Blogs For Victory

The news story:

House Republicans, who put Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on her heels as they voted unanimously to reject the economic stimulus bill two months ago, are now pointing fingers.

The unity of the GOP Conference was strong when all Republicans voted, on two separate occasions, to oppose the stimulus championed by President Obama, who had approval ratings in the 60s at the time. While many Democrats touted the passage of the stimulus, they privately acknowledged that the extent of the Republican opposition surprised them. But that harmony has been fractured, days before a special election in New York that some Republicans characterize as a must-win.

Some of the differences appeared Thursday over how they handled the rolling out of a much anticipated budget alternative, “The Republican Road to Recovery.”

Standing before television cameras, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and other members — including the top Republican on the Budget Committee Paul Ryan (Wis.) — couldn’t answer specific questions about their spending plan.

After weeks of promising a comprehensive alternative to the president’s budget that Republicans have painted as excessive, bloated and wasteful, Boehner was unable to provide specific information about their proposal.

His colleagues were unable to answer line-items questions as well. Boehner dismissed those details as “just a bunch of numbers.”

Even though aides insist that GOP leaders had no intention of releasing their full budget substitute, the press event was a public relations disaster.

“It looked like a disorganized blunder,” one GOP aide said. “It’s the worst messaging snafu at a time when the party can’t afford one.”

I’ll have to go along with the “blunder” judgment on this – I heard one House GOPer try to defend the lack of detail on the Laura Ingraham show and it was a very pathetic performance by a Congressman who is clearly a conservative and a smart man who yet came out and tried to pull a political fast one. You can’t do this, House GOP – you have to put out alternate plans in detail and let the American people know where we wish to lead them. While opposition to Obamunism will carry us a long way – especially as the economy craters – the only path back to power is the path of ideas, and ideals. You’re not fooling anyone, House GOP – well, you could make a stab at fooling Democrats, but the key to victory for us isn’t fooled Democrats (that is a requirement for Democrats to win, not us) but an energized GOP base. And that only comes when there’s a clear plan.

Additionally, we can’t have plans which are just recycled plans of the past – the American people do, indeed, want change. They voted Obama into office pretty much on the strength of change in spite of clear doubts about Obama’s ability pre-election. Obama is now going forward with a massive increase in the corrupt and unworkable status-quo and therein lies our great opportunity: As Obama flounders around with socialism, we have a chance to revamp conservative economic ideas for the 21st century. We’ve won the tax battle and we’ve won the wasteful spending battle – no American politician outside the precincts of the kookiest of kook left will campaign on a promise to raise taxes and massively increase spending (hard as it is to recall, Obama ran as a fiscally responsible tax-cutter). Now we need to change the argument to what sort of America do the American people wish to have.

Obama has his vision for America – massive government, atrophied individual liberty. What do we want? I’ll tell you one thing, fellow conservatives, if we go out there and merely campaign on low taxes, spending cuts and a defense of capitalism, we’re going to lose the debate. To be sure, we still may do quite well in 2010 in an anti-Obama backlash…but if we want the real power to change things, we’re doing to need to be elected for something and not just against some one. What do we want? That is the vital question and we must answer it – the House GOP had a fantastic opportunity to answer it, and blew it.

Fortunately, Obama is almost certain to give us many more chances to make a case for a new, conservative program for America. All we need to do is craft it – and this will take some gigantic steps out of the box. I’ve got some ideas brewing in the brain, and I’ll start to share them over the next couple weeks. But here’s a chance for any GOPer with a mind to do so to start thinking – what do we want?

The way we answer that question will in a large sense determine the course of American history for the next 50 years. Well answered, we’ll win power and be able to change America – badly answered, and Obama’s socialism will be our fate.