Phil: The line you quote from Ramesh’s op-ed bothered me a bit. The implication that the 1992 loss lead directly to the Contract With America approach to the ’94 campaign is unfaithful to the actual history of how the Contract came about. Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey were lobbying for something like the ’94 campaign from the mid-80s on, carefully shaping and reshaping an agenda that was both economically conservative at its core and made up of planks that were popular enough that most Republican candidates were willing to sign onto it. Maybe the Republican Study Committee has a similar ongoing effort underway, but unless Mike Pence and his allies are positioned to capture the leadership in the wake of a loss it’s hard to see how we can count on such an agenda going anywhere.
