There's something of an obsession inside the Beltway these days about who's in charge of the Republican Party.
Is it Michael Steele? His election as Republican National Committee chairman, after all, said a lot about the desire among party insiders for an outsider with strong communication skills and TV presence. Or is it the GOP leaders in Congress? John Boehner in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate are going to get lots more Sunday talk-show time than Steele ever will. Plus, these are the guys on the front lines in the battle with Democrats, at both the legislative and political levels.
In 2008, Democrats were helped more by the presence of Bush in the White House than by the concept of Obama in it.
Actually, it's none of the above. All three of these men have important roles to play. Yet for most of America, the GOP remains defined by George W. Bush. Want proof? Check out the favorable/unfavorable scores of congressional Republicans. They've been out of power for almost three years, yet in the latest Diageo/Hotline poll, their unfavorable rating is at 62 percent. Congressional Democrats are at 38.
The American political system just doesn't have a well-defined place for the opposition party. It usually just takes its cues from the person in the Oval Office. To be sure, Republicans will go into 2010 without Bush defining the election for them -- the first time this has been true since 1998. But Republicans will succeed based more on who they aren't (President Obama and his Democratic Party) than on who they are.
Despite all the lofty rhetoric Democrats espouse now about changing the discourse and forging bipartisan relationships, the party owes its successes in the 2006 and 2008 elections to the age-old model: Run against the ones in charge. In 2006, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, under Rahm Emanuel, drilled into its challenger candidates the message that the election wasn't about them, it was about the Republicans. It was a repudiation of Bush. The same went for 2008; yes, voters were looking for "change," but Democrats were helped more by the presence of Bush in the White House than by the concept of Obama in it.
In a Jan. 28 interview with the Hotline, new National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn revealed a similar strategy. While giving deference to Obama ("He's smart. He's gifted. He's good"), the Texan isn't ready to hold hands and sing kumbaya, even if his GOP colleagues may be willing to compromise with Obama on legislation.
The NRSC, Cornyn said, "will be a little more aggressive in defining the differences" between Democrats and Republicans than it's been in the past.
House Republicans are on the same wavelength -- see their unanimous vote against the Obama-backed stimulus package. This is partly a byproduct of those congressional wipeouts the last two cycles. For all the talk about how impressive it was for the GOP to keep its troops in line, there are very few Republicans left in Congress who represent Democratic-leaning districts. Just six Republicans sit in districts that both John Kerry and Obama won. In 1993, the last time Democrats controlled the Congress and White House, there were 50 Republicans who sat in districts that Bill Clinton had carried. To be sure, the Ross Perot vote skewed the underlying partisan leanings of many districts. Still, it's fair to say that there were more so-called moderate Republicans in Congress 16 years ago than there are today.
At the national party, Steele's task is no different than Howard Dean's was. The most important job for the party out of the White House is to do the nuts-and-bolts work needed to get its candidate in. Their job is to support the standard bearer of the party, not to be it.
Steele seems to get this. He has already noted that his top priorities are winning the special election in New York-20 -- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's old seat -- and the 2009 governor races. Winning elections will do more to redefine (and re-energize) the Republican Party than anything else.
There is one caveat: If voters still like what they see a year from now, the GOP is out of luck. But if they don't, then the Republicans have a shot.
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