The Republicans' Dilemma

The Republicans are rising in the polls. A Republican won a Senate seat in Massachusetts that had been in Democratic hands for a century. Things are looking up for the Republicans. The only thing is, they didn't have anything to do with this rise.

The Republicans lost favor four years ago because of several factors. A big one was President George W. Bush. By his sixth year, Bush was a drag on the ticket. The war in Iraq also hurt them. The public was sick of it. They were spending like Democrats (you know that the Republican Party has lost its way when Nancy Pelosi can run as a fiscal conservative with a straight face). What hurt them the most, though, was corruption and scandal. Multiple scandals gave the impression that the whole party was corrupt.

This not only influenced independents, it also dispirited the Republican base and drive a wedge between Republicans and their natural allies, the Libertarians. Many high-profile Libertarians voted for Obama as a protest vote against McCain's record as a big government Republican. This is nothing new. Bush was far more centrist than he is given credit for and the conservative purists never forgave him for it. Similarly, Gore lost a lot of votes because of Clinton's centrism.

The Republicans have not redeemed themselves in the last four years. Rather, the Democrats have torn themselves down.

A year ago the Democrats announced their "wave" strategy. They would bring their entire agenda to a vote as quickly as possible starting with small pieces. As the legislation passed and the public saw progress, the Democrats' agenda would gain popularity forcing Republicans to either start voting with the Democrats or put themselves on record as being against popular reforms.

Obviously the wave didn't work. The Democrats thought that their success in 2006 and 2008 meant that the country had moved to the left. They were wrong. Much of the country was against their agenda. The rest was amazed at the Democrats' tone-deafness. Unemployment and the economy were the top two priorities for nearly everyone not in the Democratic Caucus. The more the Democrats focused on their agenda the more out-of-touch they seemed.

On top of that, the Democrats' execution of their wave strategy was flawed. The idea was to build on successes but they ended up tripping over themselves in the news cycles. They would pass something and move on. By the time Obama signed it into law, they had begun something new. Newcasts prefer the drama of open debate over Presidential signing ceremonies. It was easy for the successes to get lost in the noise. And none of the successes were pure. Credit card reform should have been popular but the Democrats gave the banks major concessions including six months to implement the new rules. The result is that most people saw their credit card rates go up because of Congress. The Stimulus was supposed to be "pork free" but simply hid it better than most bills. Nearly a year later, most people think that it was a failure.

While the Democrats were tearing themselves down, the Republicans stayed on the sidelines, voting against Obama. This is a tactic, not a strategy.

Come November, the Republicans are going to have to stand for something more than a "no" vote. Right now the Tea Party movement is the most vocal in the country and they have not forgiven the Republicans for their spending excesses durng the Bush years. The Republicans are going to have to come to terms with the Tea Party if they want to win. They are also going to have to exercise some discipline if they want to stay in power once they regain it.