Where's the GOP?

In politics, when opportunity knocks, it is important to open the door. If that cliche doesn't thrill you, then how about this one: if you want to instruct a mule, you must first get its attention. The old joke finds a 2 x 4 to be the best method. However, if it is the mule who is knocking, then you already have its attention and can toss away the lumber. Just open the door and start instructing.

Voters are a particularly mulish lot. Most of the time, they are not paying attention. The only exceptions are the hard-line followers of both parties who are always thinking about politics. I estimate this group to be about 15% of the electorate and fairly evenly distributed between Democrats and Republicans. This means that the primary ongoing struggle for either political party is somehow to get the other 85% to pay attention long enough for it to make the sale on its policies and programs.

By their nature, Presidential elections gain a significant amount of attention from the 85%, but those times come around only once every four years. Off-year elections can have the same effect, but markedly less so, especially when there is no galvanizing political theme. This is why the party in power usually loses Congressional seats in off-years. Of the 85%, it is mostly the dissatisfied who will rouse themselves grumpily off their bark-a-loungers to vote; the satisfied are apt to stay home.

And then there are the important legislative battles in between elections. During these times, most of the 85% are comfortably hibernating from politics and could care less. George Bush's 2005 attempt to reform Social Security is a case in point. Social Security reform was one of his major policy planks, and the 2004 electoral victory had given him a sizable mandate for his second term, together with legislative majorities in Congress. However, after sweating out a particularly rancorous Presidential contest, the 85% retreated to their homes and political somnambulism. Try as he might, President Bush could not get any significant public support for his efforts, and Social Security reform fizzled, along with a good portion of the President's mandate. His Presidency never recovered.

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However, the 85% will wake up to politics sometimes, in unpredictable ways and at unpredictable times, even in the no-man's land of non-election cycle politics. As rare as these time are, it is critically important that a political party be alert to their occurrence, and act decisively.

In my opinion, we are in such a time right now. The national electorate, including a sizable portion of the 85%, is awake and listening intently to the Healthcare debate. Exactly why the 85% is paying attention is not important. The fact is that they are, and I wonder: where is the GOP? Why are Republicans not seizing this opportunity to push their agenda when a substantial portion of the electorate is listening?

I am not talking about Congressional action. Republicans have come under heavy criticism from Democrats and the national media for obstinately opposing the Democrats on Healthcare without offering any constructive alternatives. However, the GOP has put forward significant alternatives, such as Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's Healthcare legislation, only to see them vanish amidst Washington's political whirl-winds. In fact, as a distant minority in Congress, the only strategy the GOP can and should pursue in that august body is high-profile opposition to all that the Democrats represent. Nothing else will break through Democrat control of both the legislative process and the media.

But the GOP does command strong majorities in many State governments, and until the Democrats succeed in passing their National Healthcare program, the regulation of Healthcare and health insurance is largely a State responsibility. Why isn't the GOP pursuing a national campaign to reform State laws to allow interstate purchase of health insurance, reduce State insurance mandates, and otherwise increase choice and competition for consumers? A national State based campaign such as this would gain traction in the national media, especially so if it was coordinated with real legislative action in GOP dominated State legislatures. Imagine the impact on the Washington debates if the Republicans not only proposed market based solutions for Healthcare, but enacted the same!

All the polls show that the American people do not like the Democrats' reactionary New Dealism, where bigger, bloated government seems to be the answer for everything. As a result, the GOP is perfectly positioned to take control of this issue at the State level, giving the voters real-time programs and policies that will actually solve the Healthcare problem rather than make it worse.

The public is knocking at the door, looking for leadership on the Healthcare issue that will not take them down the Democrats' road. Where is the GOP? Why won't they open the door?

Probably for the same reasons that made them the minority party in the first place.