Below The Beltway

In yesterday’s Examiner, Byron York reports that a Republican strategist has talked to him about a major shift in Republican strategy:

The Republican leadership in the House has concluded that in the stimulus debate, the GOP succeeded in dominating a number of news cycles but failed to score any points on actual policy. That, the leaders believe, has got to change.

“You’re seeing a major doctrinal shift in how Republicans are going to focus all these debates,” the strategist told me. “The key is to focus on winning the issue as opposed to winning the political moment. If you win the issue, people will think you are ready to govern.”

I asked him to elaborate a little. “With the political moment, it’s how can you find the one thing that gives you the momentary upper hand in terms of the coverage for the next six hours — as opposed to engaging the electorate in creating a structural change in their opinion on which party is better able to handle an issue.”

During the stimulus debate, the strategist argued, Republicans had an actual alternative but were unable to direct much attention to it — in part because they were focusing so much of their rhetoric on the massive and unnecessary spending in the bill. The debate became a question of an up-or-down decision on the Obama/Democratic plan — not a choice between the Obama/Democratic plan and a Republican plan. “The coverage of the stimulus bill focused on the difference between the House and Senate versions,” the strategist told me, “which were basically two sides of the same coin.” The Republican role was limited to a) saying no to the Obama/Democratic bill, and b) having three moderates in the Senate approve of the bill as long as it offered a little less than what Democrats proposed. The idea that Republicans, mostly in the House, had an actual full-scale alternative, was lost. “On the Sunday talk shows, right after it passed, find me one person who mentioned the Republican alternative,” the strategist said.

On the surface, this sounds like a good idea.

To a large degree, the Republicans don’t really have control of their future because, if the economy improves Obama will get the credit regardless of how many arguments are made that he doesn’t really deserve it. What is in their control, however, is the message that they present to the public and, as I noted yesterday, they do need to make some changes there:

[T]he Republicans have no credibility right now and continued repitition of the same lines they were using during the campaign, right down to the old “socialism” tag, isn’t going to work. If the GOP is going to come out of this any time soon, they have to do two things; (1) Purge themselves of the leadership that led them to this disaster, and (2) Communicate to the American public a platform that amounts to more than just saying “no” all the time.

From York’s article, it sounds like they’re at least talking about accomplishing point # 2.