Posted on 09/24/2010 8:27:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
Republican leader John Boehner (R-Oh) and his Republican House colleagues released their "Pledge to America" yesterday.
As you might have guessed, Congressional Democrats and their allies in the Popular Press came out swinging:
Too broad. Not enough specifics. No promise to cut out earmarks. Nothing new. Blah, blah … blah.
Here's what I said (I have edited this slightly to make me sound smarter than I actually was, but this is the thrust) to one of my favorite sparring partners, pollster Cornell Belcher, on CNN last night.
Cornell, in your next poll ask this question: Thinking about the Republican's "Pledge to America" are you in favor of cutting the deficit, refusing to raise taxes, reducing entitlements, and bringing a sense of fairness back to the Congress? Or, are you in favor of the status quo?
Erick Erickson, of Redstate.com, said that the "Pledge to America" was far longer than the 1994 "Contract with America;" longer, even, than the U.S. Constitution, and independents weren't going to read a document that long.
I said independents don't have to read it; they just need to know that it is there.
Bill Greener, who has been a friend, ally, and teacher for way too many decades to recount, taught me about political debate.
"If you can keep the debate at the values level," he taught me, "your opponent can't get into the game."
A value might be something like: "We need to provide every American child the best education in the world."
What's your opponent going to say, "No, we shouldn't?"
It's when you have to describe how to achieve that value that the fight starts. The deeper you go into the details of the value - the actual policies - the more fuel you provide to the debate.
The "Pledge to America" is largely written at the values level. The best Democrats can do is to complain that this is the "same old Republican rhetoric of smaller government, lower taxes, and freezing the hiring of non-security Federal employees" that they've heard before.
Yeah, well, sounds pretty good to me.
The media, in its zeal to help put up barriers against the continually rising anti-Democrat tide among American voters, spent the day yesterday trying to use tricks they learned in Journalism 113 in college to trap Republicans into sounding uninformed, unconcerned about the poor and unemployed, or ideologues interested only in pandering to the Tea Party.
As far as I have seen, no one fell into their traps, and so the tide is still running strongly toward Republicans.
In fact, a new poll released by the Pew organization shows that among likely voters the GOP has a seven percentage point lead: 50-43.
BUT … among the highly coveted independents who are most likely to vote on November 2
"49 percent said they will support a GOP candidate, compared with 36 percent who are likely to vote Democratic."
For those, like me, who are arithmetically challenged, that is a 17 point advantage to Republicans among independents.
Politco.com's Jeanne Cummings, who is as good a political analyst as there is among the DC press corps, led her story about the poll this way: "In an ominous sign for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, independent voters now favor Republicans by nearly the same margins that they went for Obama in 2008 and for his party in the 2006 midterms."
In spite of the Popular Press looking for any scrap of data that will support their fondest hopes that this will all turn out to be a bad dream and on November 3 the sun will rise over a Capital City still firmly in control of the Democrats, the evidence just keeps getting more and more difficult to ignore.
If this poll had shown some slippage in support for the GOP in the mid-term elections, it would have led every newscast and been front page headlines across this great land of ours.
Republican House leader John Boehner (R-Oh) has come up with a good, solid document.
Any Republican running for Congress should challenge his or her opponent to run one joint ad for the rest of the campaign: The Republican saying I'm for the "Agenda for America," the Democrat saying "I'm for the status quo."
See you on November 2.
As I’ve said in other threads:
In 2008 this would have been a great plan. In 2010 it looks more like the GOP is (1) trying to play me-too with the tea party, and (2) also trying to fend off pressure from the tea party movement to do even more.
EXCELLENT
No doubt about it.......the dems are for the status quo.
This frames the election perfectly.
Ole Erick can stick his opinion you know where.
Oh BS, Have you actually bother to read the document? From you comments it pretty obvious you have not. You are merely letting the knee jerk critics in the Junk Media tell you what to think.
NO it not perfect but it is only one heck of a lot better then anything we have seen coming out of DC since Reagan was President. And YES, that includes the 1994 Contract which had less specifics on what the GOP would do on spending then this does.
And if you can keep the debate at the values level, you don't have to commit to repealing any particular piece of standing legislation or taxation, either. I'd like to see a Pledge To America that commits to these six words:
"Public Law 111-148 is hereby repealed"
It’s a good plan. It would have been a great plan if they had suggested spending levels of 2006, and an excellent plan if they had rolled them back to Clinton’s last budget year.
I have. And I think it sucks, especially in its larger political context.
He's made a terrible mess trying to pay off all his unions..and other rats.
That you don't like the Pledge is no surprise.
Ensure Access For Patients With Pre-Existing Conditions:Health care should be accessible for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses. We will expand state high-risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage. We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick.
This is basically advocating Obamacare. If insurers can't price risk, then it's not insurance, it's welfare. If you're guaranteed insurance AFTER you get sick, it's not insurance.
How does giving federal money to states reduce federal power over health care?
Repeal and Replace is a catchy phrase, but this is not a Conservative document. The GOP is still offering the big-government Republican formula.
We need to restore free market across state line insurance sales, as suggested by Paul Ryan and others, amend the tax code to give individuals their own non-taxable health options.
The Pledge expands Health Savings Accounts, which is good, but avoids this step.
Medical-liability reform is necessary and beneficial, but it’s not Congress’s job to do it. It’s a job for states.
Anyone remember the concept of States Rights? Or are the Grand Old Potty insiders still going to club us with the commerce clause? Buying health insurance across state lines is a good idea and states can do that on their own, or p[ass legislation that makes it OK to do, as they have for auto insurance.
Healthcare can be a car insurance clone. High risk pools, if you need it but are a risk, you pay more, not subsidized by MY taxes. This plan does not address that, in fact goes backwards, with regulations that make it illegal to “deny coverage to someone on the basis of a pre-existing condition” - which means people can wait until they become sick to apply for health insurance.
What a deal for insurance companies.
What happened to Conservatives who would protect Free Markets anyway?
This plan is crap.
Your posting history shows a nasty Republican hack.
That you would attack anyone who doesn’t share your love for anything the GOP says or does is no surprise.
Yep. “Repeal and replace” means “we’re Republicans and we can do socialism better than Obama and Pelosi.”
basically.
Communism by the teacup instead of the barrel.
More like by the four gallon bucket instead of the five gallon bucket.
Yep. They haven’t learned their lesson, and they won’t unless people vote out the incumbents. ALL of them.
That is the ONLY thing that would scare the Republicans into taking conservatives seriously.
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