What Does Victory Look Like?

By Michael Giere

The good news is that the political cement seems to be hardening going into November, with Republicans poised to make even further gains in state houses and governorships, and increasing their majority in the House of Representatives, with a good chance of picking up a majority in the Senate for the first time since 2007.

The bad news is that the elections are largely a response to the rapid disintegration of the American economy, the terrifying horror show in the Middle East, the aggressive Russian and Chinese communists, and other thugs, and the escalating lawlessness of the federal government itself.

These elections are about Barack Obama’s weakness, not Republican strength.

Looking ahead to the Presidential election in 2016, winning this November without offering a coherent national agenda – and without decisively challenging the destructive radicalism of Barack Obama and his buddies – carries major risks for Republicans. If this November’s elections are simply followed by congressional dysfunction, scattershot or unconstructive policy initiatives, and continuing timidity without successfully confronting the enormous issues facing the country, the American people could easily conclude that they are no better off with one party than the other.

The worst thing that could happen is that the Republican Party meets the same fate as the dog that actually did catch the car.    

Is the heretofore feeble, stumbling Republican leadership capable of the bold action that will be required just to begin the process of reversing the systemic problems posed by depression era levels of unemployment and underemployment, falling wages, and the huge financial implications of Obamacare’s final phase? Can they address the de-industrialization of the heartland, unchecked trade inequities, and the war against working class Americans? Can they force through an energy policy that unlocks America’s massive coal, oil and natural gas reserves for self-sufficiency?

Do Republicans have the guts to withstand the blackmail of the “open border” lobby, seal the southern border, and stem the flood of third world immigrants into the U.S., which is clearly driving down wages for low income and minority citizens?  Do they have the political backbone to address the rapidly collapsing American school system being driven to second or third world status by federal control and radical bureaucrats and unions?

Overseas, can the Republicans make rational proposals that support American interests and start the long overdue process of giving support to our actual friends, and stop funding our enemies? Will they begin reversing the enormous damage being done to our active military? Can they muster the moral strength to label radical Islam as the existential threat it is?

Recent history is not encouraging, of course. The truth is that the Republican Party and its all-powerful horde of consultants, has spent far more energy and money this year finding ways to defeat conservatives – especially the Tea Party – within their own ranks, than thinking strategically about how to defeat Democrats, or what to do with victory.  

It makes you wonder if they really want to change Washington, or if they are content to just manage it.

Looking over campaign websites from around the country is not comforting either. Many – not all, but a distressingly large number – of House and Senate Republicans are running virtually content free campaigns, making it seem unlikely that they will aggressively seek to change Washington if elected. These campaigns are long on vagueness, clipped phrases and 30 second sound bites instead of substantive policy positions and there justification.

There seems to be a real potential that a new Congress in 2015 might default to the status quo in the last two years of President Obama, and concern itself with superficial activities and being “nice” while the clock runs out. But if the new Republican Congress in January can’t or won’t attack the major issues on the table, even at a moment when the majority of citizens are convinced that Washington is not listening to them and has lost the ability to act, where does that leave the Party as it prepares for 2016, especially if it fields yet another, weak presidential candidate?

What can grass root conservatives do to encourage the Party and its elected officials to pay attention and act on those issues that are critical to getting the country back on track? How can they hold them accountable when the new Congress convenes?

The underlying problem is simply that the Party, even with its overwhelming conservative center of gravity, has very little ability to hold its candidates or elected officials accountable for what they say or what they do. During the primaries, serious policy is rarely demanded and serious discussions are not typically allowed. Debates are generally highly controlled events that stage personalities, not serious policy consideration. There apparently is no appetite or any mechanism to hold our candidates to account, other than throwing them out in subsequent elections – and Republicans and conservatives seem loathe doing that to “our” guys, with some notable exceptions, such as Virginia’s Eric Cantor.

It really is a frustrating reflection of how “we’ have enabled and encouraged a ruling class of politicians of both parties to take virtually absolute power to themselves, with very little ability on the part of citizens to really influence the legislative process, or hold the politicians accountable for the consequences of their actions. This is how we end up with light bulbs no one wants and toilets that don’t flush properly.

The answers are obvious enough but very hard to accomplish; conservatives need to demand and receive serious and substantially detailed positions from strong and prepared candidates, and hold them accountable once elected. But how does that look? How do you hold the feet of politicians to the fire on a continual basis? The Party is obviously not going to be that mechanism. The various Tea Party forums around the country have probably done the best job in recent memory at holding both candidates and elected officials to some level of account, but even that has been a limited rear-guard effort.

But if this year is any indication, a growing priority of the conservative, pro-liberty movement across the country has to be involved in finding ways to inform and empower other conservatives to focus attention and to start asking hard questions and demand detailed answers of candidates and politicians. If conservatives are looking forward to re-taking the White House in 2016 it will be partly on the performance of the new Congress, and on what makes the conservative message distinct from, not similar to, the polices of the Obama-Clinton crowd.