Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican “leader” (you’d be forgiven for forgetting his name, because he hardly ever manages to accomplish anything besides staying in power) finally did something. Or, he promised to do something. McCarthy rolled out an actual agenda, at least – we can tell because he had a big event to promote it and everything.
He at least established that he stood for some real policy principles, not just the fundamental goal of keeping himself in power, whether in the majority or in the minority. To his credit, that puts him ahead of many elected Republicans at the state and national level, many of whom aren’t really clear on what they actually believe when it comes to public policy.
Laying aside for the moment the question of whether Kevin McCarthy’s sudden discovery of ideas is to be believed, are those ideas politically advantageous for the Republican Party?
Well, that’s hard to say. Generally speaking, it’s better for the voters, and democracy as a whole, when candidates and parties lay out a specific agenda, rather than just relying on vague promises and talking points. Many political strategists will argue that it’s best to stay away from policy specifics during a campaign; it opens up the candidate to criticism from the other party. Still, if having actual policy ideas is bad for a campaign politically, it’s healthier for democracy as a whole, and it encourages actual policy debates – something we need more of in this country.
Moreover, in prior elections, Republicans – both nationally and in Maine – have laid out a specific policy agenda in prior campaigns and gone on to win the majority, so it’s not a sure failure. The real question as to whether a policy agenda will be politically useful is what’s in it, not just whether it exists. We saw this earlier in the year, when Sen. Rick Scott of Florida released his own policy agenda for Senate Republicans that was universally either panned or ignored by his colleagues.
So, it’s worth examining the House Republican plan. Surely, it is a highly detailed plan that will explicitly lay out exactly how Republicans will address all that ails America, should they regain the majority and Kevin McCarthy becomes speaker of the House. No doubt, the plan will cite specific legislation sponsored by their members that the entire conference will be able to rally behind. Obviously, it will contain sensible, realistic proposals that might have the chance of attracting a modicum of bipartisan support, and that Joe Biden might be willing to sign in some modified form – since he’s going to be president for at least two more years. I mean, that would make sense, right? You don’t want to waste your time floating a bunch of ridiculous proposals that you’d have trouble passing even if your party controlled the White House.
Well, House Republicans definitely did not do that. They didn’t mention any legislation at all in their Commitment To America, in fact. Now, that’s probably because they didn’t have enough room: The entire thing is just a one-page sheet, full of bullet points (well, that’s not fair, they used checkmarks, not bullet points). At first, it seemed like good news that the website had four sections, but in fact they were just links to that same single sheet. They couldn’t even come up with four pages.
It turns out everything Kevin McCarthy is willing to commit to in policy can fit on one sheet.
Basically, McCarthy wanted to get all of the press that comes from having an agenda without actually having one. In the words of Gertrude Stein, when it comes to Kevin McCarthy’s policy agenda, there’s no there there. This was just another stunt by a typical Washington politician, designed to generate positive headlines.
It’s not surprising that it was easy to get the entire caucus united behind it. It’s hard to argue with nothing.
Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel
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