GOP: Don’t make the mistake the Democrats made
By Brian Kirwin | Monday, November 29th, 2010 | PoliticsGranted, most of what has been written about the Tea Party movement since Election Day has been from a mainstream media that wants nothing more than for the movement to collapse.
But stories are circulating about what “tea party” organizations are pushing as legislative priorities. And it ain’t pretty.
Locally, the Virginian-Pilot highlights some of these priorities:
State Veto of Federal Laws
Fighting Cap and Trade Laws
Eminent Domain Reform
Protection from Interstate Commerce Regulations
Illegal Immigration Reform
Fine. All good proposals, I guess. But it’s not why people gave the House to Republicans and threw out Democrats, at least not directly.
Democrats have developed a talking point that we’ll be hearing for the next year. It goes like this:
“Instead of creating jobs and getting our economy moving, Republicans are bogged down in issues few people care about to cater to their extreme anti-Obama base.”
Democrats should know. They spent the past two years ignoring job creation and getting our economy moving while focusing on their extreme agenda of taking over health care, cap and trade, stimulus bailouts and payoffs and expanding government.
Democrats paid a price, and Obama will if he continues spending massive time and capital on things that don’t create jobs.
Democrats misread their mandate. Obama swept into office a lot of Democrats in districts that are not Democrat strongholds. People in 2008, in the midst of what looked like economic collapse, had to change to something. They did.
After seeing what Democrats’ priorities were, and how they didn’t address people’s economic concerns, voters showed them the door, too.
Voters will show Republicans the door as well if they pursue agendas that Americans value less than fixing our economy.
Republicans didn’t win states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on the Fair Tax and making the Senate appointed instead of elected.
Here’s the key! Republicans need to make the case that their agenda is key to ending the sluggish economy and putting us on the track of good ol’ powerful, free-market powered economic growth.
Study the master. Read or listen to this speech Ronald Reagan gave in 1977 at Hillsdale College.
Reagan goes through an agenda of federal reforms and makes the case of how these reforms will result in an economic rebirth and frames it in human terms.
“A study of 700 of the largest corporations has found that if we could eliminate unnecessary regulation of business and industry, we would instantly reduce the inflation rate by half. Other economists have found that over-regulation of business and industry amounts to a hidden five-cent sales tax for every consumer. The misdirection of capital investment costs us a quarter of a million jobs. That’s half as many as the President wants to create by spending 32 billion dollars over the next two years. And with all of this comes the burden of government-required paperwork.” Ronald Reagan
That’s how you communicate an agenda in economic terms.
If we don’t commit to a single-minded focus on legislating and communicating in economic terms for every change we advocate, and communicate relentlessly no matter what the press wants to write, we risk voters throwing us out as quickly as they threw out the Democrats.
It’s still the economy, stupid.
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The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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16 Responses to "GOP: Don’t make the mistake the Democrats made"
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bearing Drift, Brian Kirwin. Brian Kirwin said: RT @bearingdrift: Web: GOP: Don’t make the mistake the Democrats made http://bit.ly/fE7oes [...]
Brian, I understand your point, and I agree, phrasing things in terms of economics is a good idea. The 2011 Freedom Bills that we (Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation and the Hampton Roads Tea Party) are working on here at a state level – like banning Cap and Trade here in VA, will protect and create jobs, lower the tax burden and help us fight the jobs killing cap and trade on a national level.
The bills we are working on are structural. Eliminate the corporate income tax here in VA, and voila! More businesses and jobs are created. Since there is a direct 1:1 correlation between corporate income tax and wages, for every % corporate income tax goes down, wages go up. That’s what happened in Switzerland where one canton eliminated the corporate income tax and within a year, had to import workers because so many jobs flooded their region. That would happen here too.
Protection from interstate commerce regulations that weigh business down, and hinder business growth? Free up businesses from unnecessary regulation and federal government intrusion, and you create an environment that promotes small businesses and entrepreneurship.
Every bill that we are working on will increase the level of liberty here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, improve the business climate, restore the strength of Virginia, and that will unleash economic prosperity at all levels of our society.
Next time, just ask
.
Karen,
Thanks. I understand that the case can be made. I’m just saying the case isn’t being made/reported.
That Dem talking point is cookie-cutter and ready made, though… they’ll say that regardless.
Merely talking about the economy isn’t going to earn a vote anymore. Show me a GOP House that is willing to dig its heels in on tax cuts, cap and trade, and judicial appointments, and you’ll see the sort of public support needed in 2012.
Of course, should the GOP fail to dig its heels in — or worse, attempt to throw social conservatives overboard — and it is very likely that 2012 will be a repeat of 1996.
Fiscal conservatives are going to discover very quickly that they are a minority in an age of austerity budgets and debt reduction.
Brian: For once we’re in total agreement. A lack of focus on the economy – specifically jobs is what cost Democrats. And it will cost Republicans too if they don’t heed the public. If you look at Election Day exit polls or polling done since then, the biggest issue by far that people care about is creating jobs. It dwafts everything else, inlcuding concern about the deficit, the health care bill, etc.
Did the Democrats ignore the economy?
Billions of dollars in stimulus funding, a massive health care overhaul, qualitative easing by the Fed, and a focus on tax cuts to 98% of all Americans while focusing on cutting the deficit — that’s not ignoring the economy.
I’d counter that the Dems *did* focus on the economy and had their collective donkeys handed to them.
To say that 2010 was about the economy misses the point of the tsunami that threw them out of office. It’s not about the economy anymore — it’s about government that makes sense.
Shaun: That’s what it’s about to you, and ideologically minded folk particularly in the blogoshere. It’s not what it was about to average voters. They threw the Republicans out two years ago for creating economic chaos and they threw the Democrats out this year, for not fixing it. The Dems focus was not on “jobs” where it needed to be. The message the public got was that Dems were more interested in health care and cap and trade.
“Fiscal conservatives are going to discover very quickly that they are a minority in an age of austerity budgets and debt reduction.”
I do not understand that statement at all. Quite the opposite, fiscal conservatives were in the minority the last time the Republicans had a majority and the social conservatives were driving the agenda: the global war on terrorism, exporting democracy, financial de-regulation, banning gay marriage, a Federal law to prevent turning off life support on terminally ill persons, etc.
It was the social liberals who sank the USS Pelosi. They were too busy trying to enlarge the Federal government with expensive programs, bail-outs, and give-aways. And, they were trying to justify it in economic terms. Remember the lie about how ObamaCare was going to reduce the Federal deficit? Or how about the whopper that the $787B Porkulus bill was going to stop unemployment at 8%? The American voters knew that they had been had and reacted on November 2.
If Republicans and Tea Partiers try to enact a social agenda under the guise of deficit reduction but don’t demonstrate tangible improvements in the economy, then they will be tossed out again in 2012. The new members of Congress who were supported by the Tea Party movement should be particularly wary of what happened to all those blue dog Democrats elected in Republican districts in 2006 and 2008 but who voted for ObamaCare. They are all long gone now.
I’m not aware of ANY social agenda on the part of the Tea Party. They would find that hard as the Tea Party is made up of small govt fiscally conservative views among large blocks that differ substantially on social issues. For example I’m a Libertarian that is for civil unions and doesn’t want oral sex to be a felony in Virginia. Another Tea Partier might share my fiscal views, but want homosexuals locked up and denied the vote. When the Tea Party goes on social adventures……..I’m out.
Britt,
I agree; the Tea Party movement does not have the social agenda of the Republican Party and you were right to challenge my comment as I wrote it.
My comment was addressing logrolling between the Republicans and the Tea Party–you vote for our social agenda and we will support some of your more “out there” ideas, such as State veto or nullification of Federal laws. I should have been clearer on that.
The political circle jerk continues. More has been lost than mere structural items like jobs or houses. What’s missing is America’s peace of mind and confidence in government. Reagan’s dead and there is no understudy.
HR: Actually Blue Dogs lost this year no matter how they voted on the health care bill. They were holding seats that weren’t very Democratic to start with, so the wave washed over them.
Darrell, yeah those Vietnam/Watergate years were a boon for confidence in government.
Go back to sleep.
The Vietnam years began a decade of no confidence. It took a Reagan to restore the citizens faith in government. Anyone who lived through those years is definately not asleep now. Their Republicanism earned in crisis, they have watched wide eyed as the party has reverted to Nixonian era dirty tricks and fat cat favoritism to help create the greatest crisis since the Depression.
Who is our Reagan this time? Boner? Cantor, Palin or any of the other Pelosi-esque party hacks? Obama is the closest the country has to the charisma of Reagan, but he keeps confusing acting the part with being the real deal. It’s just a matter of time before we become Ireland.
Steve,
Just out of curiosity, I have to ask: were there any blue dogs Democrats who voted against ObamaCare? If so, were any of them not re-elected?
I honestly don’t know, but I doubt it.
HR,
You don’t have to look far.
Rick Boucher voted against health care reform. He lost.
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