York: Is the GOP Ready for Power?
The Washington Examiner reports:
"I mean, it would be one thing if they had kind of gone away and gone off into the desert," President Obama said recently about the Republican Party. "They could have meditated and thought about, boy, how did we screw up so bad?"
In his remarks, at a rally last Friday in Nevada, the president got things half right. In the normal course of politics, after a party has its clock cleaned as badly as Republicans did in 2008, the losers go off to recover -- off to the desert -- while the winners go on to govern. For the defeated, regaining the political momentum can take years.
Normally, we should be in the early stages of that process. Instead, it appears that Republicans are about to retake one, and perhaps both, houses of Congress. The normal cycle of defeat and renewal has been speeded up considerably.
Why? Because Democrats have been screwing up faster than Republicans can recover. The GOP might not be fully ready to govern, but voters are increasingly convinced that Democrats don't deserve to. The Democrats' willful defiance of the public's wishes on Obamacare, on federal spending, and on other government-expanding initiatives has changed voters' priorities. In the urgency of the moment, throwing Democrats out is more important than determining whether Republicans are fully ready to take control.
That's why the so-called generic ballot question -- whether voters prefer a Democratic or a Republican representative in Congress -- has shifted so dramatically in the GOP's direction since the spring of 2009, even as the public remains skeptical about Republicans.
For the GOP, the strategy now is to be contrite over past errors while projecting confidence for the future. "When Republicans were in charge of Congress, we made our fair share of mistakes," House Minority Leader John Boehner said as he unveiled the GOP's "Pledge to America" on Sept. 23. "I think we've demonstrated over the last 20 months that Republicans have heard the American people."
When it comes to mea culpas, the GOP has shown a lot of message discipline. "We've learned our lesson," says Boehner. "We've learned our lesson," says House Republican Conference chairman Mike Pence. "We've learned our lesson," says House GOP Whip Eric Cantor.
Of course, doubting voters hear that and think, well, what else could they say? That they haven't learned anything and will pick up right where they left off? This year, Republicans know that if voters give them control of Congress, it will be a gift that could be taken away very quickly if they don't live up to their promises.
