Politics: A Renegotiated Contract
Norquist, Grover G.
POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist A Renegotiated Contract W bile most of Washington concerns itself with the palace intrigue directed against Newt Gingrich, the speaker himself has been thinking...
...POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist A Renegotiated Contract W bile most of Washington concerns itself with the palace intrigue directed against Newt Gingrich, the speaker himself has been thinking ahead to the year z000...
...To do so, they'll have to think like campaign managers, who break down the issues they hope to exploit into six types: Wedges: These sow division within a rival party's ranks...
...since pro-lifers and pro-adoption advocates are the same people, it greatlyreduced the animus...
...School choice polls at better than 7o percent and enjoys even higher levels of support among black and Hispanic parents...
...It won't be an easy job...
...How to look ahead to Election Year 2000...
...A candidate's character, personality, values, success in life, or just plain good looks serve as magnets...
...Bill Clinton is anchored to the trial lawyers' opposition to tort reform of any sort...
...He didn't change his position on abortion, but he did reduce the political costs by using adoption as a shield...
...Anti-Communism, a GOP staple from roughly 1945 to 1990, was a wedge that drew votes from rankGROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...Partial Birth Abortion Ban: Until recently there was a right-wing position on abortion—the Human Life Amendment banning all abortions under all circumstances—but no left-wing position...
...A smart Demo- cratic Party would abandon its opposition to SDI, but reflex liberalism and gut-level Reagan-hating are likely to anchor the party to this losing issue for another generation...
...Morethan 4.0 percent of Americans now own stock...
...The radical green vote stayed with Dukakis, but his message was discombobulated...
...rather, it will feature an unprecedented debate in which Bill Archer and Dick Armey will make their respective cases for a national sales tax and a flat tax, to be followed by a non-binding vote from the floor...
...Tort Reform: Any legislation that weakens America's ambulance chasers defunds the source of $103 million raised for Democrats between 1989 and 1995...
...New wedge issues will have to highlight the differences between Republicans and Democrats and find creative ways to split the Democratic base from its still very liberal leadership...
...Abolition ofRacial and Gender Pre f- erences: The California Civil Rights Initiative won 54 percent of the vote in 1996...
...The American Spectator • September 1997 61...
...In 1994 abortion divided Republicans and it was kept out of the contract...
...Magnets: These attract voters to a candidate or party...
...Flat Tax vs...
...The new code will tax income only once—not two or three times with taxes on savings, investment, and inheritance...
...The focus on partial birth abortions unites pro-lifers with moderates who are pro-choice in other respects...
...Democrats are anchored to racial quotas by their ideology and dependence on minority politicians for get-out-thevote efforts...
...A recent poll conducted by Zogby International for the American Civil Rights Institute found that 82.5 percent of Americans — including 78.7 percent of blacks—support federal legislation to outlaw government discrimination based on "race, color, gender, ethnicity or national origin...
...When her husband was criticized by environmentalists, he had himself photographed at a national park...
...Anchors: These are unpopular issues that a candidate cannot abandon, lest he lose the support of his main financial and/or ideological backers...
...By 2000 Republicans may add the banning of all third trimester abortions—Sen...
...Tom Daschle's idea —to the contract...
...Shields: These protect a candidate or party against the full weight of an enemy's blows...
...Farmers and small businessmen cannot stand with a Democratic Party that would destroy their life's work...
...Jon Kyl has twenty-nine co-sponsors in the Senate...
...That's when a shield comes in handy, or a boomerang...
...While George Wallace once said there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the parties, for millions of Americans that difference could amount to several hundred thousand dollars in additional family income—a pretty good reason to get mom and dad and the kids to the polls...
...The chamber of commerce crowd, builders, manufacturers, doctors, hospitals, pub owners, and scientists all support serious tort reform...
...More than 6o percent own their own homes...
...While Bill Clinton remains anchored to the trial lawyers, high-tech companies hate them...
...It will require a two-thirds vote of Congress to raises taxes or create new ones...
...Clinton's party remains anchored to this losing issue by the ideological inflexibility of the feminist movement...
...So far that makes seven issues—leaving three openings for the Contract With America 2000...
...and-file Democrats outraged by party leaders who were soft on Communism...
...The agreement also serves as a magnet since it completes the promises made in the 1994 Contract...
...Some traditional Republican issues no longer resonate, if only because "new" Democrats cannot be counted on to apologize for Soviet imperialism, denounce the death penalty, or oppose a balanced budget on principle...
...Strategic Defense Initiative: Americans wony about the ballistic missiles now being sold in bazaars from Tehran to Shanghai...
...When blasted by Republicans for his pro-abortion views, Massachusetts' William Weld responded by becoming the most pro-adoption governor in the nation...
...Chris Cox has 15o co-sponsors on legislation to abolish the estate tax...
...Such a campaign would be unprecedented, and conservative activists are already busy trying to get their favorite issues into the Contract...
...He foresees a parliamentary-like campaign in which the entire national party runs on a unified platform...
...Allen re-framed the issue by saying, "Of course, Mary Sue Terry wants to talk about gun control, because she doesn't want to talk about my call to abolish parole for violent offenders...
...Bill Clinton pulls a similar trick when he stands on Republican turf and is photographed with scads of uniformed police...
...Big Labor is a similar anchor on Clinton...
...Turf Issues: These involve of a dramatic crossover into an opponent's territory...
...Now there is: the hard-left feminists' support of killing a partially delivered baby...
...The new code will tax income at one rate —not at progressive or graduated rates...
...With two-thirds of Americans under 30 telling pollsters they could become millionaires in their lifetime, the country is not ripe for the politics of class division, envy, and hatred...
...Boomerangs: These allow a candidate to respond to an attack by reframing the issue to his advantage...
...Republicans cannot walk away from opposition to gun control or pro-life positions or they lose their activists...
...There will be a generous family allowance and few loopholes...
...60 September 1997 • The American Spectator I n preparing for 1998 and 2000, Republicans will need to approach issues with the above tactics in mind...
...Popular revulsion with this procedure is so strong that two-thirds of the House and 64 Senators voted to override Clinton's veto of the ban...
...In the 1993 Virginia governor's race in Virginia, Democrat Mary Sue Terry thought she had an anchor in George Allen's stalwart opposition to gun control...
...Even if the Canady-Hatch Civil Rights Act of 1997 passes in this Congress or the next, Clinton will veto it...
...The GOP's reputation for good government and honest opposition to big city corruption attracts voters to candidates like New York mayor Rudy Guiliani...
...Here Democrats are anchored by their ideology...
...For one thing, the November 2000 election will be both post–Cold War and post-Clinton...
...They need not be as divisive as wedges...
...Democratic contempt for strategic defense reminds Americans that the left trusts our enemies, doesn't believe in American technology and science, and prefers treaties to strength...
...Republicans will be looking for new issues to unite and motivate their center-right coalition and to divide, weaken and dispirit the Democrats...
...Individual Democrats may jump ship, but the party can't afford to...
...As Republicans publicly debate radical tax reform, Democrats will be left defending the present system and the IRS...
...Abolition of the Estate Tax and the Capital Gains Tax While Democrats continue to invoke class warfare, the Republican center-right is united by tax cuts that reward investment and hard work...
...Meanwhile, the Democrats are anchored to the no-choice position by the National Education Association's money...
...But now the Soviet Union is gone, some Republicans have swallowed the media's line that abortion is a loser, and Mario Cuomo was probably the last major Democrat to publicly oppose the death penalty...
...The next GOP convention is not likely to waste its time fighting over abortion...
...When Mrs...
...In 1988, Michael Dukakis and the Democrats were believed to hold the environmental high ground—until George Bush showed up in Boston and famously denounced Dukakis's failure as Massachusetts governor to clean up the city's harbor...
...Anchored to an unpopular or controversial position, a candidate can expect his opponent will hit him with everything he's got...
...Here are some of the issues likely to be injected into the Contract With America 2000: School Choice: Allowing parents to choose from among public, private, or religious schools is an issue tailor-made for GOP strategists: It unites social and economic conservatives and divides the Democrats...
...They'll be filled as GOP presidential candidates and backbenchers alike compete to move their ideas—and themselves —to the forefront of the race for 2000...
...Already they've turned this year's balanced-budget agreement into a shield against Democratic charges that they're too radical to govern and too reckless to compromise...
...Sales Tax: The Contract with America 2000 will formalize what's become the Republican consensus: The present tax code is history, and it will be replaced as soon as a Republican president and Congress are in power together...
...Crime and the death penalty also helped split average Democrats from their liberal leadership, as did abortion, particularly among Catholic and evangelical Protestant Democrats...
...Building SDI defenses will allow Republicans to restore the common-sense coalition that supported a strong defense in the Cold War...
...Here's a wedge that drives businessmen and women away from the Democrat Party...
...By opposing capital gains and estate tax cuts they remind Americans they are stuck in Depression-era thinking, blind to the changes that have put property and wealth within the reach of all Americans...
...This issue will be alive and kicking in 2000...
...Support for tax cuts is an especially strong Republican magnet...
...Voters will know that if they elect a Republican president and Congress they can expect the entire Republican program to be enacted...
...He wants that year's Republican candidates for the House, Senate, and presidency to run as a team committed to enacting a ten-point Contract with America z000...
...Reagan was called insensitive, she visited with children suffering from AIDS...
...On SDI Democrats have no shield.44 He foresees a parliamentary-like campaign in which the entire party runs on a unified platform...
Vol. 30 • September 1997 • No. 9
