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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Yes, Republicans can win without offering an agenda"
Yes, Republicans can win without offering an agendaBy Paul Waldman at the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/09/25/yes-republicans-can-win-without-offering-an-agenda/?tid=rssfeed
"SNIP........................
All were primarily negative campaigns won for negative reasons. In 2010 and 2006, voters were mad at the president. In 2002 voters were just terrified, and in 1998 they were disgusted with the Republicans.
Ah, you say, but what about the original Contract With America? Wasnt that inspiring document the surfboard of glory on which Newt Gingrich and the Republicans rode to victory in 1994? No, it wasnt. Polling before the election showed that few voters had the faintest idea what it was.
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It is sometimes said that parties need a positive agenda so that they have a template for governing something around which they can claim a mandate once they win. But theres no reason to believe thats true, either. The fact is that once a party has control of one or both houses of Congress, it will do whatever it is going to do, regardless of whether it has whatever it is we call a mandate. Every election winner acts as though they have one, whether they campaigned on a positive agenda or not.
It may be helpful for a particular candidate to show her voters that shes got shiny new ideas about where the country should go. But overall the party will do just as well (or as poorly) whether they have an agenda or not. Consequential policy issues like whose chickens crapped on whose lawn could actually be enough to help swing the Senate this time.
..........................SNIP"
Rod Beauvex
(564 posts)Richard Nixon was supposed to be the end of the Republicans.
Ronald Reagan was supposed to be the end of the Republicans.
George W. Bush was supposed to be the end of the Republicans.
They'll find a way to hang on, agenda or no.
Dirty Socialist
(3,252 posts)It's a terrible agenda, but it's an agenda nonetheless.
madville
(7,410 posts)They have an unpopular President to run against. Many in Congress are probably secretly rooting for Hillary to win in 2016, it will help them retain power in the House and maybe even get the Senate.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)The main thing I hear from Democrats is how the country will collapse if Republicans win. I never hear what the Democrats will bring to the table if they win.
It's the same strategy on both sides.
"Change" was a nice message a few years ago but it had the problem of being a marketing slogan instead of a concrete proposal of what would change and how so most of the attempts to change things were killed at the starting line.