What are the lessons of New York 26?<\/p>\n
We all know the narrative: \u00a0The GOP candidate was riding high until the Democrat shouted Medicare. \u00a0Does that mean Medicare is the new third rail of American politics? \u00a0Now that we are getting down to specifics of cutting spending, is the Tea Party finished? Are we back to the old politics of ever more spending, ever more debt?<\/p>\n
The short answers? No. \u00a0No. \u00a0Not a chance. \u00a0Following are key lessons of the Upstate New York voting.<\/p>\n
Lesson #1: Unless a candidate shows commitment and conviction, the GOP vote is easily splintered.<\/strong> We have known this since at least 1992, when Ross Perot split the vote of President George H.W. Bush and gave the presidency to Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n A sizeable part of the GOP vote of 1988 was frustrated with Mr. Bush\u2019s fiscal policies, breaking the no new taxes pledge in particular. \u00a0Polling in the period suggested that some voters were open to a businessman with a populist message. \u00a0I have long wondered if the Clinton campaign identified this frustrated group, understood the kind of candidate who would appeal to it, and directly or indirectly engineered Ross Perot\u2019s entry into the race. \u00a0But even if they did not, it has been clear ever since that a sizable part of the GOP vote has little or no institutional attachment to the party itself.<\/p>\n Some Republicans have dismissed the NY 26 outcome as a fluke. \u00a0How often do you have a third candidate in the field? \u00a0But Tea Party candidate Jack Davis got roughly nine percent of the vote. \u00a0Why?<\/p>\n According to reports, Republican Jane Corwin was a tepid, not even particularly knowledgeable carrier of the GOP message. Here is a lesson from 2010 that applies to 2011 in NY 26. \u00a0To hold its vote together, the GOP must put up candidates who understand why the vast run-ups in spending and debt of recent years must end \u2013 and who shows conviction in following through. \u00a0Otherwise a good portion of the GOP vote will head for the Tea Party hills.<\/p>\n Lesson #2: Seniors want to see knowledge and conviction, too. <\/strong>Republicans ask, how could seniors respond to the Democrats\u2019 Medi-scare message? \u00a0The Ryan Plan doesn\u2019t touch seniors. But just because the Democrats played Medi-scare music at a rock concert decibel level doesn\u2019t mean that voters heard what they were singing.<\/p>\n Here is an analogy. Bear with me.<\/p>\n In Florida, in the closing days of the 1994 gubernatorial race, Democrats launched a phone bank blitz aimed at elderly voters. \u00a0The robocall messages charged that GOP gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush would end Social Security. \u00a0Never mind that state governors have no power over Social Security, an entirely federal program. And yet the phone banks ended Bush\u2019s hopes that year.<\/p>\n Yes, some Florida seniors were ignorant and confused. \u00a0But a bigger factor was that Bush represented a new kind of leader for Florida. \u00a0He was change. \u00a0Was he hope? \u00a0In fatal fact, he had not yet established himself as someone to trust with a major shift in direction. \u00a0Four years later he had, and he won.<\/p>\n In NY 26, Corwin positioned herself as the candidate of change, but she blew an uncertain trumpet. \u00a0Would she hold steady on her pledge to fight for a 55-year-old limit to Medicare change? Would the Republicans generally?<\/p>\n As with GOP voters who split to the Tea Party, the key issue here is trust. \u00a0There is no substitute for candidates who convey clarity and conviction.<\/p>\n Lesson #3: \u00a0Remember that at stake is something bigger than any of us alone.<\/strong> First, there is Medicare itself. \u00a0Without change, it is doomed. \u00a0Projections have it eating up the entire federal budget \u2013 everything \u2013 within the lifetimes of today\u2019s young workers. \u00a0Every year, revised estimates bring the program\u2019s bankruptcy several years closer than before.<\/p>\n The same is true of Federal spending generally. \u00a0Bond raters talk of downgrading U.S. government debt. \u00a0The IMF warns that the borrowing can\u2019t go on and we are showing no will to control it. \u00a0The Chinese look for a way to reduce their dollar holdings. \u00a0Numerous nations look for an alternative reserve currency.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, a nation\u2019s military strength is built on its financial strength. \u00a0Already defense spending is being cut to levels some say are dangerous, to make way for the domestic spending boom. \u00a0Are we prepared to turn our country into just another global power, equal or subordinate to, say, China? \u00a0Is that the world we want to leave our children? \u00a0Or live in ourselves?<\/p>\n So what are the key lessons of NY 26?<\/p>\n In 2012, GOP candidates will not be able to wing it. \u00a0When they advocate cutting spending, they will need to know what they are talking about and believe it. \u00a0And they must be clear that the Democrat\u2019s alternative is not Bill Clinton\u2019s bridge to the future. \u00a0It is a bridge to nowhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What are the lessons of New York 26? We all know the narrative: \u00a0The GOP candidate was riding high until the Democrat shouted Medicare. \u00a0Does that mean Medicare is the new third rail of American politics? \u00a0Now that we are getting down to specifics of cutting spending, is the Tea Party finished? Are we back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-debt-crisis","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":949,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions\/949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}