It seems everyone is trying to figure out what the Republicans did wrong in the last election. Why can’t these people stay in the majority once they have it? The answer is easy and some of them recognize it but they refuse to do anything about it because it would cause them to accept an internal revolution (which would dismiss the extreme right wing) and strike out on a serious effort to identify what they stand for in the 21st century. In other words, as Bush 43 would understand: a do-over.
And we all know how likely that is to happen.
My good friend Charlie Cook, a contemporary of mine who also paid his dues on The Hill, wrote a recent column in which he let a couple of Republican consultants offer their analysis of the current state of the GOP.
One of them hit the problem on the head while listing a range of problems the GOP has been unable or unwilling to address. He identified a major problem as being “the shallowness of our policies.” Oh, really? He explained. “Republicans are a whole lot better at being against things than at being for things. That’s a problem if you’re in the majority. On topics the center really cares about, such as education and health care, we do one of two things. We either avoid them like the plague and are scared to talk about them or, if we say anything at all, it is to propose a tax cut or a tax credit.”
Any more words from me would be superfluous. He got it right. As Jo Dee Messina would say, “Let 'em dig a little deeper…nope…sorry, nothin’.”
They could go back to the ideas of Newt Gingrich. He had plenty but they were not good ideas. So, that’s not a place to start.
Maybe they should go back to what they do best: sit on the back row and complain about everything the Democrats are doing and when the problems are solved, stand up and take all the credit they can while blaming the D’s for spending too much.
That is not much of an exaggeration.
I’m sorry but I’m still ticked at what they did to my country – and yours – these past 8 years.
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