, please recall, only fell short by two seats after giving the Senate ten seats! In 2009 the GOP was down by a million points in the Senate, historic lows (39 seats IIRC?) and the Tea Party closed that deficit to I think one seat in one year. Something like that. McConnell and Boehner both proclaimed their love of the flyover schmuck and then started screwing us again. ObamaCare is still here, and 2008 spending levels might as well be the Apollo program.
I am unable to lay hands on a book around here which is a report card on CWA from ten years after. Wish I could find it. Good book. That report card was sober, factual, and made the case for our need for such a contract now.
And our new CWA should be based on timeless principles, or else we’re just chasing failure around the room. I hear Newt is working with Trump for a new CWA. Well some years ago he wrote “A 21st Century CWA”, and Heaven knows, Newt’s been writing books ever since leaving office. Probaly some good stuff in there.
Is it too silly, too fantastic now to even try to speak of cutting spending?
There may be meat in this sandwich.
The Contract With America was also a legislative blueprint for fast action. While it is true that the House can move with a simple majority, that majority is not automatically mobilized. Committee chairmen and senior members with lots of chits in their pockets can throw sand in the gears or insert preferred priorities. The Contract meant that America would be watching to see if it were honored and compelled legislative priorities, most of which were accomplished in the 100-day window. The Founders tilted the deck in favor of inertia so giving a boost to good stuff is important.
One of my cherished memories of 1995 was the shock and horror of enviro lobbyists that Congress could act on Clean Air Act issues without waiting for the greenies to have meetings at a leisurely pace and then speak ex cathedra about any pending bill before any action was undertaken. What?!! They voted it out of committee already?! How dare they?
The problem with passively waiting for Democrats to stupidly deliver a majority to the GOP in 2022 is that there is not a lot of mileage or momentum in simply not being the other guy.
Obviously, it is not helpful if the list is too edgy, controversial, and narrowly partisan but there are clear winning positions on border & immigration, energy and the woke intrusion in education. There are available polling winners.
The strategy is not just to craft a set of positions that poll well but to force the Democrats to take positions in opposition to popular positions, to strip the center and the normals away from endorsing the goals of the hard left.
I argued with an NRCC Phone-bot for about ten minutes the other night, because the Phone-bot was all loaded up with boilerplate statements it was using to try to nag a donation out of me, and I was trying to throw it off-script. (Phone-bots from the right always seem to be given a friendly southern accent. I find that a bit offensive.) I thought I could break the Phone-bot, but it soldiered on for quite awhile, frequently saying “Uh, sure,” or “Yes” or “I understand,” before rebooting the “begging for money” track.
It was fun while it lasted. My family thought I was nuts, though.
McConnell seems to have arrogated to himself a passel of power over the party, including substantial war chest he can use to primary candidates that don’t appeal to him. Is there no way he can be held accountable?
Depends. Are we going to stick with just legal ways?
I understand “hollow victory,” but winning the election and getting your candidates to legislate the conservative agenda are two different issues.
I don’t remember Trump ever walking away with the election. I thought the polls were pretty evenly split.
Yes, even Republicans will laugh you out of the room. However, I’ll be right there with you promoting a balanced budget!
!
They are, but we saw what happened when Trump was elected. There was a historic opportunity to pass legislation that could have eliminated the need for Executive Orders on health care, immigration, energy, regulatory burden, etc., all of which got rolled back in the next administration. But they did nothing- all they told us was “Well, we don’t have a filibuster proof majority” so you just have to elect more of us the next time. But the next time never came, did it? So at least if we elect people based on a platform, we would have some sense that the Republican party has some strategy for this if and when such an opportunity is presented again. Right now, 2024 looks like it could be that opportunity.
In this case it is hard to question family.
They don’t call me anymore after I screamed at them. I was back during the Bush era.
I agree with navyjag and Douglas Pratt. Good job. I would word #4 a bit differently, as in saying that we are against “defunding the police.” I would also add opposition to CRT, and perhaps a support to girls’ sports, relative to Trans-girls (biological men) beating all of the biological girls.
Yes, very.