The Republican primary race is heating up – in recent weeks we’ve seen the emergence of Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, pizza mogul Herman Cain and former Governors Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Jon Hunstman, Jr., as well as the implosion of Newt Gingrich’s campaign.
By this time in the 2008 primaries, we had already seen the emergence of clear favorites. Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and eventual winner John McCain had all established clear campaign platforms and polled well in the Iowa and New Hampshire straw polls. In the New Hampshire poll from January of this year, Mitt Romney was the runaway favorite (no surprise given his Massachusetts connection), yet only one other candidate registered a double-digit support base, the perennial also-ran Ron Paul. In comparison, the Iowa straw poll of 2008 saw Romney, Huckabee and McCain all registering double-digit support, with Huckabee and Romney both scoring more than 25 percent.
The Republican Party is facing something of an identity crisis. Despite being almost united in their small government approach (Mitt Romney’s healthcare policy is the only notable exception), a leader has yet to emerge who can provide the party with a solid platform for the 2012 elections, now less than 18 months away. So with a fairly ideological stance, why does the GOP lack an identity?
The answer is simple – in the two and a half years since Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, Republican politicians have been defined by their attempts to negate the government’s achievements and virulently castigate the government for it’s perceived failures. I call it “the politics of no.”
The criticism Republicans have leveled at the government has been extremely effective in discrediting Obama, as his approval rating shows. However, Republican criticism and commentary has been lacking in any credible policy alternatives. Time and again, we see Republicans lean on their familiar crutch of small government without ever really expanding on what that actually means in terms of practical policy. As a result, Americans are becoming disillusioned with a political scene that has, for the last two years, been characterized by a shocking dearth of substantive and balanced commentary on what has been a fairly lackluster presidency.
Even commentary on the GOP candidates themselves has been characterized by negativity. Time and again, conservative media outlets and rival candidates have denounced Mitt Romney for supporting the healthcare bill during his tenure as governor of Massachusetts. All they offer in the way of alternatives is a nebulous commitment to small government and egalitarianism. So, where to now for the Republican Party?
Most importantly, the Republican candidates need to start talking policy, and fast. Debates are a great opportunity for candidates to express their views on how to take America forward. The recent CNN debate was a disgrace.
The focus was on everything but policy, from Obama’s flawed intervention in Libya to the failing economy. Bachmann’s comments on Libya were especially confusing – after criticizing Obama for not leading, she then argued that America shouldn’t have gotten involved because there was no core national interest involved. Meanwhile, Romney castigated Obama for his profligate spending, despite having ratified a universal healthcare law when he was governor of Massachusetts just five years ago. Tim Pawlenty’s five percent growth target, though ambitious, is at least an actual policy goal. Though Pawlenty has been derided in the media for setting what many see as an unrealistic target, he should win many supporters for actually setting a yardstick by which a presidency can be measured.
All is not yet lost for the GOP. There remains more than a year before we find out who will lead the campaign to oust Obama from the presidency. There is plenty of time for the list of candidates to be whittled down to a worthy few, but the candidates themselves must act like they want the job. They need to stop saying no and start saying yes – yes to real debates over policy, yes to negotiating with the Democrats on issues such as the debt ceiling and yes to Republican voters who are crying out for a worthy candidate. If they don’t, then Obama will be re-elected, and come 2013 the politics of no will start all over again.
Shawn Rajanayagam ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and American studies.
