Inside Politics

UNIFYING GOP

“All year, leading Democrats from the president on down have argued that the Republican Party is in the midst of a catastrophic civil war,” Yuval Levin writes in Newsweek.

“You know the story. Successive election defeats have narrowed the GOP’s ideological range, and now an open struggle is afoot for control of its voice and agenda. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, it seems, are out to destroy Republican moderates and commit the party to a radical course sure to relegate it to irrelevance. Only a move to the left can save the Republicans.

“And, in fact, the new president and Congress had a real opportunity to divide the Republican Party. A moderate stimulus bill that offered a short-term boost and included a meaningful tax-cut component, for instance, might have won a very significant number of Republican votes in Congress last winter and launched a damaging internal GOP battle over the proper role of the opposition. Some restraint on taxes and spending in general, and on health care and energy policy in particular, would also have divided congressional Republicans and left the direction of the party in doubt,” Mr. Levin said.

“But Washington Democrats chose a different route. While they have been peddling the story of Republican self-immolation, they have actually been creating the conditions for a Republican resurgence. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid have launched the country on a course of massive spending, a dramatic expansion of government, and a slew of new taxes in the midst of a recession.

“Finding themselves in control of Congress and the White House and so possessed of an unusual opportunity to pursue their ideological agenda, they have sought to make the most of it. But they have misjudged just how far to the left of the country as a whole the Democratic base now resides - and so, rather than strengthen their own brand, they have inadvertently done wonders to build and unify the Republican Party.”

DAMAGED BRAND

“The path the president and the Democrats of Congress chose has been called the big-bang strategy,” Peggy Noonan writes at www.opinionjournal .com.

“In January 2009, they had the big mo and could claim a mandate. The strategy was to give their first year to 2008 domestic-policy pledges: health care reform, climate change, empowering unions, etc.

“But reality came in and stole the mandate, stopped the mo. The reality is that over the past 10 months the great recession settled in, broadened its presence, and became part of the national landscape. It became the big, bad thing for normal people. It became a literal daily threat (‘Is Daddy going to lose his job?’) that underscored a chronic anxiety. That anxiety is that spending at all levels of government, and the tax demands it will bring and has brought, will make the overall economy worse. If Daddy manages to keep his job in this round of cutbacks, he won’t be safe in the next round,” Miss Noonan said.

“A president has only so much time. Mr. Obama gives a lot of his to health care. But the majority of voters in New Jersey and Virginia told pollsters they were primarily worried about joblessness and the economy. They’re on another path, and they don’t like the path he’s chosen. A majority in a Gallup poll out Wednesday said they now think the president governs from the left, not the middle. The majority did not expect that a year ago.

“The president chose promises made before the recession fully took hold, rather than more pressing and pertinent public concerns. In the language of marketing that has become the language of politics he thereby, in his first year, damaged his brand.”

COOL OR COLD?

“During the election campaign, Barack Obama’s cool detachment was a winning quality, the ‘No Drama Obama’ a welcome contrast with the ‘Mr. Angry’ John McCain, never mind the hot-headed ‘I’m the decider’ President George W. Bush,” Toby Harnden writes in the London Telegraph.

“A year into his presidency, however, Mr. Obama seems a curiously bloodless president. If he experiences passion, he seldom shows it. It is often anyone’s guess as to whether an event or issue truly moves him,” Mr. Harnden said.

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