An issue that could save the GOP (Nov 24)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
The Republican Party is wringing its hands and saying, “Oh, woe is me!” in the wake of the significant Democrat victories in the Nov. 4 elections — not only in the presidential race, but in the House and Senate.
They were grieving in the same way in 1992, when Bill Clinton won the presidency from incumbent George H.W. Bush, and Democrats also had control of Congress.
People were asking whether the GOP was a party of the past, and whether it had a philosophical leg to stand on any more.
It didn’t take long for the GOP to come back. In 1994, under the leadership of Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., the Republicans issued their “Contract With America,” and regained control of Congress.
Not all the provisions of the contract were implemented, but they caught the imagination of the American people at a time when they already were getting fed up with what they perceived as Democratic inability to move forward.
Some of that, of course, was caused by Republican opposition to Democrat initiatives, but the Republicans were able to capitalize on that.
One of the things on which the Contract With America was based was simplification of government. People perceived then, and probably still do, that the federal government is too complex for any single person to understand, and as a result is out of control.
Making government smaller and more accountable is still an issue with legs, but the Republicans will have to seize on it and make it their own again. Will the party have the opportunity to do that by the mid-term election? The answer, and how it is articulated, may determine the Republican party’s future.
