Problem is GOP Profligacy, Not Corruption
Media Blog
01/03 05:47 PM
In his analysis of the Abramoff scandal on CNN this afternoon, Bill Schneider repeated a myth about the 1994 Republican takeover:
Jack Abramoff's gonna sing. But who's gonna face the music? There are two schools of thought. One says that when voters hear "corruption," they don't think "Republicans" or "Democrats." They think, "Politicians." Almost half the public thinks most members of Congress are corrupt — about the same as in the fall of 1994, which saw a huge revolt against incumbents.
Good point — except that the fall of 1994 did not see a huge revolt against incumbents. It saw a huge revolt against Democrats, and the distinction is important. In the Senate, 92 percent of incumbents won re-election, a nine point increase from the 83 percent who won in 1992. In the House, the number was 90 percent — up from 88 percent in 1992.
Americans didn't vote the Democrats out of power because they were incumbents. Corruption was an issue but it played a very small part. Then as now, corruption was an issue that crossed party lines. Indeed, the more the Abramoff scandal unravels, the more we learn about the involvement of key Democrats like Byron Dorgan.
The Republicans didn't win control of Congress in 1994 by going on TV and whining about a "culture of corruption." They won by offering an alternative vision for the country in the form of the Contract with America. The real problem for the GOP, especially among conservatives, is not corruption. It's that congressional Republicans, and their leader in the White House, have failed to implement the vision of small government laid out in the Contract.
Fortunately for the GOP, the Democrats don't have anything like the Contract to offer America. Even their liberal supporters are pointing out that they have "[failed] to articulate a substantive reform message." I doubt that the Democrats will come up with a vision for the country in time to win a major victory in 2006. Cold comfort for conservatives who see their party barely able to pass even the most timid of spending-reduction measures.
Video here.
UPDATE: This Google News-headlining USA Today story repeats the same faulty 1994-2006 comparison.
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