Republicans Should Stop Driving Off Voters

President Ronald Reagan, arguably the most successful president of our time, said the Republican Party should be a big tent party that is welcoming of many views. In more recent years, the GOP has shifted gears to become party more focused on Barack Obama’s model of victory through dividing the electorate and appealing to specific demographic groups.

The shift began in the early 2000s with the appearance of what I like to call the “RINO hunters.” The GOP became a party focused on purity tests and identifying “RINOs,” Republicans in name only. The irony is that because many conservatives are free thinkers and have different priorities, it’s likely that a majority of Republicans were RINOs on one issue or another.

In a country of 350 million people, regional differences mean that issues are viewed by different people in different ways. Polling from 2017 showed that conservatives were the largest ideology in every state, but were not a majority in any state. Even so, on average a conservative in New York is not going to being identical to a conservative in Texas. Nevertheless, many Republicans preferred to push these perceived “closet Democrats” out of the party.

A second wave of purity came in 2016 when Donald Trump was nominated. Since the 2016 primaries, support for Donald Trump has become a litmus test for Republicans. Last year, a letter from the chairman of the Arizona Republican Party became public warning Arizona’s elected Republicans that support for President Trump was “non-negotiable.” It is safe to say that state Republican Parties elsewhere have communicated the same message. While many Trump critics “self-deported” themselves from the Republican Party, I do know of at least one case where a friend repeatedly had his dues refunded by his local Republican chapter because of his critical remarks about the president.

There are other prominent of examples of Republicans writing off large groups of people as well. Much of the Republican opposition to immigration, legal or illegal, is grounded in the belief that immigrants come to the US for welfare benefits rather than to find work and chase the American dream. As a result, many Republicans often say that Democrats want to use immigration reform, derided as “amnesty,” to import new Democrat voters.

The answer is that immigrants cannot vote until they are US citizens. Illegal immigrants also can’t get government benefits although naturalized citizens, U.S.-born children, refugees, and asylees can.

Once they become citizens, immigrants are more likely to vote Democrat if the Republican Party drives them into the arms of the party of Pelosi. If Republicans treat them fairly, compassionately, and with respect, then the GOP has a decent chance of winning the votes of people who value jobs, family, and economic growth.

The fact that states like Texas and Arizona regularly elect Republicans should shoot down the theory that Hispanic immigrants are crossing the border en masse to elect Democrats. Even in the 2018 elections where illegal immigration played a central role in the final days of the campaign, Republicans won about 29 percent of the Hispanic vote. In contrast, only nine percent of black voters cast a ballot for the GOP.

Yet another group that Republicans seem intent on driving away is federal workers. Under the current government shutdown, about 800,000 federal employees are not getting paid, either because they are furloughed or because they are being forced to work with no pay. The reaction of many Republicans to the pain of federal workers has been to say, “Good.” Even President Trump tweeted on Jan. 5 that “most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1081563196249513985

While many federal workers are Democrats, not all of them are. Workers not getting paid include law enforcement workers such as the FBI, Border Patrol, and Coast Guard. Many of these workers could probably be expected to vote Republican. Federal employees are not just concentrated in the DC suburbs, they are spread throughout the country and have political views that vary just as much as other Americans.

The Government Business Council conducted a survey of federal workers in advance of the 2016 presidential election. In the August 2015 survey, Republican- and Democrat-leaners were split almost evenly at 40-44 percent. Ironically, the top primary choice of Republican federal employees was Donald Trump.

Polls show that more Americans blame President Trump for the shutdown than the Democrats. It would be surprising if federal employees did not agree. However, where most voters might move on to other issues after the government is reopened, those who work for the government will be stuck cleaning up the financial mess that the shutdown has made of their lives. It is likely that many of the federal workers and their families who are being forced to sell their possessions on eBay or drive for Uber to put food on the table will remember the callousness of President Trump and the Republican Party when they go to the polls in 2020.

The bottom line is that Republicans can’t afford to lose any more voters. Even though Donald Trump won the 2016 election he lost the popular vote. Since then, he has played to his base rather than trying to bring more people into the Republican tent. The result was a midterm election in which Democrats won 59 percent of the popular vote in Senate elections and 53 percent of the popular vote in the House. This lopsided vote tally even includes a high Republican turnout in many areas after the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings motivated the Republican base.

The incredible shrinking Republican Party does not bode well for President Trump or other Republican candidates as the country gears up for the 2020 presidential elections. A smaller, purer party may help Republicans feel good about turning RINOs out to pasture, but it is big tent parties that win elections.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

After The Confirmation, Lindsey Graham Carries The Fight To Chuck Schumer

One of the most unexpected aspects of the Kavanaugh confirmation fight was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s emergence as a champion of the conservative right. Graham, a Republican senator representing South Carolina since 2003, has long been attacked as a “RINO” by Republicans, but now many Republicans are celebrating “Lindsey Graham 2.0.”

In the wake of the confirmation, Graham seems to be ready to continue in his newly aggressive persona. The next target of Senator Graham’s ire is none other than Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who Graham attacked on Fox News Sunday yesterday for politicizing the confirmation process.

Graham held up a list of judges to Chris Wallace and said, “This is a list that was compiled in November, but [Trump] actually put it out during the campaign.” The senator then rhetorically asked Schumer, who was not present, “There are twenty-something people on this list; I'm asking Chuck Schumer, name five, name three, name one that would be okay with you.”

“Brett Kavanaugh was a mainstream judge I would've chosen if I had been president. [Former President George W.] Bush supported him. Everybody running for president on our side believes that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were outstanding conservative jurists. The other side wants to cancel the election,” Graham said. “So, Chuck, you want someone new? Look at this list and see anybody you agree to, but what you want to do, Senator Schumer, is to overturn the election. We are not going to let you pick the judges. If you want to pick judges, then you need to win the White House. When Obama won that, I voted for two judges that he picked. So, Chuck Schumer, name one person on this list you think is acceptable.”

In fact, Brett Kavanaugh was first mentioned as a possible appointment to the Supreme Court by 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Kavanaugh’s name was circulated on an unofficial list of Supreme Court nominees circulated in October 2012 by the Romney campaign. President Trump’s first appointment to the Court, Neil Gorsuch, also made Romney’s short list.

Lindsey Graham first emerged as a hero to the Republicans who formerly reviled him on Sept. 27 when he delivered a fiery attack on Democrats after the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who he called a “nice lady, who has come forward to tell a story that's uncorroborated.” Graham added, “I'm not going to reward people for playing a political game” by hiding the accusation until the end of the hearings to delay the confirmation vote.

A week later, Graham was back, telling a protester, “You've humiliated this guy enough and there seems to be no bottom for some of you.”

“Why don't we dunk him in water and see if he floats?” Graham added, alluding to an old method of testing women accused of being witches.

In the midst of the battle, Graham also became a popular meme. A picture posted to Twitter by Benny Johnson of the Daily Caller shows the smooth South Carolinian straightening his tie with a smile as an anti-Kavanaugh protester screams in the background.

Despite Graham’s newfound support for President Trump, his popularity among Republicans probably won’t last. Graham’s support for immigration reform once earned him the moniker “Grahamnesty” among the immigration hardliners who form Trump’s base. Like John McCain, Graham also has a history of crossing the aisle to work with Democrats on issues like climate change. So far, there is no indication that he has changed his mind on these issues.

“I’ve been applauded, and I’ve been a-booed,” Graham told reporters last week. “I know my day will come. I’ll do something that this moment in time will pass. I’ll talk about climate change and overturning Citizens United. These things come and go.”

For now, though, Graham is riding high in conservative circles and will help Republican candidates rally the base ahead of the midterm elections. “I've never campaigned against a colleague in my life,” Graham said, “but that's about to change. I'm going to go throughout this country to let people in these purple states, red states were Trump won, know what I thought, know what I think about this process.”

 Originally published on The Resurgent

Tea Party losses bode well for GOP

As the 2014 primary election season draws to a close, it is apparent that voters have rejected the vast majority of Tea Party candidates in favor of traditional Republicans. In spite of much ballyhooed and hard fought challenges against Republican incumbents, only one prominent Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was defeated by a Tea Party challenger, Dave Brat, who was not funded or backed by national Tea Party groups. The Tea Party losses are a good thing for the Republican Party as a whole and make a Republican Senate majority more likely.

As noted before in Examiner, most Republican officeholders are real conservatives. Charges that they are “RINOs” or “closet liberals” do not stand up to the scrutiny of their voting records. Nevertheless, Tea Party challengers leveled these and other charges against Republican incumbents in their campaign attacks from the right.

Contrary to the belief of many on the right, elections are not merely won by marshaling the conservative base. While getting out the conservative vote is important, conservatives do not make up a majority in any state except Wyoming according to a January 2014 Gallup poll. Elections are decided by the moderate and independent voters who do not adhere to either party. For many Republican candidates, having fended off challengers from the right may make them more appealing to the undecided voters in the middle of political spectrum.

Second, while some Tea Party candidates have been very qualified and successful, think Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, others have made serious mistakes that caused the Republican Party to lose elections that should have been easily winnable. The names of past Tea Party losers include Todd Akin of Missouri (“legitimate rape”), Richard Mourdock of Indiana (pregnancy from rape is “something God intended”), and Christine O’Donnell of Maryland (“I dabbled in witchcraft”). Tea Party support for such candidates was one of the factors that cost Republicans control of the Senate in both 2010 and 2012. While candidates like Aiken and O’Donnell failed to win Democratic seats for the GOP, Mourdock transferred a Republican seat to the Democrats after defeating incumbent Richard Lugar in the primary.

Recent elections may show that Republican voters are becoming more discerning about who to vote for. In the current primary season, Republican voters have voted down a number of Tea Party nominees who would have almost certainly gone down to defeat in the general election. In Kentucky, Matt Bevin, challenger to Senator Mitch McConnell, was caught on video attending a rally to support the legalization of cockfighting. Bevin also was revealed to have supported TARP in 2008. The Tea Party challenger to Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Dr. Milton Wolf, was revealed to have posted numerous x-ray images of deceased patients on his Facebook page. Wolf then joked about the pictures with his Facebook friends. Even Chris McDaniel, who lost the hotly contested and controversial primary in Mississippi, would have been troubled in the general election by recordings of his talk radio show. By rejecting such flawed candidates, Republican voters increase the chances that Republicans will win control of the Senate.

Third, Tea Party identification is not helpful to moderate and independent voters. In June, a Gallup poll found that only 24 percent of registered voters considered themselves Tea Party supporters. One month earlier, Gallup had noted that Tea Party support among Republicans had declined to 41 percent, down 20 points from 2010. The Tea Party was always a conservative and libertarian movement. At its height, in 2011, only 30 percent of Americans were supporters.

When independent voters were polled, Gallup found an almost even split between supporters and opponents of the Tea Party (14 to 13 percent). More telling, 73 percent of independents had no opinion on the movement. Tea Party endorsements of candidates would have little effect on these voters.

The good news for Republicans is that rejection of the Tea Party is not tantamount to a rejection of conservatism. Recent polls show that two-thirds of Americans are not satisfied with how American government works (Gallup) and 72 percent thought that big government was a greater threat than big business or big labor (Gallup). Voters consistently say that the country is on the wrong track by a greater than two-to-one margin (Rasmussen).

In the end, the Tea Party has not failed. The Tea Party, combined with the failure of President Obama’s agenda, moved the Republican Party to the right. National Journal called the current Congress the “most divided ever” with very few moderates left in either party. This is confirmed by a University of Georgia researcher whose research indicates that the Republican Party is at its most conservative point in 100 years.

There is still a place for the Tea Party within the Republican Party. As Michael Tanner noted in National Review, the Tea Party’s ability to field primary challengers against Republican incumbents will keep the GOP from moving too far toward the left. Even if the Tea Party never elects another candidate, by holding the feet of Republican incumbents to the fire, it has accomplished its purpose.

Read the full article on Elections Examiner

The truth about Republicans and amnesty

Whenever the subject of immigration reform comes up, a charge that is certain to be bandied about is that Republicans are trying to foist amnesty on the country. Almost every Republican of note has been accused of supporting amnesty at some point in recent years. Are these charges true? What is the truth about the Republicans and amnesty?

First, what is amnesty? Merriam Webster defines “amnesty” as “a decision that a group of people will not be punished or that a group of prisoners will be allowed to go free” or “the act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals.” Similarly, Merriam Webster defines “pardon” as the “act of officially saying that someone who was judged to be guilty of a crime will be allowed to go free and will not be punished.” Is this what prominent Republicans are advocating?

Perhaps no name is more synonymous with amnesty charges than John McCain. The Arizona senator has long been a proponent of immigration reform. During the George W. Bush Administration, McCain fought for the Bush-backed reform efforts of 2005 and 2007. Opponents accuse McCain of saying that “not granting amnesty” is a “stain on America’s honor” and that it will require “open borders” for Republicans to defeat Hillary in 2016 among other examples.

Both examples cited above from Breitbart include sources for their claims. In the first example, McCain was responding to a question. His unedited answer is as follows (starting at 43:30 on this video):

“I think that the Republican Party will never win another nationwide election unless we enact comprehensive immigration reform. That’s not the reason why I support this reform. I support it because there’s 11 million people living in the shadows in this country without the rights and privileges of citizenry and they’re being abused every day and they can contribute an enormous amount to our society just as the Irish and the Poles and the Jews and the Italians and every other wave that came to this country contributed to it.

“The point is that if you’ve got 11 million people living in this country illegally, there’s not enough buses to deport them, then it’s de facto amnesty…. You know, they’re not going home, okay? They’re not going home. And so why don’t we give them a path to citizenship, and my friends, if you look at that legislation, it is tough. It’s 10 years before they get a green card, thousands of dollars in fees. This is no amnesty. It’s really tough. But if you keep these people in the shadows in this nation, it is a stain on America’s honor. By the way, I am insistent on one thing and that is, when we pass it, and I still think we will one of these days, it will be named the Edward M. Kennedy Immigration Reform Bill.”

In his own words, McCain points out that the illegal aliens are not being pardoned, that they will instead pay thousands of dollars in fines and endure a 10 year waiting period. In the other example from Breitbart, it doesn’t even take a trip to the source link to determine that McCain never uttered the words “open borders,” but had again merely advocated immigration reform. The authors of the two pieces took it upon themselves to put words into McCain’s mouth, substituting the phrases “amnesty” and “open borders” for the more accurate phrase that McCain had actually used: “immigration reform.”

What is John McCain’s position on immigration reform? According to On the Issues, McCain has advocated securing the border first and then implementing a guest worker program. He supported Arizona’s immigration law in 2010. As noted earlier, he supports a path to citizenship, but not amnesty. McCain has voted to make English the official language of the U.S., to build a border fence, and against a bill requiring health care for illegal aliens.

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is another frequent target of immigration reform opponents. He is often derided by his critics as “Lindsey Grahamnesty.” When it comes to backing up the charges that Graham is an amnesty supporter, again the evidence seems to fall short.

For example, a 2013 Breitbart article says that Graham said that “amnesty” was the only way to prevent a “demographic death spiral.” A closer look at the article, however, reveals that Graham ‘s words addressed immigration reform, not amnesty. Graham’s opinion has merit. While Republicans do very well among white voters, the share of white voters in the electorate has declined markedly. In the Obama era, Republicans have had a notoriously poor performance among minority voters and this has cost them elections. Examiner’s analysis of 2012 exit polls found that immigration was one of the most damaging issues for Republicans and may have cost Mitt Romney the election.

Marco Rubio, Florida senator and former darling of the Tea Party movement, is now often derided as a RINO and amnesty supporter. The break seems to have occurred in January 2013 when Rubio proposed an immigration reform plan that fell short of deportation for all illegal immigrants. Examiner noted at the time that Rubio’s plan called for securing the border as well as increasing legal immigration.

Rubio would have dealt with illegal aliens by encouraging them to come forward and undergo background checks. Illegals with serious criminal histories would be deported. Those with clean background checks would pay fines, back taxes, do community service work and be subjected to a long waiting period before they would be eligible for citizenship.

Another frequent target of the anti-amnesty crowd is Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman and Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nominee. Any linkage of Ryan to amnesty seems very tenuous. A January 2014 article on Twitchy claimed that Ryan “wants amnesty first, border security second. “ This claim is sourced to a Washington Post article that details a Ryan interview on MSNBC.

In the interview, Ryan says that under a House Republican plan for immigration, current illegals would be granted “probationary status to make sure that a person is not rewarded for having broken our laws and not preferenced over people who did follow the laws, meaning legal immigrants.” When asked if citizenship is on the table, Ryan replies, “What I’m saying is that you’ve got to make sure this isn’t amnesty.” Ryan goes on to say that “we feel very strongly about securing the border” and how Republican distrust of Obama means that “we need to write a law that he can’t avoid.” Ryan specifically rejects an amnesty.

More generally, a 2013 article by Rich Lowry in National Review asks, “Does the Republican establishment support amnesty?” Lowry promptly answers “you bet” and cites this article in Time. What Lowry neglects to mention is that the Republican National Committee resolution discussed in the article specifically rejects a pathway to citizenship while calling for increased border security and law enforcement patrols. The resolution called for work permits for current illegal aliens, but no citizenship and no amnesty.

Once again, it is apparent that the anti-immigration reform activists are taking words out of context and twisting the meaning to tar Republican representatives with the amnesty brush. Anti-reform crusaders might not believe that bills under consideration are harsh enough on illegal immigrants, but, by definition, they are not amnesty because they would force illegal aliens to pay fines and undergo background checks and waiting periods. As Ryan noted, Republican proposals also include a probationary period for illegal aliens who choose to come forward.

Republicans and Tea Party supports would do well to note the facts about Republicans accused of amnesty and question why those who fraudulently throw out the charge of amnesty feel the need to twist the facts and lie about their fellow conservatives. Politicians, talk show hosts and news outlets that sow such division should be remembered and avoided.

Read the full article on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

If you disagree and would like to provide specific evidence about Republican support for amnesty, contact me on Facebook or Twitter

Fates of 2005's top ten RINOs should alarm GOP purists

In recent years, many conservatives have blamed RINOs – Republicans in name only – for the recent Republican failures at the polls as well as for the failure of the GOP to stop the explosive growth in government. The use of RINOs as a target and scapegoat is not new and predates the advent of the Tea Party. But are RINOs really to blame for Republican Party’s woes and would the party be better off if RINOs were kicked out?

In 2005, four years before Barack Obama became president and sparked the Tea Party movement, Human Events published a list of that year’s top ten most wanted RINOs. Where are these RINOs today? Have they been replaced by Tea Party inspired conservatives or are they still subverting the Republican Party from within?

The first RINO on the list is Lincoln Chafee, at the time a senator from Rhode Island. Chafee lost his seat to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in 2006. He left the GOP a year later according to Ballotpedia and was elected governor of Rhode Island as an independent in 2010. He became a Democrat in 2013.

Next is Olympia Snowe, a senator from Maine. Snowe retired from the Senate in 2012 and was replaced by Angus King, an independent who consistently votes with the Democrats. Since her retirement, Snowe started Olympia’s List, a website that promotes candidates who “follow the principles of consensus-building.”

Arlen Specter, the next RINO on the list, is infamous in conservative circles. Specter left the Republican Party in 2009 to become a Democrat. He lost the 2010 Democratic Senate nomination to Joe Sestak, who then lost the general election to Republican Pat Toomey. Arlen Specter died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2012. Since taking office, Senator Toomey has scored 100 percent from the American Conservative Union.

Susan Collins, also a senator from Maine, is number four. Collins is still serving in the Senate as a Republican and faces reelection in 2014. Her voting record makes her the most liberal Republican in the Senate according to the American Conservative Union, but she remains to the right of most Democrats.

Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays was replaced by Democrat Jim Himes after the 2008 elections. In 2010, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat. He lost that primary to Linda McMahon, who in turn lost the general election to Richard Blumenthal, a far left Democrat.

Gov. George Pataki of New York was the next most wanted RINO. Pataki was succeeded by three consecutive Democrats, Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson, and Andrew Cuomo, when he left the governorship in 2006. Cuomo was instrumental in passing strict new gun control laws after the Sandy Hook mass murder as well as introducing same sex marriage into the Empire State.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York retired in 2006. His congressional district in the Utica area is now represented by Republican Richard Hanna, a moderate with a 52 percent lifetime score from the American Conservative Union.

The next name on the list, Mitt Romney, is also well known to Republicans. In 2005, Romney was governor of Massachusetts. Human Events singled him out for his support of gun control and civil unions. Unmentioned was his namesake health care program, Romneycare. Romney declined to run for reelection and was succeeded by Democrat Deval Patrick, whose expansion of Romneycare significantly drove up costs and who is staunchly in favor of strict new gun controls.

At number nine is Mike Castle, at the time the sole congressman from Delaware. In 2010, Castle ran for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden. Castle lost the nomination to Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell, who subsequently lost the general election to another liberal Democrat, Chris Coons. O’Donnell is perhaps best remembered for her declaration in a campaign ad that “I am not a witch.”

In the final analysis, the majority of the 2005 RINOs were replaced by more liberal representatives. Five eventually lost to Democrats and one was replaced by a leftist independent. Another lost a primary to a more conservative candidate who lost the general election to a Democrat. One was replaced by another moderate Republican. With one 2005 RINO still serving, only one was replaced by a more conservative official.

The important thing to learn may be that when a state’s voters elect a moderate, it is because that is what they feel is best for their state. Staunch conservatives are not likely to get elected in New York and Maine. If a moderate Republican there is to be replaced, the odds are good that it will be with a liberal Democrat. Those who think that moderate Republicans are as bad as or worse than Democrats need look no further than Obamacare. When the Affordable Care Act was passed, not a single Republican in either the House or the Senate voted for it. Not even the RINOs. Ninety percent of Democrats did.

NOTE: The quest for political purity is no longer limited to the Republican Party. James Taranto of the Wall St. Journal recently described how Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos celebrated the fact that many moderate Democrats had been evicted from Congress as well. Although Moulitsas did not use the term “DINO,” he cited ten Democratic moderates from 2004 and celebrated the fact that eight are no longer in office. The remaining two Mary Landrieu (La.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.) are likely to lose this November. The results of this cleansing were similar to that of Republican RINOs. The majority of moderate DINOs were replaced by members of the other party. Only Joe Lieberman (Ct.) was replaced by a more liberal senator.

 

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Ann Coulter denounces 'shysters' who attack 'establishment' GOP

On Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on February 19, guest Ann Coulter and Hannity got into a heated discussion about the nature of the Tea Party on its fifth anniversary. While both are Tea Party supporters, Coulter differentiated between “people in America who call themselves Tea Partiers [who] are fantastic” and the “con men and scamsters” who “trick good Americans into sending them money, claiming we are fighting for you and they aren’t fighting for you.”

“Basically anyone who claims to be going after establishment Republicans, the key word there is ‘Republican,’” Coulter said. “If we don’t elect Republicans, I don’t care which Republican, we will not repeal Obamacare.” She continued, “The only way to repeal Obamacare is to elect Republicans. It is not to be fighting against Republicans.”

Coulter said that everyone has “got to read” Thomas Sowell’s column, “Cruz Control,” published on Feb. 18, in which the prominent conservative economist and author criticizes Ted Cruz for weakening the Republican Party in order to remake it as a more pure conservative party in the long term. Sowell argues that such a strategy may bring America past the point of no return with respect to both Obamacare and the larger erosion of personal freedoms. She also pointed out that groups that attack Republicans would face less media scrutiny than groups that attack Democrats.

Coulter called the repeal of Obamacare the unifying issue for the Republican Party saying “it is going to wreck the country and there is only one way to repeal it. It does not fall on its own. None of this falls on its own. You have to elect Republicans.”

When Hannity asked why the Republicans could not force the issue on the Keystone pipeline, the debt ceiling, and a host of other issues, and implied that the GOP had given up the fight, Coulter replied, “Fight to give them a majority then we will repeal Obamacare and have the keys to the pipeline.”

Although the Republicans control the House of Representatives, the Democrats control the Senate by a 55-45 margin. Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare, cut spending, and other issues have died in the Senate.

“We don’t have control of one branch of the government,” Coulter pointed out.

Coulter’s strongest criticism was reserved for conservative groups who attack Republican incumbents and leadership. “If it weren’t for shysters running against establishment Republicans we would have 51 Republicans senators right now,” referring to Tea Party candidates in 2012 who won primaries over more experienced Republican candidates, but who lost in the general election to Democrats.

“There is still hope for America, the country is not finished,” Coulter said, “just don’t donate to the shysters, which is the Senate Conservatives Fund.”

As Examiner reported last week is one of several conservative groups that are spending more money to attack Republican incumbents than to win seats occupied by Democrats. So far in 2014, two of the top three recipients of Senate Conservatives Fund donations were primary challengers to Republicans. In 2012, only three of the group’s sponsored candidates were elected to office. The SCF losers include such notable candidates as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock who lost in races that were previously identified as leaning Republican.

Originally published on National Elections Examiner

RINOs and modern McCarthyism

Everyone is familiar with Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.). In the 1950s, McCarthy made a cottage industry of searching out and finding hidden communists throughout the federal government. In the post-WWII era, communism was a real threat. McCarthy, however, was a charlatan.

McCarthy’s inquisition began on Feb. 9, 1950 with a speech to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, W.V. What McCarthy said wasn’t recorded, but, according to “The Politics of Fear” by Robert Griffith, the senator waved a piece of paper in his hand and proclaimed, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

We now know that McCarthy was lying. His list of names, the number of which frequently varied, was never fully revealed. Many of the “communists” revealed by McCarthy were innocent of the charge, the victims of shoddy investigations, bullying tactics, and circumstantial evidence. In other cases, McCarthy specifically targeted his critics. People who were outspoken against his tactics might well find themselves being labeled as a communist in McCarthy’s next appearance.

McCarthy’s reign of terror came to an end after the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. At the height of the hearings, McCarthy accused a young lawyer of pro-communist sympathies. As recounted in “A Conspiracy So Immense,” Joseph Welch, a lawyer for the army, responded indignantly, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” When McCarthy tried to continue, Welch demanded that the chairman call the next witness, prompting applause from the gallery.

McCarthy’s tactics have been used more recently in American politics as well. Many times in the past, liberal politicians have accused conservatives of racism, a charge that, like that of being a communist, is easily made and not easily dispelled. Many conservatives, from Trent Lott to Shirley Temple, have been accused of racism. Often the charges are based on seemingly innocuous remarks, political “dog whistles” that only those in the know can decipher. (Ironically, pundits on the left are very adept at picking up these dog whistles.) Even discussing the health hazards of fried chicken can be construed as racist. To many liberals, any opposition to President Obama is rooted racism. Even Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain was targeted with accusations of racism.

Now some conservatives have adopted the McCarthyistic tactic of making wild and unsubstantiated accusations toward political opponents. The new pejorative is the charge that a conservative is a “RINO,” a “Republican in name only,” or perhaps the equally dismissive term, “establishment.”

The term “RINO” is not new. A 2009 list of the top 10 RINOs on Human Events cited the American Conservative Union voting records as an objective standard upon which to gauge a Republican’s liberal tendencies.

The current RINO hunters reject this objective standard. In many cases, Republicans accused of RINO-ism are among the most conservative senators according to the American Conservative Union (Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Tom Coburn, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain to name a few). Several are on the National Journal list of the 15 most conservative senators (Pat Roberts, Tom Coburn, and John Cornyn). One Tea Party Facebook user attempted to explain away this apparent inconsistency saying, “The ACU rating has become a joke since the ACU got infiltrated by the establishment.”

Anti-RINO activists claim that some Republicans “actually agree with the liberal position to some extent.” When asked who these Republicans are and on what issues they “agree with the liberal position,” they are typically able to only supply a generic list of alleged RINOs. The accusations are typically not specific.

In some cases, the RINO hunters base their accusation on procedural votes like the debt ceiling increase earlier this month. Senator Ted Cruz forced fellow Republicans into an unpopular and unnecessary vote to invoke cloture. Cruz then criticized the Republicans who voted for cloture without explaining how the GOP senators could have won a battle against majority Democrats according to the Washington Post. Other anti-RINO activists are similarly silent on how Republicans can force legislation through the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Other Facebook users indicate that some RINOs are so devious that they may even establish conservative voting records. One user commented that even though some Republicans, such as Mike Huckabee and John McCain had conservative voting records, he considered them RINOs because he doubted their sincerity and backbone.

As with charges of being a communist or a racist, an accusation of RINO-ism can be difficult to shake. The amorphous, subjective nature of the charge makes it difficult for targets to fight the smear. Any objective evidence, such as American Conservative Union ratings, is dismissed as biased or unreliable, tainted by “establishment” forces or the mainstream media.

Criticism of the RINO hunters is frequently met with attacks like those experienced by Drew Pearson. For example, many conservatives who have written columns critical of Ted Cruz have found themselves cast as “RINOs,” “establishment,” “progressives,” or even “closet Democrats.” Even conservative stalwarts such as Thomas Sowell and Charles Krauthammer are not immune.

Anyone who is not in total and enthusiastic agreement with the self-appointed “true conservative” mavins is subject to the RINO charge. This includes former Tea Party heroes such as Senator Marco Rubio, who made the mistake of proposing an immigration reform plan in 2013. Rather than debating the plan on its merits, Rubio was attacked for supporting “amnesty.”

Such bullying is not consistent with the conservative principles of truth and justice. Indeed, these tactics have more in common with Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (numbers five, six, eight, and 12 in particular) than anything from the playbook of Ronald Reagan, a man who, some anti-RINO activists privately admit, might be considered a RINO today. Nevertheless, the attacks on alleged RINOs will likely continue until conservatives finally see through the baseless accusations and begin to ask, “Have you no sense of decency?”

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

GOP infighting is about money, power, not ideology

In recent months, a struggle for power has been going on within the Republican Party. Although cast as a struggle between “true conservatives” and the “Republicans in name only” of the party “establishment,” in reality the struggle seems to be one more concerned with what strategy the Republican Party should take and a competition for donor dollars. The ultimate prize is control of the party itself.

Nowhere was the power struggle within the Republican Party more evident than in last year’s attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act. Even though Republicans unanimously voted against Obamacare and unanimously favor its repeal, the party became bitterly divided over the defund strategy which, as Examiner explained at the time, could not work because Obamacare had already been funded and the Democrats had enough votes in the Senate to block the effort, even without President Obama’s veto.

If the defund effort could not succeed, why was so much emphasis placed on persuading Republicans in Congress to vote for what turned out to be an utterly destructive strategy? Part of the answer may lie with the Senate Conservatives Fund, an advocacy group headed by Matt Hoskins, a former aide to South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. The Senate Conservatives Fund was one of the few winners in the government shutdown. Politico reported that the group raised more than $9 million in 2013, a record for a nonelection year. The group raised almost half of that total, $3.7 million, in September and October as the government shutdown loomed and was in process.

Much of the money raised by the Senate Conservatives Fund is spent attacking sitting Republican officeholders who are deemed insufficiently conservative. Recent targets of the group include majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). In fact, Politico reports that of the five candidates for 2014 elections funded by the Senate Conservatives Fund, only one is running for a Democratic-held seat. The rest are challenging GOP incumbents.

Responding to Republican criticism of his tactics, Hoskins argues in Politico, “If they don’t want to be criticized by conservatives, there is an easy solution: They can stop voting with Democrats.” He goes on to charge Republican incumbents with “help[ing] the Democrats to enact their liberal agenda.”

Do Hoskins’ charges against Republican lawmakers hold water? According to the American Conservative Union, an organization that rates legislators every session, Mitch McConnell is a “Defender of Liberty” with a 100 percent conservative voting record. Lindsay Graham is a “conservative” in the eyes of the ACU with an 89 percent record. Roberts, Cochran, and Alexander have lifetime records of 83 percent, 79 percent, and 77 percent respectively although their 2012 ratings are lower.

Money that goes to “true conservative” groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund is money that does not go to the Republican Party or more established candidates. Politico reported last week that Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups had raised only $6.1 million in 2013, a 98 percent decrease over 2012. Similarly, a Politico report from October 2013 noted that at least eight of the most outspoken Republican congressmen had not donated to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the political wing of the House Republican caucus. Georgia’s Rep. Tom Graves is among those who had not given money to help the party.

As Tea Party and “true conservative” groups act to defund the GOP, where is the money going? The Center for Public Integrity reported that Tea Party groups rarely involved themselves in electoral politics. Two exceptions were Patriotic Veterans, a group that ran ads against Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and for Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in 2012, and Patriot Majority USA, a Democratic affiliated group that ran ads attacking Republicans. Casey and Kinzinger both won their respective campaigns.

An analysis of the FEC filings of many Tea Party groups by the Sunlight Foundation shows that they frequently attack Republican incumbents nearly as much as Democrats. Tea Party Patriots has yet to spend money on the 2014 campaign and in 2012 spent almost all of their money on Ted Cruz with only token amounts to Mitt Romney and Kevin Brady (R-Tex.). In 2014, Freedomworks is spending more to attack Republicans John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell than to target Democratic senators Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Mark Pryor (Ark.), and Mary Landrieu (La.). In 2012, Freedomworks opposed almost as many Republicans as Democrats. Many of the Republicans the group did support lost their races.

For its part, so far in 2014 the Senate Conservatives Fund’s biggest recipient is Matthew Bevin, the Tea Party challenger to Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. In second place, the group ran ads against Mark Pryor, but in third place was Christopher McDaniel, the primary challenger to Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran.

For all his bluster, Hoskins has not been overly successful in electing his brand of conservatives. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, of the 11 candidates supported by SCF in 2012, only three were elected. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) was the notable winner and list of losers contains such now infamous names as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. Nevertheless, failure is also profitable for Hoskins. The SCF has paid approximately $535,000 to Hoskins and his company over the past three years.

The assaults on sitting Republicans are doubly tragic because, not only do they waste money that could have been used to campaign against Democrats, it also forces other Republican and conservative groups to spend more money to defend conservative incumbents. This sometimes makes strange bedfellows. Bloomberg reported that labor unions and the Chamber of Commerce came together to fund Defending Main Street, the super-PAC of Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette.

One candidate who did not get support from the Tea Party was Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. In spite of claims that the GOP “establishment” hung Cuccinelli out to dry, Time reported that several vocal Tea Party critics of the Party did not fund the Republican candidate at all.

The biggest question for conservatives is why Tea Party groups are spending more to unseat the Republican Senate majority leader than to unseat Democrats in key Senate races. To win control of the Senate and have a chance to begin rolling back the Obama agenda, Republicans need to win at least six Senate seats. If Tea Party and “true conservative” groups really want to advance a conservative agenda, they would do better to attack Democrats than a successful GOP senator with a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union.

Given that many of the “establishment RINOs” have voting records among the most conservative in the Congress, it seems likely that there are other motives for the attacks on what would more accurately be called the Republican Party’s “Old Guard.” In addition to financial incentives to attacking sitting Republicans, the current struggle is essentially a battle for control of the party pitting the young Turks against the current Republican leadership.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Five things Republicans should just stop talking about already

The Republican Party is doing well in recent polling. The Obamacare implosion has left the party in position to make significant gains in this year’s midterm elections. The nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report shows the Republicans to be competitive in at least seven Senate seats held by Democrats. Only six seats are needed for the Republicans to win control of the Senate.

The recent Republican success is not purely by strategy. It can be said to be as much or more in spite of the actions of Republicans than because of them. For example, the most memorable strategic move by the Republican Party in the past year was the drive to defund the Affordable Care Act. The strategy resulted in a shutdown of the federal government that caused Republican approval ratings to plummet to levels normally inhabited by used car dealers and lawyers that advertise on daytime television. The shutdown likely sealed the fate of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli.

Fortunately for the GOP, Democratic incompetence in formulating Obamacare is proving greater than Republican incompetence at opposing the Democrats. In a comeback that was nothing short of miraculous, only a month after the shutdown had failed and pushed GOP approval to historic lows, Republicans rebounded in the generic congressional ballot to take the lead over Democrats. The poll reported in Examiner showed a statistical tie but was a vast improvement over the deficit seen in the September shutdown.

If Republicans seriously want to win control of Congress, and eventually the presidency, they must win over moderate voters, roughly a third of the electorate according to Gallup. In order to do that, Republican candidates and supporters should avoid certain topics that make are almost guaranteed to push moderates toward the Democratic Party. Thankfully, birtherism is no longer in the headlines, but several other topics may be just as poisonous to Republican vote-seekers.

“Indefinite detention.” First, conservatives should stop talking about the nonissue of the NDAA. Examiner debunked the claim that the NDAA allowed indefinite detention of U.S. citizens two years ago, but many still believe the conspiracy theory.

The NDAA is an appropriations bill that is passed annually to fund national defense. In spite of claims by some on the right, the 2012 NDAA specifically excluded U.S. citizens and legal aliens from indefinite detention. The text of the 2013 NDAA also states that the law “shall not be construed to authorize the detention of a citizen of the United States, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, or any other person who is apprehended in the United States.” Indefinite detention applies to foreign terrorists. It does not and never did apply to U.S. citizens.

“Impeachment.” Conservatives should also give up on impeachment. While most Americans seem to think that President Obama is a mediocre president with unsuccessful policies, his personal popularity remains high according to a new Associated Press/GfK poll reported by Examiner. Even if voters don’t want to send Democrats back to Washington, they don’t want to impeach Barack Obama. Pressing the impeachment issue may actually cost the GOP votes.

Even though the Obama Administration has been rocked by scandals and poor decisions, impeachment is unlikely. As previously noted by the Atlanta Conservative Examiner, the Republican House could impeach the president, but without the ability to remove him from office due to the Democratic-held Senate this would only amount to a censure and would be seen as a victory for the president.

“Social issues.” Likewise, Republicans should deemphasize social issues. Voters are split on issues like gay marriage and abortion, but they are much more united on the twin issues of the economy and Obamacare. Even though a majority of Americans support restrictions on abortion and a plurality now consider themselves pro-life according to Gallup, the country is closely split on the issue. Recent polling (again by Gallup) shows that a slight majority now supports the redefinition of marriage. It is a much better strategy to focus on issues where a clear majority agrees with the Republican position.

Only a third of voters approve of Obama’s handling of the economy according to Gallup. A similar number approves of the Affordable Care Act according to Real Clear Politics. Voters disapprove of Obamacare by margins that often exceed 20 points greater than those approving. This doesn’t mean that Republicans should abandon their principles. It does mean that they should address the issues that concern voters. Poll after poll, like this Fox News poll from last week, shows that jobs and the economy are what people care about.

“Amnesty.” In contrast to the economy, immigration is an issue where many Republicans are at odds with a strong majority of voters. The Fox News poll showed that 68 percent of voters favor allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country “and eventually qualify for U.S. citizenship, but only if they meet certain requirements like paying back taxes, learning English, and passing a background check.” Even 60 percent of Republicans support this sort of immigration reform.

Although many people doubt polling data, the strong public support for immigration reform is confirmed by exit polls from the 2012 presidential election. By more than a two-to-one margin (65-28 percent), voters believed that illegal immigrants working in the U.S. should be offered legal status. The issue may well have cost Romney the election after his “self-deportation” comment. It definitely cost him many votes from the Hispanic community.

In reality, there is no amnesty bill currently being considered by Congress. By definition, amnesty is a pardon or forgiveness. The immigration reform bill passed by the Senate is neither. Politico reported in July that it would take illegal immigrants ten years and thousands of dollars in fines and back taxes to obtain legal resident status.

When Republicans loudly decry “amnesty” at the mere mention of immigration reform, they are pitting themselves against the overwhelming majority of the American electorate. This is not a smart strategic move for a party that wants to gain a majority in Congress.

“RINO” and “establishment.” Republicans are a minority party. It is axiomatic that in order to become a majority party that the Republican Party must grow and attract new voters. Unfortunately, many Republicans seem to believe that the party can grow by dividing itself into factions and attacking successful Republican officeholders.

Polling shows that conservatives outnumber liberals in almost every state. A January 31, 2014 Gallup poll found that only three states, Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts (plus the District of Columbia) have a larger percentage of liberals than conservatives. In every swing state, conservatives outpoll liberals by double-digit margins. How then, did an ultraliberal candidate like Barack Obama win election twice?

The answer lies with moderates. In only one state, Wyoming, do conservatives hold a clear majority at 51.4 percent. In all other states, conservatives must appeal to moderates in order to win elections. The Democrats have been much more successful at that of late. According to Examiner’s analysis of exit polls, moderates made up nearly half of the electorate in 2008 and 2012. Obama won moderates by 60 and 56 percent respectively. If so-called “moderate” Republicans like John McCain and Mitt Romney can’t win moderates, what hope do self-styled “true conservatives” have?

It remains to be seen how and if Republicans can once again appeal to moderate voters, but a good start would be taking a moderate tone and trying to find common ground rather than demonizing each other over minor differences. Americans seldom vote for people who sound crazy or angry so Republicans would do well to present a positive vision in which, as Arthur Brooks wrote, they fight for people rather than against things. Conservatives cannot unite America without first uniting their own party.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

In search of Senate RINOs

Of late the Republican Party has become distracted from the battle against Obamacare by an intraparty witch hunt for RINOs, shorthand for “Republicans in name only.” It is believed by many that the RINOs are destroying the party and undermining the efforts of “true conservatives” to stymie Barack Obama and his Democratic minions. Join us then as we go on safari to the Senate to hunt the fabled Republican RINO.

When RINOs are discussed, the name of John McCain (R-Ariz.) is usually at the top of the list. The list of grievances against McCain is long and includes belief in global warming, putting his name on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law that was struck down in the Citizens United ruling, and even voting to consider new gun control measures this year. McCain has long been a moderate Republican who was willing to reach across the aisle. In 2005, he was a member of the Gang of 14 and in 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry offered McCain the vice presidential slot on the Democratic ticket. McCain told the New York Times in 2008 that Kerry was “a liberal Democrat” and “I am a conservative Republican. So… that’s why I never even considered such a thing.”

But is McCain a conservative? Several conservative organizations provide scorecards on how members of Congress rate based on actual votes. The most famous of these is the American Conservative Union. On that scorecard, McCain has a lifetime average of 82.84 out of a possible 100. In 2012, he scored 92. (The Republican average was 77.83 percent. The overall Senate average was 39.28 percent.) The Club for Growth ranked McCain at 85 percent overall and 90 percent in 2012. On the Freedomworks scorecard, McCain scored 44. (Of the 45 Republican senators, only seven scored 90 or better on the Freedomworks scale. The Republican average was 68 and most Democrats scored zero.)

President Reagan famously said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” Using the Reagan standard, John McCain is a friend and ally of conservatives. As confirmation, McCain is listed as an ACU Conservative, a title bestowed on senators with scores higher than 80.

Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is Senate minority leader and also often considered a RINO. In the deal that ended the recent government shutdown, McConnell was accused of securing a $3 billion earmark to build a dam on the Ohio River near Paducah, Ky. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) have since said that they, not McConnell, requested the appropriation in order to avoid canceling contracts that would cost taxpayers $160 million.

When it comes to the scorecards, McConnell gets a 90.09 lifetime average from the ACU with a score of 100 for 2012. The Club for Growth gives him a 74 for 2012 and lifetime 84. He gets a 71 from Freedomworks. McConnell, who faces reelection in 2014, would meet Reagan’s 80 percent rule. Sen. McConnell is listed as a Defender of Liberty by the American Conservative Union, confirming his 100 for 2012.

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also been frequently tagged as a RINO. Graham called for an end to the government shutdown in mid-October and has been accused of supporting amnesty for illegal aliens because he favors immigration reform.

Graham earned an 89.12 lifetime average from the ACU with a 92 in 2012. According to the Club for Growth scale, he has a lifetime score of 77 and an 86 for 2012. He scores a 41 on the Freedomworks scale. Graham, who is also running for reelection in 2014, is also listed as an ACU Conservative.

Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from the blue state of New Hampshire, earned a lifetime 85.5 from the ACU with a 76 in 2012. The Club for Growth gives her a lifetime 92 and an 86 in 2012. She gets a 59 from Freedomworks. Ayotte’s 76 score is not good enough to be labeled as a conservative by the ACU, but it is still markedly better than the Democratic senator from New Hampshire, Jeane Shaheen, who scored zero in 2012 and has a lifetime average of 4.5.

Georgia’s two Republican senators are also alleged RINOs. The retiring Saxby Chambliss has a 92.03 lifetime ACU score while Johnny Isakson is at 87.57. Their Club for Growth scores are 83 and 78 percent respectively. Chambliss received a 47 from Freedomworks, while Isakson scored 47.

As a comparison, the lowest Republican on the ACU survey was Susan Collins (R-Maine) with 20 percent. Her score was less James Webb (D-Va.), the highest Democrat at 32 percent. Olympia Snowe, also a Maine Republican, also had 32 percent.

Even though Collins can be fairly described as a RINO, she does have saving graces for Republicans. Writing on Newsmax, Christopher Ruddy points out that she is pro-gun and is rated B-plus by the NRA. She also voted against Obamacare, for the Bush tax cuts and their extension, for the Iraq War resolution, and is generally pro-military. She is also a fiscal conservative who supports a balanced budget amendment and spending caps.

Tea Partiers should be leery of ousting moderate Republicans like Collins. When fellow Mainer Olympia Snowe retired in 2012, she was replaced by independent Angus King. The Maine Sun Journal reported last May that King voted with Democrats 90 percent of the time. A dozen Democrats have broken with the party more often than King.

A review of 2005 list of RINOs in Human Events yields similar results in other states. The top ten list includes four senators (including Collins and Snowe), four representatives, and two governors (including then-governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney). Of the ten, only Susan Collins is still serving. Of the remaining nine, only one, Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who later switched parties, was replaced by another Republican. In the other eight cases, the RINOs were replaced by authentic Democrats. One, Mike Castle, a popular Delaware Republican, was defeated in the Republican primary for Joe Biden’s senate seat in 2010. He lost to Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party favorite, who subsequently lost to Democrat Chris Coons amid revelations of her experiments with Wicca.

Republicans would do well to look at the voting records of elected officials before writing them off as RINOs. Many of the senators often derided as “liberal” Republicans are actually among the most conservative members of Congress. Others represent blue or purple states where a staunch conservative could not win.

There are worse things than having liberal Republicans in Congress. They could be Democrats.

 

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

A path forward for Republicans

As the government shutdown goes through its third week, poll after poll indicates that Republicans are taking the brunt of the blame. As Examiner noted last week, an NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll found approval of the Republican Party at a historic low. Generic congressional polls (summarized on Real Clear Politics), which have been in a dead heat all year, have turned against Republicans since the shutdown. Recent polling shows a consistent advantage for Democratic candidates.

Through it all, Republicans have made no headway in defunding the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the negotiations to reopen the government have shifted toward a new Democratic demand to undo the sequester cuts from last January. The sequester represented a rare GOP victory during the Obama era. It also worked. As Stephen Moore pointed out in the Wall St. Journal, the sequester law actually reduced spending and cut the deficit by about half. Removing the sequester’s spending limits would represent a major defeat for Republicans.

The government shutdown also tarnishes the Republican reputation for fiscal responsibility, an area where Republicans polled well before the shutdown. The shutdown is costing an estimated $160 million per day on the conservative side. Higher estimates rise to more than $1 billion per day in lost growth and other factors. To add insult to injury, the House voted last week to give furloughed federal workers their back pay, which means that federal workers will be paid for doing nothing if the Senate passes the bill.

Defunding Obamacare, which, as noted in Examiner last month, would require the votes of a minimum of five Democrats in the Senate (overturning President Obama’s certain veto would require the votes of 54 Democrats in the House and 21 in the Senate), is beyond the reach of the GOP and the party is taking heavy damage from its stand. Since the original goal of defunding Obamacare is clearly unattainable, where should Republicans go from here?

The Republicans should look to the Hippocratic Oath for guidance: “First, do no harm.” The government shutdown must be ended to avoid irreparable harm to the Republican Party, but, by the same token, the Republicans cannot accept a deal that ends the sequester while offering nothing in return. A return to the status quo would be acceptable, if humiliating. Writing in the Guardian, Grover Norquist proposed a deal in which the sequester is lifted temporarily in exchange for entitlement reform. Republicans should get what they concessions they can, but they must end the shutdown before it leads to a default.

After the government is reopened, Republicans need to make some strategic changes. Railing against Obamacare and just saying no don’t work. If they did, Mitt Romney would be in the White House.

First and most important, the Republicans need to start listening to the American people. The American people oppose Obamacare, but they opposed a government shutdown by even larger margins. As Examiner reported in September, 54 percent opposed Obamacare, but 71 percent opposed the shutdown. Republicans have traditionally criticized the Democrats for their attitude that “we know what’s best for you,” but the GOP has fallen into the same trap and is paying the price for it.

Second, Republicans need to change the focus of their argument. Arthur Brooks points out that Republicans cede the moral argument to Democrats and focus on materialistic concerns such as debt or abstractions such as free markets and capitalism. To the contrary, the left uses emotional arguments, caring for the poor, to advance policy agendas that actually hurt the poor. Brooks’ concern is borne out by CNN exit polls that show a staggering 81 percent of the voters who thought caring about people was a candidate’s most important quality voted for Barack Obama.

In Brooks’ view, the answer is to focus on how conservative policies help people. This does not require changing conservative principles; instead it means reframing arguments to say, “We will fight for you and your family” rather than fighting against things, such as Obamacare.

When the government shutdown is ended, Republicans will be able to return the focus to why Obamacare is bad for the American people. This should be an easy task given Obamacare’s disastrous debut. The much-vaunted health care exchanges are plagued with glitches that make it difficult for consumers to log on and purchase insurance. Consumers who are actually able to navigate the exchanges often find that their insurance premiums have gone up due to the new law. As the Chicago Tribune notes, deductibles, the share of medical bills that the consumer must pay before insurance kicks in, are also increasing. This means that not only are Americans paying more up front for health insurance, they are paying more when they go to the doctor as well.

The Republicans should be talking about how these premium increases affect families across the country who are still reeling from the Great Recession and its lackluster recovery. They should be standing with Americans like Adam Weldzius, the 33-year-old single father in the Chicago Tribune article who has to choose between an insurance premium that doubles or a deductible that triples.

Finally, Republicans must go beyond saying “no” and communicate a positive vision for the future. It isn’t enough to want to repeal Obamacare, for example. Rising health care costs will still be an issue if and when the Affordable Care Act goes away. Karl Rove presented some ideas for conservative health care reform in August and Examiner covered the topic last year, but these have been the exceptions. For the most part, the Republican message on health care has been negative.

Finally, Republicans need to remember who the real adversary is and focus their attention on President Obama and the Democrats rather than bashing each other. To defeat the Democrats and repeal Obamacare, the Republicans must unite and find a common voice. Interparty bickering and squabbles drown out any positive message that the Republicans try to convey to voters.

As President Reagan was fond of saying, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” Nevertheless, Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Cornyn have had their reputations trashed and been the victims of vicious personal attacks. Yet, when their records are examined, the American Conservative Union gives them lifetime ratings of 82 percent, 89 percent, and 93 percent respectively. All three have consistently voted against Obamacare.

The shortsightedness of the Republican Party threatens not only the possibility of GOP control of the Senate after the 2014 elections, but continued control of the House as well. A few simple midcourse corrections might persuade Americans that the Republican Party is a viable alternative to the Democratic habit of taking money from Americans to fund programs that harm them.

 

Originally published as Atlanta Conservative Examiner