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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (8955)	11/14/1998 11:23:00 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13994

WHERE REPUBLICANS NEED TO GO By DICK MORRIS AS the Republicans sift through the wreckage of their bold election hopes and contemplate life in the post-Gingrich era, it is time they took account of certain basic realities. Like many political movements before it, today's GOP is the victim of its own success. Its achievements in helping to defeat Communism, balance the budget, reform welfare and reduce crime have left it without issues. Just as Winston Churchill lost office in 1945 because he was no longer relevant after he had won World War II, so the GOP has little relevance to the new world its own accomplishments have created. The 1996 election proved that the Republicans could not find an agenda by moving to the right. The 1998 vote proves that they can't find it by descending into scandal-hunting. To be relevant in the future, the GOP must adjust to the new facts of life. Bill Clinton restored the relevance of the Democratic Party after 12 years of defeat by addressing Republican issues that the rest of his party had long denied existed. By showing tremendous achievements on these GOP issues - the budget, welfare, crime, etc. - he cleared the deck so that he could focus on traditional Democratic areas of concern - education, the environment, and the elderly. The GOP has won on all of its basic issues. Only leftovers - abortion, opposition to gun controls, etc. - remain on the table, and these are never going to be winners. Just as Clinton developed a Democratic approach to Republican concerns, the GOP needs to develop a Republican approach to Democratic issues. 1. Admit that education is a national issue. One of President Clinton's major achievements has been to make public education the No. 1 domestic issue in America. When he took office, schools regularly topped the list of concerns at the state level, but were not a national issue. Just as Nixon took crime out of the exclusive domain of local government and made it a federal question as well, Clinton has nationalized the education problem. Democrats lost two decades of elections because they failed to realize that Nixon had nationalized crime as an issue. Republicans must not fall into the same trap. The Republican Party cannot be politically relevant unless it recognizes that Washington has a legitimate role in education. Advocacy of vouchers and school choice is not an education policy. Voters want the GOP to improve public schools, not abandon them. The voters do back school choice - as one of a number of steps to upgrade educational quality. Republicans should follow up on that: Focus on teacher quality - the one place the unions will not let the Democrats tread. In Arkansas, Bill Clinton was elected governor again and again because he tested teachers and fired the ones who failed. But he has not had similar courage in Washington. The Republicans can turn his flank and address the need for an end to teacher tenure and the need for higher standards. 2. Recognize the environment as an issue. The Republican Party needs an environmental position. Its intransigent insistence that there no longer are any environmental problems and that government regulations need to be curbed is a blind spot that separates the GOP from the U.S.A. As reports of El Nino, Hurricane Mitch, fires in Florida, drought in the Midwest and floods in Texas make climate obvious to everyone, the Republican Party needs to stake out a market-based alternative to public regulation as the way to protect environment. Just as Clinton used gun control to win the crime issue, the Republican Party needs to show how market mechanisms can do a better job of environmental protection than can government bureaucrats. 3. Fight the demand for drugs. The last three administrations have gone as far as any can in policing our borders and streets to keep drugs out. The only remaining step that shows any promise at all is a concerted attempt to reduce drug demand among our kids. Drug testing remains the best way to do it. The GOP should back drug tests for high school students, welfare recipients and public-housing tenants and should promote tax incentives for drug-testing on the job. By drawing a line in the sand over constraints on drug users - not just pushers - the Republicans can regain the offensive on the drug and crime issue. 4. Cultivate the voluntary sector. The Republicans should demand that the bulk of the budget surplus go to the voluntary and charitable sector. By defeating Dole with his 15 percent tax cut, voters made clear that they are not in favor of simply returning the surplus to the taxpayers. They want it to be used for social good, but they distrust government as an instrument to promote it. Enter the GOP. Republicans should insist that ordinary taxpayers get a tax credit, not just a deduction, for their charitable giving. The GOP should ask that a large part of the surplus go to fund these credits - which would flow not to organizations that the politicians favor or those that win the fight at the trough, but to groups that attract contributions from average people funded through the government tax credit. The Democrats own the public sector. The Republicans own the private sector. But the future is in the voluntary sector. NONE of these issues is as sexy as a scandal, but each will go a long way toward giving the GOP a traction it now lacks. The Republicans need only to look at the disasters of the past two elections to see how badly they need some of these new perspectives.