It could well be time for a lot of Republicans to start thinking about re-election and perhaps shave some of the edge off of their assault on just about everything connected to government.
Purity of message is one of those campaign things that always gives way in the sausage-making of governing. In the end, the essence of an idea may remain, but very well disguised. Sometimes something that sounded dandy when you were shouting it in a room full of followers sort of sticks out quite unpleasantly in the larger arena.
Over in Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law that will lop six weeks from the unemployment benefit program, this in a state with unemployment above 10 percent. Ohio leveled its own whack at public employee bargaining, too. Up in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker stepped away, for now, from squeezing most of the juice from collective bargaining.
Indiana Democrats finally felt it was safe to leave Illinois, where they were in self-imposed exile, and return home after they got some minor concessions from Republicans on school vouchers and right to work legislation.
I understand completely how all of this happened.
Loads of people sat on their hands last November and avoided the polls, while passionate tea party folks and other conservatives showed up in force. That sent Democrats packing everywhere and cleared the way for GOP-heavy state legislatures to start pushing agenda items into law.
All of these conservative politicians might well argue, “We’re doing the people’s business,” and they are exactly right. However, the larger question is, “Which people?” They were all elected by people angry about government for many reasons.
But I’m looking at the polls, and it’s not clear to me that there is much support for any of this stuff across the general electorate. Only about a quarter of the people questioned by polling companies identify themselves as tea partiers, who generally are not viewed favorably.
On the issues of unions, polling results show 81 percent of those questioned believe workers should have the right to form unions and negotiate for better conditions in the private sector, and 67 percent feel the same about the public sector.
When you ask people whether firefighters, cops, nurses in public hospitals, teachers, maintenance supervisors, all kinds of public employees should have the right to bargain collectively, the support is very strong for everyone but custodial workers.
My argument would be that the governors and lawmakers in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana are overplaying their hands, and they are likely to pay for it in the fall of 2012, assuming the economy improves enough to give people some reason for optimism. (I admit, that’s a big assumption. But things are slowly picking up.)
Can the Republicans afford to be on the wrong side of a much bigger presidential year electorate?
Barack Obama is not history’s most popular president and, to be sure, there will always be a slice of America that views him as a Kenyan-born socialist (generally I suspect people who cannot point to Kenya on a map and have no idea what socialism is about) or closet Marxist.
It’s important to understand that no one can change the minds of these folks, so they should just be ignored in a determined way.
But they have the Republicans in a bind. On the national stage, no clear Republican presidential contender has emerged, but no matter who ultimately gets the nod, the candidate might have to defend all kinds of tea party and conservative attacks on government services, including the holy of holies, Social Security.
This is old philosophy coming back with its teeth bared.
There was one theory years ago that the Republicans wanted to cause fiscal chaos because that would be their chance to get rid of everything they didn’t like. I don’t believe that, but I do believe they know a good opportunity when they see one.
State budgets are in the tank everywhere, so it’s a good time to start pruning away everything on the grounds it is too costly. Heaven forbid anyone would suggest tax increases.
And ever since the sainted Ronald Reagan announced that government was not the solution, it was the cause of all our problems, a slab of the Republican electorate has been full of juice for anything that cuts government size or services.
But we do not live in Sherwood Forest and are not united in opposing the oppression of the bad king.
It could well be that you believe public employee unions are the worst things ever, but not everyone agrees. It could be you think Social Security should be privatized, means tested, whatever, but I suggest most people would not agree. It could be you think the Obama health care program is evil on wheels, and most people … wait a minute, lots of people … don’t like the idea of it, but the opposition melts away when people are asked about specifics, like protection for children with pre-existing conditions.
Watching politics over time, what one finds is that it’s great to have a Sarah Palin hopping up and down and waving her arms, but she did quit her last elected job two years early, so what does that say?
And almost every other Republican candidate has some big or little problem that will become the topic of heated conversation should a presidential campaign effort emerge. Newt Gingrich is very smart, but there’s the divorce problem. Mitt Romney is a great contender, but how will people feel about a Mormon or perhaps worse for Republicans, a guy who enacted Obama’s health care plan first when he was governor of Massachusetts?
Mike Huckabee? Rick Santorum? Haley Barbour? Aahhhhhm-a-thinkin’ nope.
Besides, if the backdrop for any potential Republican contender is a collection of state-level actions that are widely unpopular, the Republicans will be handing the Democrats an agenda even before the campaign heats up.
An interesting year stretches in front of us.
Charles M. Madigan is presidential writer in residence at Roosevelt University and the author of “Destiny Calling: How the People Elected Barack Obama.”
