Following some internal changes orchestrated by House Minority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Cole, Republican congressmen and strategists met in Washington yesterday to hash out a vision for the party's future. The Illinois delegation was well represented, with Rep. Mark Kirk reintroducing his "suburban agenda," a platform he first unveiled when the GOP controlled the House, but that has laid dormant since:
The new version includes many of the same policy prescriptions as the original — college savings accounts and legislation to target online predators — plus new items, such as a food safety measure offered by Illinois Rep. Peter J. Roskam.
But all the meetings and ideas may be for naught. In the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, Republicans look to be "rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg":
Boehner and his colleagues in the leadership began laying out principles for their own policy platform last week. But that rebranding push, and its accompanying policy component, has been marred by infighting among House Republicans as members argue over its specifics, and some lawmakers Tuesday expressed impatience with the pace.
So why can't the party coalesce around an electorally successful strategy? George Packer's must-read piece in this week's New Yorker unpacks that conundrum in great detail.
(Click "Read More" to continue ...)
In short, their policy positions aren't very popular or effective.
Among Republicans, there is no energy, no fresh thinking, no ability to capture the concerns and feelings of millions of people. In the past two months, Democratic targets of polarization attacks have won three special congressional elections, in solidly Republican districts in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Political tactics have a way of outliving their ability to respond to the felt needs and aspirations of the electorate: Democrats continued to accuse Republicans of being like Herbert Hoover well into the nineteen-seventies; Republicans will no doubt accuse Democrats of being out of touch with real Americans long after George W. Bush retires to Crawford, Texas. But the 2006 and 2008 elections are the hinge on which America is entering a new political era ...
The fact that the least conservative, least divisive Republican in the 2008 race is the last one standing—despite being despised by significant voices on the right—shows how little life is left in the movement that Goldwater began, Nixon brought into power, Ronald Reagan gave mass appeal, Newt Gingrich radicalized, Tom DeLay criminalized, and Bush allowed to break into pieces. "The fact that there was no conventional, establishment, old-style conservative candidate was not an accident," Brooks said. "Mitt Romney pretended to be one for a while, but he wasn't. Rudy Giuliani sort of pretended, but he wasn't. McCain is certainly not. It's not only a lack of political talent—there's just no driving force, and it will soften up normal Republicans for change."
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