Can the GOP Win?
REED, RALPH
Can the GOP Win? Robert Novak's strategy for Republican victory in the 2000 election. BY RALPH REED Robert Novak is a Washington institution: a fixture on television talk shows and a columnist...
...The GOP is not normally in the business of taking advice from journalists who are, as Novak happens to be, registered Democrats...
...If the GOP is to win, it must remain true not only to its economic philosophy but to its values as well...
...On taxes, Republicans should call for across-the-board reductions and a complete overhaul of the IRS...
...Novak argues that they should stick to their philosophical guns...
...They should run instead on a bold conservative philosophy that stresses compassion and the inclusion of all Americans...
...Novak correctly observes that pro-family positions have helped create a majority party, particularly in the South and the Midwest...
...He is also the author of Completing the Revolution, a recent book that offers a strategy for 2000...
...Robert Novak has done Republicans a service...
...Republicans, however, must put forward their message of values and tax reductions in a way that is not exclusionary...
...What is undeniable is that Republicans have been unable to govern the country from Capitol Hill...
...Scandals and all, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to serve two complete terms...
...In 1978, Georgia had one Republican congressman...
...Bill Clinton posed as a different kind of Democrat, favoring some free trade, supporting the death penalty, calling for a middle-class tax cut, and promising to "end welfare as we know it...
...Here is an area Republicans have too long conceded to Democrats, with disastrous consequences...
...During periods of personal income tax reduction (as stock-market guru Charles Kadlec recently observed), economic growth has averaged 3.7 percent...
...But it ought to do so now, for Novak argues that RepubliRalph Reed is a Republican strategist and president of Century Strategies...
...During the government shutdown of 1995 and 1996, Republicans came under withering criticism for everything from shuttered national parks to delayed Social Security checks...
...He has reminded them who they are and why they believe what they do...
...Since World War II, Republicans have tended to form the presidential party, while Democrats belonged to the congressional party...
...And during periods of free trade and open markets, economic growth has soared to 4.2 percent, while stock market returns have reached almost 15 percent...
...Today they hold all twenty-nine...
...In this sense, the party's support for stronger families ought not to be conveyed as a condemnation of others...
...The current strong economy is simply an extension of the economic boom unleashed in the 1980s by President Reagan's policy of cutting taxes and opening markets...
...BY RALPH REED Robert Novak is a Washington institution: a fixture on television talk shows and a columnist with the longest-running byline in journalism...
...The result is a stalemate leading to the 2000 election, an election in which the party winning the White House will appoint three Supreme Court justices and hundreds of federal judges...
...cans should stop apologizing for being Republicans...
...Republicans, meanwhile, became the congressional party, gaining control of Congress in 1994 and then holding it for their longest tenure since 1926...
...Novak claims, however, that the Republican Congress has been badly outmaneuvered by Clinton...
...Not since 1980 has an election had such far-reaching consequences...
...In doing so, Clinton made his party viable again in presidential politics...
...This transformation has been made possible, at least in part, by the movement of people of faith into the Republican party...
...There is more than a political rationale for lower taxes and open markets...
...If they manage to remember that—running on a bold and positive agenda—they can win in 2000...
...As recently as 1990, Republicans held only two statewide offices in Texas...
...Clinton, after all, signed much of the Contract With America's tax cut and sweeping changes in welfare...
...This is true in a sense, but Republicans have often triumphed in policy...
...sovereignty...
...So, what should Republicans do to win in 2000...
...An important issue for Republicans that receives only glancing notice in Novak's book is education...
...On trade, they should call for open markets while defending U.S...
...And who can forget that it was Clinton who announced in 1996, however disingenuously, "The era of big government is over...
...All that changed in 1992...
...Today it has eight out of eleven...
...While calling for tax cuts and economic growth, the party must not neglect those that have been left behind during the current prosperity: the students in failing schools, the families in decaying inner cities, and the people who cannot read or find a quality job...
...The GOP Novak sadly recounts, has been tame ever since...
...Fortunately, GOP governors such as George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, John Engler, Frank Keating, and Tom Ridge have fought for and passed reforms that stress higher standards, basic skills, greater accountability, and school choice...
...The GOP should make clear what it is for, not just what it is against...
Vol. 5 • May 2000 • No. 33
