The moderate Republican Ripon Society’s Ripon Forum site has a piece by Republican pollster John McLaughlin, who says the GOP must develop a positive agenda for 2006. Here’s how he sets the scene:
There are two basic truths to mid-term elections in America – they are won on themes, and, historically speaking at least, they are usually lost by the party in power.
In the mid-terms of 1994, the elections were about the corruption of the Democrat-controlled Congress and the failed attempt by the Clinton Administration to establish a socialized health care system.
In 1998, the elections were about President Clinton’s impeachment, and the belief among many voters that the Republican majority in Congress had overreached and was ignoring other important issues in its drive to hold the President accountable.
In 2002, the elections were about the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the belief that our country – led by President Bush and a Republican-controlled House — needed to do everything possible to keep the American people and our homeland secure.
In the first two cases, the party in power either lost seats in Congress (Republicans in 1998) or lost control of Congress altogether (Democrats in 1994). In the 2002 elections, Republicans defied history and actually gained seats. But if Republicans proved the exception to the rule in 2002, it was because 2002 was an exceptional year; the elections were held in the shadow of 9/11, with the memory of that awful day still fresh in voters’ minds.
As we approach the five year anniversary of the terrorist attacks, one thing should be clear: political partisanship has returned to America, which means the basic truth of the 2006 elections will be that the Republican majority is likely to lose seats in November – unless, of course, they do something about it by putting forward a positive agenda that will help them win seats instead.
Read the whole thing.
Overall, it’s good advice. The GOP’s usual mantra where Democrats are painted in the most polarizing terms is unlikely to work for the GOP this year, even if Senator Bill Frist & Co. put a variety of hot-button social issues before Congress in order to “define” the Democrats.
Polls show President George Bush and the GOP-dominated Congress’ ratings way down. Meanwhile, White House seems on the brink of making at least some major staff changes, a further admission to voters that you can’t blame the country’s ills right now all on the evil Democrats.
Indeed, right now you couldn’t convince most Democrats to vote for any Republican if their only other choice was to have six teeth pulled out — without anesthetic. Independent voters are overall breaking towards the Democrats — bigtime.
So the GOP is going to need to offer a positive program to voters. And, by the way, the Democrats will have to as well…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.