Lessons To Be Learned

The Wall Street Journal has a little different take on the recent special election loss than my friend Kevin does.

If there is such a thing as a useful election defeat, then Tuesday's Republican loss in a special House election in Mississippi would qualify. Maybe this thumping in a heretofore safe GOP seat will finally scare the Members straight, or at least less crooked.

Democrats won with 54% of the vote in a district that a Republican won with 66% in 2006 and that President Bush carried in 2004 by 25 points. It was the GOP's third special election loss this year, and it has Democrats predicting that November will be another rout of 2006 proportions. Oklahoma's Tom Cole, who runs the National Republican Congressional Committee, captured the GOP reaction when he declared that "There is no district that is safe for Republican candidates."

Three straight special elections losses here in Minnesota have also driven the point home hard - especially coupled with the not-so-stunning caucus defeats by 3 of the so-called "Override 6".

This is the lesson Republicans should have learned in 2006, but the Members preferred to blame their failure on President Bush and Iraq. House Republicans pooh-poohed their own earmarking scandals, spending excesses and overall wallowing in the Beltway status quo. Rather than rethink their habits, they re-elected the same party leaders and even kept Jerry Lewis as their chief Appropriator. Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona is right when he says that "Since the 2006 elections, Republicans have done absolutely nothing to redefine themselves. We can't even get behind an earmark moratorium bill."

The state and national parties use the "2006 was just a tough year to be a Republican" meme to excuse the massive losses that they suffered, rather than taking the long hard introspective look at what THEY did wrong....and they did a lot wrong. Both the state and the national parties have abandoned running on a vision or message and decided that the best way to campaign is fear. They constantly point out what a horrible person the other guy is and then whine with the other side responds in kind! Meanwhile, no one knows what Republicans are supposed to stand for. It is that abandonment of the message that caused this very website to come into being! After all - SOMEONE needs to let people know what conservatism is about.

They've also been content to replay their same losing political attack strategy. In 2006, they thought they could save their majority by donning a Nancy Pelosi fright wig and shouting "liberal, liberal, liberal." This year they're wearing a Barack Obama mask, and that isn't working either.

In the Mississippi race, the national GOP tried to link Democratic candidate Travis Childers to Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. One TV ad declared: "Travis Childers: He took Obama's endorsement over our conservative values." But Mr. Childers was well known as a cultural conservative who favors gun rights and opposes abortion. In a year when Americans are mad as hell, such a negative attack strategy merely reminds voters that Republicans have run out of ideas.

I would maybe not say that Republicans have run out of ideas, but I would say that the consultancy class that the state and national parties rely on are woefully out of touch with the voters!

The Journal then goes on to say something that many on these pages have said for the last 3 years!

The better strategy is to offer a reform agenda of their own, especially one that begins to speak to the economic anxieties of the middle class. This includes doing some homework on health care for a change, instead of ceding that field to the Democrats. One of Tom DeLay's great blunders, among many, was failing to do anything about health care when Republicans controlled Washington in 2005. This year, John McCain is offering them a policy lifeline, and they should grab it.

Mr. McCain is also proposing to veto all earmarks, and you can hear the grating of teeth in the GOP caucus on that one. Yes, the "real money" is in entitlements. But there's nothing independent voters hate more than the self-dealing and incumbent protection that earmarks represent. An earmark ban would be potent political symbolism – and substance.

Democrats and the media want to cow Republicans into believing that tax cutting doesn't sell anymore. But tell that to Republican Mayor of Indianapolis Greg Ballard, who won an upset victory last year by calling for lower property taxes. The GOP should expand its tax cut message into a larger tax reform theme that also hits at the corruption of tax loopholes for the rich.

Voters are especially angry about rising prices for food and gasoline, and here too Republicans can start speaking for the middle class. The weak dollar policy of the Bush Administration and Federal Reserve has helped to cause the price spike, and Republicans on Capitol Hill should start talking about how inflation punishes those who work and save. With oil at $124 a barrel, voters are also willing to listen to a message that encourages more domestic energy production across the board – oil, natural gas, coal, shale and nuclear.

Yes, yes, yes, yes and YES!!!!! That is exactly what the voters in Minnesota AND America want to hear! However, we also want you to act on your campaign promises.

Democrats have settled on a formula of running as cultural conservatives in GOP districts, and as economic populists on "fiscal discipline," trade protection, corporate bashing, and "middle-class tax cuts" paid for by taxes on the rich. If Republicans can't trump that message with an agenda of low taxes, health-care affordability and portability, jobs and stable prices, they will be routed again in November.

We have already seen that the Democrats don't mean it when they campaign as fiscally disciplined. We saw (in 2006) Margaret Anderson-Kelliher stand before the microphones and claim that this new legislature would be fiscally moderate and then watched this same "fiscally moderate" DFL Leadership propose MILLIONS of dollars in tax increases over the last two years. The voters have a serious case of "buyers remorse". If the House Republican Caucus were smart, they would seize on that and propose a vision for Minnesota that not only highlights what they will do but it will give the voters an "accountability matrix" so that they realize that this caucus means what they say.

If they do this, it could reverse a very troubling trend. Will they learn this lesson? One can only hope the answer is a resounding "Yes we can!"