How Republicans Can Win Again
Joseph McHugh
July 21, 2009
In my last column I argued that the dilemma for Republicans lies in the fact that in our system the best candidates are either moral or practical, but not both. ("Sarah Palin and the Practical man´s war on Morality," July 13.) The candidates with the most moral fire lack the most brain fire, and the candidates with the most brainpower lack moral consistency. Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney represent the two sides of this coin.
I argued that if the Republicans have a chance at defeating President Obama next time around and winning significant support in the congressional elections in 2010, they need to come up with candidates with compelling moral stories, who at the same time don´t change their positions with the winds. Americans are not going to vote for an ignoramus in these tough times, but neither are they going to vote for a chameleon.
But there´s another ingredient that´s necessary too-and it´s the lack of this ingredient that largely explains the loss of John McCain in the last election. McCain after all was a knowledgeable man with a morally compelling story. What happened?
To illustrate this last crucial ingredient let´s imagine ourselves in the shoes of "Joe" the average voter. He´s reasonably well educated, having completed college, and is a middle class professional who works hard to ensure a good life. He´s married and settled in the town where his technology company is located. He´s a person likely to vote. He considers himself an independent, and steers clear of any easy ideological labeling.
The economy worries him. Some of his colleagues have been laid off, and his friends too. He hears rumors. Besides, his health care costs are going through the roof.
Candidate A tells him that the problems of the economy are due to greed and the lack of control of business. Joe likes his boss, but long ago in college his professors taught him that business people are essentially evil. He likes his company; he admires the thought and productivity of his superiors and colleagues; he thinks he´s lucky to get paid for doing something he loves. He thinks it´s all those other companies that are bad.
Candidate B says that he agrees that businesses are the cause of the economic decline, but that he would simply institute fewer regulations than Candidate A.
But Joe thinks if businesses are evil by nature and they need to be monitored closely shouldn´t he vote for the candidate who will watch them most closely? Why go half way in an economy like this? Besides candidate A says candidate B is in the pocket of big business, even though B says he fears unregulated business as much as candidate A.
Candidate A says that businesses aren´t paying their fair share. Joe knows that Candidate A raised taxes on businesses recently, but Candidate A talks darkly about businesses avoiding these taxes, and shipping money overseas. Besides congress didn´t give him all the powers he asked for.
Candidate B says that taxes should be lowered on everybody because that´s the greatest good for the greatest number. But it sounds to Joe that rich people and businesses are going to benefit, and why should they benefit when they caused the mess in the first place? After all, Candidate B says he agrees with Candidate A that business irresponsibility is the cause of the problems. We should be penalizing them, right?
Joe is worried about health care costs. He loves his doctor, although the poor woman seems sorely pressed for time these days. It didn´t seem to be that way when he was younger. In the past, he seemed to have much more time with his doctor, and he had the same doctor for all of his childhood.
And he couldn´t believe it when he heard about that new machine that detected his neighbor´s cancer so quickly, and his neighbor didn´t even have to break a sweat over his diagnosis.
But his premiums have been going up, and his coverage seems to shrink every year. Candidate A says that everything will be fine if we just centralize the whole system. Simplify it. It´s chaos out there Candidate A tells him-like the Wild West with all these competing insurers with all their different plans. It´s so damn confusing, and the bloody system won´t even cover everyone.
Joe always made sure that he had coverage, especially when he got married and had children. Sure, there were times in his life when he didn´t have coverage, when he was young, or, briefly between jobs. But the commentator on T.V said it was a major crisis in the country, and his European colleague said that in Europe Americans are considered uncivilized to let anyone not have medical insurance. Plus, in college he learned that the unregulated free market causes poverty.
Candidate A promises to simplify everything by having one single system that covers everyone and regulates the costs. Get business out of it! Sounds great!
Candidate B says that he too is worried that people can´t get coverage, and that the current unregulated system is the problem. He too disparages the "wild West" atmosphere of health care. He promises to capitalize on the current managed care system and give HMO´s subsidies to keep their costs low. He promises to establish a national database for all recipients of health care, to "streamline" the system. He promises to penalize businesses that don´t cover their employees and to provide a pool of money for states so that they can subsidize the uninsured.
But Joe thinks, well, if businesses and capitalism caused the problem in the first place we really need the government to step in and take care of the problem. After all, health care is too important to be left to the evil businesses. Why not scrap the whole system, get profit totally out of it, and be more like civilized Europe? And, anyway he suspects that candidate B is in the pocket of those big HMO´s.
Joe decides to vote for Candidate A.
And why shouldn´t he? Both candidates are saying the same thing; it´s just that Candidate A says it clearly, directly, consistently. Candidate B comes across as a waffling me tooer.
But what would have happened if Candidate B had said: problems in an economy are never caused by private individuals trading with each other? In fact, candidate B could easily point out how the economic situation was caused by the government´s encouraging, and even forcing of banks to make risky loans. What if Candidate B had said: The entire mess in health care was caused not by a private market, which barely exists in this country anyway, but by government spending and regulation of medicine?
What if Candidate B had said clearly and unequivocally that individuals doing honest business with each other should be left alone? Isn´t my relationship with my doctor and insurer MY business? And costs? Why do costs go down in every other area in the economy over time EXCEPT in areas that are very regulated, or lavished financially by the government, such as medicine or college education?
What would happen if Candidate B actually praised businesses in general, and pointedly pharmaceutical companies, for their innovative genius, and condemned government intervention as blatantly destructive?
Well such a Candidate certainly was not John McCain.
Candidate B may well initially lose the election on such a platform; but if the party remains true to an ACTUAL opposition position at least he or she at least has a chance of victory. But if voters are given a choice between the Obama brand and "Obama-Lite" they´re going to pick the real thing every time.
And what is a wrong with a candidate educating voters in preparation for future elections? The truth matters, and it can eventually win. But apologizing for your beliefs, or, timidly advocating half measures is going to get one nowhere, and in the long run weaken a party to extinction. And Republicans should remember: America remains a center-right country.
And Republicans cannot sit around waiting for Obama to fail. His campaign will simply try to foist all of our problems onto private people living their lives. He will claim to have been virtuous, but he´ll tell us it´s those evil people in business who are gumming everything up. And he just needs a little more time to reign them all in.
Republicans need three ingredients to start winning again: a candidate who is morally inspirational, intelligent, and who actually is different from the other guy.
I argued that if the Republicans have a chance at defeating President Obama next time around and winning significant support in the congressional elections in 2010, they need to come up with candidates with compelling moral stories, who at the same time don´t change their positions with the winds. Americans are not going to vote for an ignoramus in these tough times, but neither are they going to vote for a chameleon.
But there´s another ingredient that´s necessary too-and it´s the lack of this ingredient that largely explains the loss of John McCain in the last election. McCain after all was a knowledgeable man with a morally compelling story. What happened?
To illustrate this last crucial ingredient let´s imagine ourselves in the shoes of "Joe" the average voter. He´s reasonably well educated, having completed college, and is a middle class professional who works hard to ensure a good life. He´s married and settled in the town where his technology company is located. He´s a person likely to vote. He considers himself an independent, and steers clear of any easy ideological labeling.
The economy worries him. Some of his colleagues have been laid off, and his friends too. He hears rumors. Besides, his health care costs are going through the roof.
Candidate A tells him that the problems of the economy are due to greed and the lack of control of business. Joe likes his boss, but long ago in college his professors taught him that business people are essentially evil. He likes his company; he admires the thought and productivity of his superiors and colleagues; he thinks he´s lucky to get paid for doing something he loves. He thinks it´s all those other companies that are bad.
Candidate B says that he agrees that businesses are the cause of the economic decline, but that he would simply institute fewer regulations than Candidate A.
But Joe thinks if businesses are evil by nature and they need to be monitored closely shouldn´t he vote for the candidate who will watch them most closely? Why go half way in an economy like this? Besides candidate A says candidate B is in the pocket of big business, even though B says he fears unregulated business as much as candidate A.
Candidate A says that businesses aren´t paying their fair share. Joe knows that Candidate A raised taxes on businesses recently, but Candidate A talks darkly about businesses avoiding these taxes, and shipping money overseas. Besides congress didn´t give him all the powers he asked for.
Candidate B says that taxes should be lowered on everybody because that´s the greatest good for the greatest number. But it sounds to Joe that rich people and businesses are going to benefit, and why should they benefit when they caused the mess in the first place? After all, Candidate B says he agrees with Candidate A that business irresponsibility is the cause of the problems. We should be penalizing them, right?
Joe is worried about health care costs. He loves his doctor, although the poor woman seems sorely pressed for time these days. It didn´t seem to be that way when he was younger. In the past, he seemed to have much more time with his doctor, and he had the same doctor for all of his childhood.
And he couldn´t believe it when he heard about that new machine that detected his neighbor´s cancer so quickly, and his neighbor didn´t even have to break a sweat over his diagnosis.
But his premiums have been going up, and his coverage seems to shrink every year. Candidate A says that everything will be fine if we just centralize the whole system. Simplify it. It´s chaos out there Candidate A tells him-like the Wild West with all these competing insurers with all their different plans. It´s so damn confusing, and the bloody system won´t even cover everyone.
Joe always made sure that he had coverage, especially when he got married and had children. Sure, there were times in his life when he didn´t have coverage, when he was young, or, briefly between jobs. But the commentator on T.V said it was a major crisis in the country, and his European colleague said that in Europe Americans are considered uncivilized to let anyone not have medical insurance. Plus, in college he learned that the unregulated free market causes poverty.
Candidate A promises to simplify everything by having one single system that covers everyone and regulates the costs. Get business out of it! Sounds great!
Candidate B says that he too is worried that people can´t get coverage, and that the current unregulated system is the problem. He too disparages the "wild West" atmosphere of health care. He promises to capitalize on the current managed care system and give HMO´s subsidies to keep their costs low. He promises to establish a national database for all recipients of health care, to "streamline" the system. He promises to penalize businesses that don´t cover their employees and to provide a pool of money for states so that they can subsidize the uninsured.
But Joe thinks, well, if businesses and capitalism caused the problem in the first place we really need the government to step in and take care of the problem. After all, health care is too important to be left to the evil businesses. Why not scrap the whole system, get profit totally out of it, and be more like civilized Europe? And, anyway he suspects that candidate B is in the pocket of those big HMO´s.
Joe decides to vote for Candidate A.
And why shouldn´t he? Both candidates are saying the same thing; it´s just that Candidate A says it clearly, directly, consistently. Candidate B comes across as a waffling me tooer.
But what would have happened if Candidate B had said: problems in an economy are never caused by private individuals trading with each other? In fact, candidate B could easily point out how the economic situation was caused by the government´s encouraging, and even forcing of banks to make risky loans. What if Candidate B had said: The entire mess in health care was caused not by a private market, which barely exists in this country anyway, but by government spending and regulation of medicine?
What if Candidate B had said clearly and unequivocally that individuals doing honest business with each other should be left alone? Isn´t my relationship with my doctor and insurer MY business? And costs? Why do costs go down in every other area in the economy over time EXCEPT in areas that are very regulated, or lavished financially by the government, such as medicine or college education?
What would happen if Candidate B actually praised businesses in general, and pointedly pharmaceutical companies, for their innovative genius, and condemned government intervention as blatantly destructive?
Well such a Candidate certainly was not John McCain.
Candidate B may well initially lose the election on such a platform; but if the party remains true to an ACTUAL opposition position at least he or she at least has a chance of victory. But if voters are given a choice between the Obama brand and "Obama-Lite" they´re going to pick the real thing every time.
And what is a wrong with a candidate educating voters in preparation for future elections? The truth matters, and it can eventually win. But apologizing for your beliefs, or, timidly advocating half measures is going to get one nowhere, and in the long run weaken a party to extinction. And Republicans should remember: America remains a center-right country.
And Republicans cannot sit around waiting for Obama to fail. His campaign will simply try to foist all of our problems onto private people living their lives. He will claim to have been virtuous, but he´ll tell us it´s those evil people in business who are gumming everything up. And he just needs a little more time to reign them all in.
Republicans need three ingredients to start winning again: a candidate who is morally inspirational, intelligent, and who actually is different from the other guy.