Posted on 11/09/2006 9:58:04 AM PST by meg88
After taking a drubbing in this week's congressional elections, the GOP has a plan: rediscovering the Spirit of 1994, the year when the Republicans pulled off their own historic retaking of Congress.
With House Speaker Dennis Hastert deciding to leave his post after the party's defeat, a fierce campaign is already underway for top slots in the House GOP leadership for next year.
Nearly every member vying for party power in the new Congress is offering the same description of what ails Republicans and how it can be remedied.
It goes something like this: "After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government.
In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt."
Those are the words of Mike Pence, the Indiana congressman who heads a group of the most conservative GOP members, called the Republican Study Group, and is running to be the top Republican leader in the House.
But John Boehner, the Ohio rep and current number two under Hastert who is running against Pence for that post, says he's the man to help Republicans restore the principles they embraced in 1994, since he was one of the authors of the original Contract with America.
Joe Barton, a Texas member who currently is chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, is also considering the top job.
Meanwhile John Shadegg, the Arizona congressman who wants the No. 2 job, Minority Whip, is playing up his reform credentials, noting he was elected in the famous freshman class of 1994 that won back the House for Republicans.
The closed-door leadership elections, scheduled for next Friday, will give a clue as to how badly the GOP thinks it needs to reform itself.
So much of the spending many House conservatives hated, such as the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill that President Bush pushed them to approve, happened before Boehner was in the leadership.
And Boehner is famous for having never asked for any wasteful pork-barrel projects for his own district, a stance many fiscal conservatives like.
Missouri congressman Roy Blunt, who will face Shadegg in the race for Minority Whip, will have a more difficult task running a campaign as a change agent, since he's been in the House leadership for several years; in fact he lost the race for majority whip to Boehner earlier this year primarily because he was viewed as a member of the old guard.
Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston, another member of the current GOP leadership, is running for conference chairman and will face Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn and Florida's Adam Putnam.
A win by Pence, 47, for the top job would suggest a dramatic shift for House Republicans. While he would seek to move the GOP back to the roots of the 1994 movement, he actually comes from a new generation of House Republicans, elected since 2000, who have never served in the minority.
And the former conservative talk show host, who calls himself as "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order," is closer to the conservative Christians who play a big role in GOP politics than most of the current leadership.
At the same time, he's been willing to look for compromises on some key issues, attempting earlier this year to fashion an immigration bill that would create a work visa program for illegal immigrants, which many conservatives thought didn't constitute "amnesty," the label they tagged to the Senate Republicans guest worker bill.
Why try to re-capture a 12 yo spirit? Why not try to be original and just start out on a new day?
Though the GOP needs to remember their history .. they also need to look at the future
Otherwise they are just stuck
Sorry Boehner, you're part of the wallpaper in D.C. and part of why we lost on Tuesday. Whatever you did in 1994 did nothing for us in 2006. You certainly didn't bring any of that 1994 spirit into your time as majority leader so why should I think you will do so moving forward? Time for new blood. You're out, Mike Pence in.
It may have been a better idea to stick with it, since it was a great plan. Trying to harken back may seem a little snake oil-ish to some. In my opinion, the remaining true conservatives should just come clean and admit they lost their way. Disassociate yourself from the RINOs. Stay true to your convictions. I know....that's a tall order for most politicians.
NO! The Republican Party is finished. Now that the RATS are in power, they are going to pass a sweeping amnesty bill that's going to allow millions of illegals to vote as citizens. Guess what party they are signing up with? Naturally, it's the RAT party. With that many new RAT voters, we will never be able to take control again. There's just too many of them.
see tagline.
I don't want Pence after his betrayal of Tancredo on illegal immigration...
Well, then who should it be besides Tancredo himself? The few who supported his severe solutions to illegal immigration were mostly swept out of office Tuesday. So Pence who has a reasonable and tough idea which is enforcement with some allowance for a guest worker plan is as good a pick as any. His plan isn't that bad. It's better than the Senate's was.
Unless the Democrats royally screw things up, the GOP is not getting congress back. In 2 years when the elections are held all we're going to see are images of iraq and corruption in congress. Then they're going ot say.. Is this what you want again? The GOP blew it.
Only if we can clone Ronald Reagan and get Newt back in power. Other than that I say Cumbaya.
It's amnesty...
Stop trying to find a Ronald Reagan clone would be a good start.
No it's not. Crimeny I'm so sick of the misuse of that term. Amnesty is a no strings attached, no penalty to pay forgiveness. There's nothing like that in Pence's plan.
Christian news and commentary at: sacredscoop.com ...
Yeah, if the pubs will get back to basic values, stressing faith, family values, lower taxes, etc. Pubs couldn't go wrong. However, with all the scandals contradicting faith and family values like Mark Foley, national budget went awry, gasoline going astronomical, the Iraqi war, etc., the main message got lost. People tired of the scandals and outrageousness linked to the Republican Party.
That is the loss.
But it is not like Bush would have done anything about
it anyway. We were lost anyway. Now we just know it.
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