What are Republicans for?
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Wednesday, April 5, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
For the past four years Republicans have won elections by tagging Democrats as the "anti" party--as in antiwar, anti-tax-cuts, antijudges or just plain anti-Bush. The theme was clear: If Democrats want to be trusted to govern, they have to be for something.
That's sound advice that Republicans themselves might want to heed. This year the GOP is becoming the "anti" party that is against more ideas than it is for.
It's true that many Republicans are in favor of doing a lot. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, for one, set off a tizzy at the Small Business Administration last week by announcing he's planning hearings on whether the agency ought to be abolished. (Answer: Yes.) Other Republicans have been pushing to trim spending, cut government waste and reform entitlements with ballooning costs. Most notably, House Majority Leader John Boehner succeeded at reforming college loan programs.
On one hot-button issue after another, however, Republicans are staking out "anti" positions this election year. The first to come up is immigration. With some 11 million illegal immigrants in this country already, the GOP is right to want to do something to get control of the border, normalize the immigrants who do come across to work, and clamp down on other illegal activity (drug smuggling, etc.) that comes with a large influx of people. The danger is that Republicans will cater to the part of the party that fears not illegal immigration per se, but a cultural change that will inevitably follow a wave of new immigrants (legal or not). Talk of building a wall, militarizing the border and criminalizing works of compassion that aid illegal immigrants will be summed up by voters this way: Republicans are anti-immigrant.
An issue that played prominently in the 2004 presidential election was same-sex marriage. Republicans opposition was principled, the right thing to do and, as it turned out, popular. Ballot initiatives on the subject in several states, including Ohio, might have provided President Bush with his margin of victory.
However, now Republicans want to repeat the performance with a very different issue. Massachusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney, among others, is leading a fight against gay adoption. The issue sprang up in the Bay State--where else?--earlier this year when the state decided to use an antidiscrimination law to force Catholic adoption services to place children with gay parents. Gov. Romney instantly recognized a freedom-of-religion issue and is pushing to exempt the Catholic church from the discrimination law. Fair enough. But the issue is catching on nationally, where it will play out as opposition to putting abused children into nonabusive homes. Nearly a dozen states may hold referendums this year on whether to ban gay adoption. And so far public opinion is against banning gay adoption by 2 to 1 even in culturally conservative Missouri.
Ask a Republican official why the GOP should hold onto control of Congress this year and the answer will invariably fall to one of two responses--either the generic (Democrats would spend more money, abandon the war or otherwise do a worse job running the country) or the more specific, which one top Republican said to us recently: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi." Regardless of what voters think of the San Francisco Democrat and House minority leader, this isn't a positive, forward-looking reason to turn out and vote for the GOP.
Rep. Tom DeLay did Republicans a favor yesterday by announcing he will resign from Congress. The former majority leader was a very effective whip in the 1990s, corralling votes for welfare and other reforms. He was also the driving force behind President Clinton's impeachment. But as a majority leader he proved to be a train wreck. He pushed through the Medicare prescription drug bill and allowed the largest political corruption scandal to take root under his nose. The scandal has so far led to guilty pleas by two former DeLay staffers, Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a good friend of Mr. DeLay's, will also spend at least five years behind bars. And investigations continue.
With Mr. DeLay's departure Democrats will lose a talking point in their campaign against Republican's "culture of corruption." But to put the DeLay era behind them and give voters fresh reasons to come to the polls and support the party, Republicans need to put a few forward-looking ideas on the table of what they would like to do for the country. (The Wall Street Journal offers some suggestions in today's editorial.) Look what we're stopping from happening isn't a winning strategy for a majority party. The GOP needs a credible answer to this question: What are Republicans for?
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
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