What can Republicans talk about besides scandals?
By Frank Moraes
After reading John Dean's take on the recent scandals, I noticed that another of my favorite conservatives, Ramesh Ponnuru had waded into these waters with "'Obama Scandals' Could Actually Hurt Republicans."
I love those scare quotes in the title. The truth is that these aren't
really Obama's scandals, but it would be fair to call them Obama's
troubles.
The argument that Ponnuru made is a common one these days on the left: the Republicans might be overreaching on these issues. Coming from liberals, I'm unimpressed. Just like with the talk that the current scandals might turn out to involve Obama, the Republicans might overplay the scandals. The truth is that the Republicans don't exactly need these scandals to overplay their hand. Regardless, this wasn't Ponnuru's main point.
The big comparison for everyone seems to be 1998. That was Bill Clinton's sixth year. Clinton had been involved in a scandal regarding lying about an affair. The standard narrative is that the Republicans overplayed the scandal and ended up doing damage to themselves. It is widely believed that the president's party loses lots of seats in Congress during the president's sixth year in office (this is a myth). So when the Democrats picked up a couple of seats, everyone said it was because the Republicans angered the voters with all their focus on Cigar-Gate.
But Ponnuru showed that this wasn't the case. Only 5% of the voters in 1998 were motivated by the sex scandal and most of them voted against Clinton. The real story was that the voters cared about the economy and education (As usual!) and they were very unhappy with where the Republicans were on these issues. Ponnuru argued that the current crop of Republicans is being equally out of touch. And the scandals are just making it worse on them because it is allowing them to focus on scandals that will likely come to nothing rather than pushing for real policy changes. As he put it, "They’re trying to win news cycles when they need votes."
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The argument that Ponnuru made is a common one these days on the left: the Republicans might be overreaching on these issues. Coming from liberals, I'm unimpressed. Just like with the talk that the current scandals might turn out to involve Obama, the Republicans might overplay the scandals. The truth is that the Republicans don't exactly need these scandals to overplay their hand. Regardless, this wasn't Ponnuru's main point.
The big comparison for everyone seems to be 1998. That was Bill Clinton's sixth year. Clinton had been involved in a scandal regarding lying about an affair. The standard narrative is that the Republicans overplayed the scandal and ended up doing damage to themselves. It is widely believed that the president's party loses lots of seats in Congress during the president's sixth year in office (this is a myth). So when the Democrats picked up a couple of seats, everyone said it was because the Republicans angered the voters with all their focus on Cigar-Gate.
But Ponnuru showed that this wasn't the case. Only 5% of the voters in 1998 were motivated by the sex scandal and most of them voted against Clinton. The real story was that the voters cared about the economy and education (As usual!) and they were very unhappy with where the Republicans were on these issues. Ponnuru argued that the current crop of Republicans is being equally out of touch. And the scandals are just making it worse on them because it is allowing them to focus on scandals that will likely come to nothing rather than pushing for real policy changes. As he put it, "They’re trying to win news cycles when they need votes."
Read more »
Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, conservatives, John Dean, Ramesh Ponnuru, Republicans, scandals
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
4:30 PM
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