If you ever needed evidence that Republicans and Democrats look at things slightly differently, examine early 2001, early 2005, and early 2009. It took some time before the Democrats were truly turned on President Bush, and after elections some time past before it came time to look at electoral strategies.
Republicans, though, are already looking at the 2010 midterms. Just a hair over a month into Obama’s administration and it seems like every Republican politician and strategist is angling at the next vote. Unsurprisingly, their strategy? Oppose everything.
Its themes: Unite against Democrats’ economic policy, block and counter health care reform and tar them with spending scandals.
Those represent the political trifecta that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich bet on in 1994 to produce a historic Republican takeover of Congress.
There’s no question any more that “bipartisanship” isn’t on the Republicans’ agenda. They’re not going to work with Obama at all, they’re not going to bridge the gap, they’re not going to unite and work toward a better tomorrow. For these guys, what matters is winning the next election. That’s it. Fortunately, they’re pretty blockheaded.
“One is 1990, [President George H.W.] Bush gets together with the Democrats at Andrews Air Force Base, raises taxes and loses the next election,” he explained. “The other is 1993, Democrats have a series of proposals to spend and tax. Republicans vote no and regain the House and Senate.”
Bush’s defeat in 1990 is pretty easy to explain. When you vote a Republican into office who says “read my lips, no new taxes,” and then taxes go up, he’s in trouble. It’s a combination of party and promise. Not to mention the economy was in the dumper come 1992, that’s why Clinton had to introduce his sweeping tax package in 1993. He had to fix the mess that Bush left behind. Let’s not forget what we saw between 1993 and 2000 in terms of the economy.
Clinton’s midterm defeat, aside from being offset by another victory in 1996 (a fact apparently lost on the Republicans) was largely thanks to a perceived indifference toward American workers, personified by the 1993 Gore/Perot “debate” on NAFTA. Sure, it hurt Perot on one level, giving us the “giant sucking sound” byte, but Gore’s flippant attitude toward American job loss planted the seeds that turned into a Republican victory in 1994.
Politico goes over a few other good reasons that this isn’t 1994 and thus the strategy may not work well. One, that seems totally lost on the Republicans, is that Americans who voted for Obama somewhat expect some tough times and belt-tightening policies because we have to fix the disaster left behind by the Republicans who followed strategies outlined by guys like Newt.
Peculiar strategy to be sure. And none of it has anything to do with fixing the problems facing the country.
