Politics / Republican Suitors
Norquist, Grover G.
Republican Suitors by Grover G. Norquist / n two years, Republicans will nominate a candidate for the presidency—and the leadership of their party. These are two distinct tasks, and activists are...
...T ime and again over the last two decades, Republicans have failed to turn their presidential dominance to legislative advantage...
...Ninety-five percent want to reform medical malpractice...
...Jack Kemp: The New York Republican Party is crying out for leadership...
...Sixty-two percent oppose ending the trade embargo against Castro's Cuba...
...Under nominal Republican control, the legislature has failed to back up the governor on key tax-relief issues and on a school-choice program that would have given Michigan the lead in school reform...
...But senators note that Dole must come to grips with his own "Darman problem": A key staffer, Sheila Burke, has been maneuvering the Republicans into a compromise on health...
...The sine qua non will be Dole's ability to block any government-run health-care system: Clinton, Cooper, or any hybrid thereof...
...Legislatively, he could turn his Milwaukee school choice program into a statewide model...
...Nixon's massive voter turnout effort could have been directed to get to the polls only those who would vote for the entire Republican ticket—and to leave ticketsplitters at home...
...Instead, he could have made additional visits to Florida, Illinois, Iowa, or Michigan where the GOP could have won an additional House seat or one more senator...
...Only 7 percent of Republicans in the RNC poll support all abortions at all times, the position of the Democratic Party's Freedom of Choice Act...
...Senate and capture a marginal House seat for the GOP...
...A Bob Dole who had stopped the nationalization of 14 percent of the economy would stand at the front of the line for his party's leadership...
...Donations to the Republican Party plummeted...
...Taxpayers' Tea Party is a blueprint for political revenge, a step-by-step guide in cartoon form to carry out your own American revolution...
...Bob Dole: The Kansas governorship is open...
...More than 133,000 Republicans responded to the 159-question poll...
...How many state and local candidates has a presidential hopeful helped elect in the last two years...
...To prevent future debacles of the sort just documented, here is a minimum of what party leaders and activists expect to see this year from some of their presidential hopefuls: • Dick Cheney: Wyoming has 1994 elections for a governor, a Senate replacement for Wallop, and a House seat...
...In 1990, George Bush demanded that Republican congressmen vote for the 1990 budget deal that gutted Gramm-Rudman and raised federal spending and taxes just days before congressmen had to face the voters...
...House seats in Tennessee...
...Such a Republican victory would bring from one state fully one-third of the progress needed to recapture the Senate...
...Susan Hirschmann, executive director of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, points out that Republican activists are in accord with the general public in opposing abortion in most circumstances...
...John Engler: Michigan's governor could win reelection while bringing the open U.S...
...In 1972, Richard Nixon could have used the millions of dollars in the Committee to Re-elect the President's war chest to add dozens of Republican House members while crushing George McGovern...
...In other words, the RNC poll shows the Reagan coalition alive and well, uniting economic, foreign-policy, and traditional-values conservatives...
...The Wisconsin governor could lead the charge to replace a pro-Clinton vote in the U.S...
...Tommy Thompson: Another GOP governor who can build the state while winning his own re-election...
...Flirt...
...2) how much money each has raised for other candidates—minus travel expenses, since some GOP bigwigs burn up as much money in limousines, staff time, and chartered planes as they raise campaigning...
...And here the Republican donor and activist base tracks well with a Wirthlin poll that shows Republicans in general with 63 percent opposed to abortion always or with those limited exceptions...
...73 percent oppose a national sales tax to pay for health reform...
...If you combine their concerns with Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour' s—whose Twelfth Commandment enjoins Republicans not to even think about the 1996 presidential race until after mid-term elections—this year's congressional and state races will be a proving ground for the next Republican presidential nominee...
...And 47 percent of Democrats hold the majority Republican position—either no abortion at all, or only in the case of rape, incest, or life of the mother...
...Some of the key findings: On economic issues, 91 percent of Republicans favor a balanced-budget constitutional amendment...
...Part of the blame lies with Republican presidents who have failed in the role of party leader...
...Grover G. Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...Engler will also seek to solidify GOP control of the state house—and give its Republican members a more conservative cast...
...Ronald Reagan was not immune to the same failing...
...In other words, let the best party-builder win...
...In August, the RNC mailed out 800,000 questionnaires to Republican donors, elected officials, and activists...
...Before asking to lead the national party, Cheney should raise the cash and do the work to bring Republican dominance to this small Western state, which by all rights should be solidly Republican...
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...It may be too much to ask self-identified candidates for the Republican nomination to rein in their own ambitions for eighteen months, but these leaders can honor the spirit of Barbour's commandment by using the 1994 elections to demonstrate their party-building skills...
...The next Republican nominee will be expected to have satisfactory answers to those questions...
...A s party leaders like to put it, the Republican Party and the conservative movement were married to Ronald Reagan and his memory for a dozen years...
...Alexander should bring his party control of the governorship and two open Senate seats in 1994...
...and (3) the number of fund-raising letters for other candidates each has signed...
...Bush bought his false budget peace with the blood of Republican candidates across the nation...
...Recently widowed, they shouldn't remarry in haste, these leaders say...
...Senate seat into the GOP column...
...The poll's most surprising revelation is good news for pro-life Republicans...
...House seats could be had by the GOP and one, possibly two incumbent Democrats, could be defeated with hard work and organization...
...Republican unity is largely maintained in the "divisive" social issues, even though some in the party leadership had opposed the poll on the grounds that it might highlight divisions...
...Should the above-named hopefuls fail, the next generation of leaders—Trent Lott, Bill Bennett, Dick Armey, and others—is waiting in the wings...
...Gramm, who runs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, will also be judged by his success in adding to the forty-four Republican members in the Senate...
...Seventy-one percent support school vouchers, 93 percent oppose teaching homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, and 78 percent oppose distributing condoms in schools...
...Two open U.S...
...But Nixon ran the 1972 campaign for himself alone...
...It's not enough for him to be good on the issues if he lacks the skills or temperament to strengthen his own team...
...According to RNC staffer Leigh Anne Metzger, "The survey shows that the Republican Party is a solidly conservative party...
...Lamar Alexander: Tennessee offers Lamar Alexander the opportunity to leapfrog from the ranks of possible vice presidents to legitimate presidential contender...
...Republicans continue to support supply-side economics: 83 percent want to "lower income-tax rates to stimulate economic growth," and 92 percent want to cut the capital-gains tax...
...On national defense, '78 percent believe that "the proposed cuts in national defense go too far...
...Date around...
...But according to Wirthlin, only 10 percent of Democrats support that position...
...How many Democrats has he convinced to switch parties...
...Alexander could also help win up to three open U.S...
...CI SHARON COOPER CHUCK ASAY INTRODUCTION BY RUSH LIMBRUGH Have a laugh at the expense of the Taxing Class...
...Phil Gramm: Winning back the Texas governorship from Ann Richards and maintaining the Senate seat of Kay Bailey Hutchison are a bare minimum...
...In 1984, he spent scarce time and money on a last-minute trip to Minnesota to try to win a historic fifty-state victory over the hapless Mondale...
...Ed Rollins, who ran the National Republican Congressional Committee, estimates that that decision cost Republicans twenty-six seats in the House...
...Who would have thought two Augusts ago in Houston that the party facing the 1994 elections divided on abortion would be the Democrats...
...Fifty-eight percent oppose abortion at all times or with the standard exceptions of rape, incest, or life of the mother...
...He could add to Republican control—while strengthening conservatives—in the Kansas legislature, which has failed to enact initiative and 60 The American Spectator April/May 1994 referendum and school choice, and has not repealed the tax hikes that brought down the last GOP governor...
...At stake is the powerful governorship and a possible pick-up of three House seats this fall...
...He paid the price in 1974...
...The state legislature is up for grabs...
...These are two distinct tasks, and activists are increasingly determined that any Republican presidential contender first prove his bona fides as party leader...
...More than in previous years, Republican activists are looking for a party leader who's shown competence in running a political organization, be it a state party or a legislative caucus...
...The American Spectator April/ May 1994 61...
...Force would-be suitors to prove their worthiness...
...Ninety-three percent support a presidential line item veto, 61 percent backed NAFTA, and 85 percent want to expand IRAs...
...The results may disappoint Democrats who want Republicans to continue to embrace a watered-down version of their own agenda...
...He could have traveled to save Gordon Allott's Senate seat in Colorado, and fought to win others...
...R epublican strategist Joe Gaylord has three indicators of his own that ought to appear on the résumé of any Republican candidate for president in 1995: (1) how much moneyeach has contributed to other candidates...
...Dole could help add it to the Republican ranks, as well as pick up the one open House seat...
...With work, the Texas GOP could pick up three House seats and ten seats in the state legislature...
Vol. 27 • April 1994 • No. 45
