On the heels of two disastrous election cycles, the conventional
wisdom was that Republicans were doomed to wander in the
wilderness for decades unless their party underwent serious
changes. Even on the right, there quickly emerged a cottage
industry of conservative self-help books dedicated to helping the
GOP rebuild and rebrand.
The prescriptions varied depending on the authors’ policy
prescriptions: embrace big government or repudiate compassionate
conservatism, rethink the national security policy of the Bush
years or return to the approach of the first Bush term, jettison
polarizing social issues or use them to build bridges into
minority communities. But there was some rough consensus that the
party needed to formulate an economic agenda for the middle
class, come to terms with its past failures and find its voice on
issues like health care.
Republicans have done almost none of these things. No promising
national leader has come forward with a stature approaching
Barack Obama’s. Quite the contrary, Republicans have recently
watched the implosion of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and the
resignation of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The party remains
much more readily identifiable by what it is against rather than
what it is for, and moderate figures like Colin Powell continue
to lament its capture by “a very far right wing” base.
Beneath the prognostications of doom and gloom, however,
Republicans are showing real signs of life. The GOP is heavily
favored to take the governorship in New Jersey this year, where
Republican Chris Christie leads by double digits in some polls.
Republicans are slight favorites in the Virginia governor’s race,
despite an increasing Democratic trend in the Old Dominion over
the past few elections.
If the 2010 elections were held today, Republicans would pick up
a Senate seat in Connecticut (if the Democrats don’t get Chris
Dodd first) and have an even shot of reclaiming Arlen Specter’s
in Pennsylvania — the latter by running a former president of
the Club for Growth. Republicans would even win a one-on-one race
against Gov. Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, one of the nation’s
bluest states.
According to both NPR and Rasmussen Reports, Republicans now lead
in the generic congressional ballot. National Republicans have
succeeded in getting their top choices to run for Senate in
Illinois and Florida. Delaware may not be far behind. Just this
week, they managed to nudge their most vulnerable incumbent, Sen.
Jim Bunning of Kentucky, into retirement, improving their chances
in that state.
House Republicans are faring even better at candidate
recruitment. They have a target-rich environment, as the
Democratic majority is padded with the votes of red-state
congressmen who in 2006 and 2008 won districts where Obama was
unpopular back when his national approval ratings were above 60
percent. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), chairman of the GOP’s
congressional campaign committee, boasts that he will make a play
for 80 Democratic-held seats next year.
Congressional Quarterly’s
analysis makes clear that Republicans are longshots to retake
even the House at this point. But unlike many of the Democrats
representing districts carried by John McCain, most of the 34
Republicans holding seats in Obama districts have weathered tough
election cycles before; 2010 will be a very different climate
than 2006 or 2008.
That’s why the Democrats’ best pickup opportunities are in Obama
districts where the incumbents are not running for re-election:
Mark Kirk in Illinois, Jim Gerlach in Pennsylvania, John McHugh
in New York, and maybe soon Michael Castle in Delaware. There are
many more Walt Minnicks and Frank Kratovils — junior Democrats
representing conservative-leaning areas — in the House than
Joseph Caos.
Far from heeding the centrists’ advice, Republicans have followed
a strategy of opposition to most of Obama’s major initiatives:
the stimulus, cap and trade, health care, and even Sonia
Sotomayor. In the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Sens.
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) voted against
a Supreme Court nominee for the first time in their careers.
With a stimulus that has failed to stimulate, a health care plan
that is starting to tank in the polls, and politically tone-deaf
Democratic forays into racial politics, opposition has so far
been a profitable strategy for Republicans. It may continue to
pay dividends. Whatever yesterday’s deal between Henry Waxman and
the Blue Dogs does for the prospects of health care reform, pass
or fail it makes Democrats in marginal districts vote on tax
increases, a bigger budget deficit, and mandatory abortion
coverage.
The danger of an opposition-based strategy that doesn’t address
any of the GOP’s long-term problems is obvious: if the economy
begins to recover, if Obama’s approval ratings improve following
a major legislative victory Republicans are still powerless to
deny him, if the party peaks in 2010 and forces the president to
tack to the center before running for re-election, Republicans
won’t be left with much to say.
Bill Clinton’s liberal overreach doomed the Democrats in 1994.
Triangulation, and a Republican Party that couldn’t find more
inspiring leadership than what Bob Dole had to offer, saved them
in 1996.
Yet even with those risks, it is possible that the Republican
Party’s epitaphs following 2006 and 2008 will look as premature
as the talk of a permanent Republican majority was after 2004.
