Posted on 06/03/2014 4:39:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
The midterm elections are less than six months away, and Republicans still can't agree among themselves on what it will take to win.
The latest debate among party insiders is whether GOP House and Senate candidates should produce a document like the Contract With America that tells voters what to expect if Republicans win full control of Congress. But the fact that there is a debate at all indicates that the race is not shaping up as Republicans envisioned months ago.
Much of the anxiety concerns Obamacare. The six months between October and March saw the disastrous rollout of the exchanges, steep increases in premiums and deductibles for millions of Americans, the imposition of the individual mandate, higher taxes and other troublesome features of the Democrats' national health care scheme. Republicans saw public unhappiness as political opportunity.
But now that seems to have hit a plateau. Yes, more jarring changes are coming -- the employer mandate, the full imposition of minimum coverage requirements, and others. But President Obama has delayed several of those changes until after this November's elections. That has thrown a wrench into earlier Republican plans to exploit public discontent all the way until the election.
"There are no big implementation events to occur that could change the current equilibrium before November," says a well-connected Republican strategist. "So there is this sense that Obamacare has moved everybody that it's going to move, and that's not enough."
In addition, some GOP insiders are sensing that by November -- when the Obamacare exchanges have been up for more than a year -- the public will not see a Republican pledge to repeal as the answer to its unhappiness with the health care system.
"One thing you're beginning to see in surveys is the sense that we're so far down this path that repeal is not realistic any more," says the GOP strategist. "Clearly, they disagree with the direction of the health care system, but the idea that you can stop all this and go back to where we were before just seems unrealistic to a growing chunk of the population." A recent GOP survey found that a plurality of voters agreed with the statement, "The system has been changed too structurally that it is not possible to go back to the way it was before."
Put those concerns together, and you have the growing Republican feeling that Obamacare will not be as much of a driving motivation for voters as they had earlier hoped. And that's behind the talk about a new campaign pledge.
Most proponents don't want a literal version of the old Contract With America, which was a huge success for House Republicans in 1994 but devoted a lot of attention to internal House reforms as well as the extensive legislation GOP lawmakers promised to pass. After many re-iterations of the contract over the years, some GOP strategists believe another could look like a wish list that voters would promptly ignore.
Instead, some Republicans are thinking about focusing on two or three policy areas in which they will pledge major legislation to boost America's economy.
Three items under discussion are energy, regulation and tax reform. The energy part is relatively easy; Republicans support a variety of ways for America to capitalize on the revolution in oil and gas recovery, while Democrats seem determined to slow it all down.
Tax reform is more difficult, since Republicans do not agree among themselves on a big plan. But they could showcase individual measures, like ways to bring home the billions in cash that U.S. corporations have overseas.
As far as regulation is concerned, there is a concern that voters have heard the GOP's general anti-regulatory position over and over. Instead, Republicans might focus on one or two undeniably counterproductive economic restrictions as a symbol for Obama's across-the-board increase in regulations.
Health care remains a big question mark. Republicans have famously not been able to unite behind a single Obamacare alternative, and it doesn't look like they'll be able to do so anytime soon. Beyond supporting repeal -- nearly all Republicans still do -- it's hard to see what the GOP positive agenda will be.
Not all Republicans are on board for some sort of party pledge. While some think a contract-style agenda could put them over the top in close races, others "think the existence of such an agenda is just a recipe for further divisions down the road -- you don't want to over-promise and create backlash," says one Senate Republican source.
Most GOP lawmakers do agree on one thing: They hate "Republicans are divided" stories in the press. But the fact is, November is not that far away, and the GOP hasn't fully settled on how to run.
Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea. Why not make peace with Conservatives, and then actually offer the people a viable alternative to socialism/fascism?
How ‘bout they start with the Ten Commandments and promise to shut down all of the unconstitutional alphabet federal agencies?
Oh, it’s so difficult to come up with an agenda, the Democrats have given us so little to really oppose.
How about “government by the consent of the governed”, you morons?
There you go using logic, common sense and situational awareness…..we’re talking Washington here…...
GOP supports: RomneyCARE and ObamaCARE
GOP supports: Open borders
GOP supports: Arming al Qaeda
GOP supports: Ignoring Constitutional CRISIS
GOP supports: Ignoring Protesting Americans
GOP supports: The Obama Administration by its ABDICATION
“GOP Still Searches For Agenda”
The Pub-Es trying to pass a collectivist agenda under the noses of their conservative voting base without them knowing about it.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Quite of few of these ‘conservative’ Republicans, when elected, are going to stab conservatives in the back on open borders, and then follow up with inaction on repealing Obamacare because they can’t agree on its ‘replacement’ which they carefully added when they said ‘repeal and replace’ when campaigning.
HINT: Go back to the Ronald Reagan playbook.
NO MORE DEBT CEILING INCREASES EVER......AND A BALANCED BUDGET....Keep on dreaming....
Lack of GOP leader ship across the board. It’s why there is no front runner
It’s why the rats will stay in charge
But don’t make peace with conservatives.
Bunch of AH s
Howsabout: Pro-gun, Anti-muzzie, anti-IRS, cut-taxes, ENFORCE Immigration laws, disarm SWAT.
There, was that so hard?
The GOPe’s agenda is Amnesty and what else they can do for their corporate masters like throw the grass roots under the bus.
Elections no longer determine who among us will govern a republic.
They determine which subunit of the Uniparty will reap the spoils of despotic government.
It is difficult to stand for something when you don’t have the backbone to stand for much of anything.
It takes more than the wish for a bigger tent.
Another round of the empty rhetoric — lower taxes, smaller government, better economy, more jobs, etc., — are just words, and the GOP has a severe credibility problem.
The GOP has a bad habit of running as conservatives and governing as left-leaning moderates/centrists.
After last Tuesday’s election results, even Karl Rove slipped up on FoxNews and commented that one of the things the GOP needs to do to win is to run as — ‘conservatives’.
[I bet he had FoxNews burn the video of that commentary.]
They can produce all the documents they want, but what I expect from them is still the same old thing: folding and collapsing like a cheap umbrella as soon as somebody says mean things about them.
I don't see this GOP agreeing on anything, but a logical approach would be to dissect it by taking on the unpopular parts first like some of the mandates.
They should Start with the personal mandates and the minimum mandated (health insurance) benefits that killed all those policies and debate Dems on those first. Then the employer mandate, that should be easy given that Obama delayed it.
A pure 100% repeal sounds great if you got elected to Lou Gomert's district by that (his) set of voters(or Mark Levin's audience) . How many of those are there in USA %? Five?
Our party needs. Needs. To stop offshoring American industry.
We need to manufacture things right here in America.
Bring back American manufacturing. GOP bring back American manufacturing.
I could care less what the GOP does anymore, they are just the other side of the same coin.
The saying for the republicans is still true. “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.