New House Leadership and wedge issues
Hopefully, this will be my last post for awhile so I can start doing something productive for law school, but with the recent loss of the House and the Senate (AP called it for Webb) the Republican will be looking for new leadership (literally and figuratively as Hastert will not seek election as minority leader).
There appears to be two candidates already interested in running: John Boehner and Mike Pence. I don't believe either of these two candidates should be the next face of the house leadership. Boehner was part of the troublesome response to the whole Mark Foley scandal, which no doubt cost Republicans some seats. He is meticulous in his appearance but is not really a polished speaker for the cable news shows. Furthermore, despites promises to the contrary he showed little willingness to tackle corruption and ethics in his short stint in the number two post and with his part in the Foley scandal may have even helped exacerbate the problem. The only benefit I see to having him is that he is from Ohio, a state in which the Republicans are currently struggling in.
Mike Pence is the leader of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), which is the caucus of conservative members in the House of Representatives and has increased in membership to over 70 members. It is considered a good bet that he or Mike Shaddegg will make a run for the leadership post but not both and most are betting on Pence. The RSC's argument is that Republicans lost in this election cycle because they violated their conservative principles and while this may be partially true on spending, as I post elsewhere they mainly lost in addition to the unpopularity of the Iraq War and because many of the Conservative positions taken by Republicans (i.e. Schiavo intervention) are not that popular with the public at large.
While Pence comes from a public relations background and would be good on shows like Meet the Press, his desire to move the caucus to the right is not the correct move.
While I think the fortunes of Iraq will no doubt influence the '08 election, there are numerous things on the domestic front that Republicans can do to improve the possibility of picking up seats in the next cycle. Republicans will need to eliminate pushing for some items on their platform that are especially unpopular, advocate better for some existing ideas which could be popular if the public better understood their position, and come up with some new ideas.
My ideal pick for the Republican leadership would be David Dreier. He is highly articulate and more than holds his own even in a hostile liberal environment like the HBO show Politically Incorrect. A good debater and speaker doesn't just speak to party faithful but can go into hostile territory and change people's minds. He is pro-choice but reasonably conservative on most other issues and would help Republicans win back some of the seats they lost this election, in areas where someone like Denny Hastert couldn't campaign. Much the same way having a pro-life leader in Harry Reid lets Democrats appeal to a broader range of people, a smart articulate guy like Dreier could expand the base. The bad news he is rumored to be a homosexual, which I don't really care much about but many religious conservatives would mind.
If Republicans can find someway to make Dreier palatable to the base, he would be an excellent pick. If not, hopefully someone else will step forward. Congressman Cantor, the only jewish Republican in the House is supposedly a rising star and holds a leadership position. Don't know much about him, but perhaps he would make a good choice.
Just going off topic for a little bit, Republicans will need some wedge issues for the next election. Wedge issues tend to win elections. In 2004, it was gay marriage and the Iraq War (which had the time Republicans were united on). In essence, a wedge issue unites your party while dividing different constituencies in the opposing party. Democrats had the wedge issues in this election: stem cell research, illegal immigration, and the Iraq War.
Stem cell research killed Jim Talent in Missouri as the business community Republicans and prominent Republican politicians like former Missouri Senator John Dansforth and Governor Matt Blunt favored the Missouri ballot iniative while the majority of Republicans were against it, especially the social conservatives. As a result, Talent gave an answer that satisfied no one on stem cell research, his oponent united almost her entire party on the issue, and Dansforth refused to endorse Talent in the race, which in a close race this issue probably made the difference.
Democrats were able to localize illegal immigration and while House Repubicans tried to do it (but it harder as the leader of the party, President Bush, vocally advocated on this issue) and some cases were successful, the issue really divided their party in states like Arizona. The Republicans lost Jim Kolbe's seat in Arizona after nominating minuteman Randy Graff in the primary over his more moderate oponent and J.D. Hayworth a reasonably popular conservative Republican incumbent who made opposing illegal immigration into his signature issue also lost his race.
The Democrats in this election were also able to unite among a policy of calling Iraq a mistake, while Republicans (especially incumbents) had a tough time defending their vote but trying to take various nuanced positions on what should be done next.
In the next election, the Republicans will have to look or find issues which unite their caucus while divide the Democrats.
There appears to be two candidates already interested in running: John Boehner and Mike Pence. I don't believe either of these two candidates should be the next face of the house leadership. Boehner was part of the troublesome response to the whole Mark Foley scandal, which no doubt cost Republicans some seats. He is meticulous in his appearance but is not really a polished speaker for the cable news shows. Furthermore, despites promises to the contrary he showed little willingness to tackle corruption and ethics in his short stint in the number two post and with his part in the Foley scandal may have even helped exacerbate the problem. The only benefit I see to having him is that he is from Ohio, a state in which the Republicans are currently struggling in.
Mike Pence is the leader of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), which is the caucus of conservative members in the House of Representatives and has increased in membership to over 70 members. It is considered a good bet that he or Mike Shaddegg will make a run for the leadership post but not both and most are betting on Pence. The RSC's argument is that Republicans lost in this election cycle because they violated their conservative principles and while this may be partially true on spending, as I post elsewhere they mainly lost in addition to the unpopularity of the Iraq War and because many of the Conservative positions taken by Republicans (i.e. Schiavo intervention) are not that popular with the public at large.
While Pence comes from a public relations background and would be good on shows like Meet the Press, his desire to move the caucus to the right is not the correct move.
While I think the fortunes of Iraq will no doubt influence the '08 election, there are numerous things on the domestic front that Republicans can do to improve the possibility of picking up seats in the next cycle. Republicans will need to eliminate pushing for some items on their platform that are especially unpopular, advocate better for some existing ideas which could be popular if the public better understood their position, and come up with some new ideas.
My ideal pick for the Republican leadership would be David Dreier. He is highly articulate and more than holds his own even in a hostile liberal environment like the HBO show Politically Incorrect. A good debater and speaker doesn't just speak to party faithful but can go into hostile territory and change people's minds. He is pro-choice but reasonably conservative on most other issues and would help Republicans win back some of the seats they lost this election, in areas where someone like Denny Hastert couldn't campaign. Much the same way having a pro-life leader in Harry Reid lets Democrats appeal to a broader range of people, a smart articulate guy like Dreier could expand the base. The bad news he is rumored to be a homosexual, which I don't really care much about but many religious conservatives would mind.
If Republicans can find someway to make Dreier palatable to the base, he would be an excellent pick. If not, hopefully someone else will step forward. Congressman Cantor, the only jewish Republican in the House is supposedly a rising star and holds a leadership position. Don't know much about him, but perhaps he would make a good choice.
Just going off topic for a little bit, Republicans will need some wedge issues for the next election. Wedge issues tend to win elections. In 2004, it was gay marriage and the Iraq War (which had the time Republicans were united on). In essence, a wedge issue unites your party while dividing different constituencies in the opposing party. Democrats had the wedge issues in this election: stem cell research, illegal immigration, and the Iraq War.
Stem cell research killed Jim Talent in Missouri as the business community Republicans and prominent Republican politicians like former Missouri Senator John Dansforth and Governor Matt Blunt favored the Missouri ballot iniative while the majority of Republicans were against it, especially the social conservatives. As a result, Talent gave an answer that satisfied no one on stem cell research, his oponent united almost her entire party on the issue, and Dansforth refused to endorse Talent in the race, which in a close race this issue probably made the difference.
Democrats were able to localize illegal immigration and while House Repubicans tried to do it (but it harder as the leader of the party, President Bush, vocally advocated on this issue) and some cases were successful, the issue really divided their party in states like Arizona. The Republicans lost Jim Kolbe's seat in Arizona after nominating minuteman Randy Graff in the primary over his more moderate oponent and J.D. Hayworth a reasonably popular conservative Republican incumbent who made opposing illegal immigration into his signature issue also lost his race.
The Democrats in this election were also able to unite among a policy of calling Iraq a mistake, while Republicans (especially incumbents) had a tough time defending their vote but trying to take various nuanced positions on what should be done next.
In the next election, the Republicans will have to look or find issues which unite their caucus while divide the Democrats.
posted by The partisan moderate at 10:12 PM
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