When Talking Points Strike Back

Remember how, not long ago, Republicans were saying how bad the health care reform bill was because it was created through “backroom deals”?  And remember how a lot of smart people pointed out that, um, that’s how all legislation is made? And that quite possibly, far from being done in a secretive manner, the ultimate crafting of the bill might have been the most open and thoroughly examined piece of legislation ever? Well, hold on to that thought.

The next great idea from the Party of New Ideas is for congressional Republicans to create a “Contract with America”. Oops, I’m sorry. This time they’re tentatively calling it a “Commitment to America”. There is, however, one very basic problem:

Republicans are salivating over the prospect of winning back the House in November, and they’re planning to produce a new “Contract With America” in the hopes of sealing the deal. 

 The catch: They don’t agree yet on what should be in it. 

 House Minority Whip Eric Cantor wants a document, akin to Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract With America, that identifies specific pieces of legislation Republicans could pass if they win back the House. He thinks Republicans should “put up or shut up,” an aide close to the process said. 

So does Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the House Republican Conference chairman. The party doesn’t need “sloganeering,” someone familiar with his thinking said, and he favors an approach that “tells people what [the party] want[s] and how you’re going to do it.” 

 But Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who is leading the effort to craft the document, says that including specific legislation in the contract would smack of the backroom deals the GOP accuses Democrats of making, so “you won’t see it written out.” 

Sucks when your own shallow, ridiculous talking points back you into a corner, doesn’t it, guys? I have a feeling, though, that this “backroom deals” excuse for not including specific ideas is actually a cover for the real reason — namely, that they have no real ideas. Or at the least, no ideas that they’re willing to be held accountable for.

See, right now, Republicans are sitting in the sweet spot of political discourse. They have no real power to set the agenda, and they know it. That leaves them free to completely base their positioning and platform on, “We’re against what they’re doing, and we’ll do something different.” If pressed on what “something different” means, they counter with nothing more than vague, pleasant-sounding generalities, akin to a beauty pageant answer of, “I want to make the world a better place.” Nobody’s going to argue with that. It sounds great.

However, when you get to the point where you have to get into specifics, as the GOP soon will, then you have to defend specific points. As the Politico article pointed out, it’s like the GOP and their “Health Care Proposals”. First, they released a 19-page document of embarrassing vagueness and shallowness. They got hammered for it. Then, later on, Paul Ryan introduced his much more specific proposal. He got hammered for the specific deficiencies of his plan. They’re really in a no-win situation. Well, actually they could win, but that would require new, good ideas. And since they’re talking about nothing more than exactly what they were in the mid-90’s, I’m not holding my breath.