Refreshing Talk From Miami
Byron York’s article for NRO is a great elixir for dispirited conservatives. Here’s the key portion of Mr. York’s column:
To hear Palin, as well as the other governors tell it, voters will be looking for future GOP leaders who are not like current GOP leaders. Here at the conference, when a speaker denounces “Washington D.C.,” he or she is politely referring to Republicans in Washington, D.C. Hence, Palin said, “Washington, D.C., leaders spent public money in disregard of the public interest, just like the opponents they used to criticize.” And Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, said Americans want “the kind of leadership that you see displayed by Republican governors, not necessarily what you see in Washington, D.C.” The dirtiest words here in Miami are “Washington, D.C., values.”
Now that Republicans are on the outs, they have decided that outside is the place to be.
And they’re probably right. For Republicans, the governors’ offices around the country are where ideas are likely to be applied practically, where political leadership will be discovered and tested, and where future national candidates will sharpen their governing skills. Although the loss of the presidential election is the backdrop to this meeting, everyone here will tell you that Republicans shouldn’t be thinking about 2012, because the way to build long-term success is by achieving short-term success.
“I thought Sarah was very right to say that we’re focused on 2009 and 2010,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told reporters. “Thirty-six governors’ races in 2010, including in Florida, that’s where our focus is. When I was chairman of the Republican National Committee the last time we lost the White House, after the 1992 election, we focused exclusively on 1993 and 1994. And at the end of that time, we had both houses of Congress with Republican majorities, and we’d gone from 17 Republican governors to 31. So anyone talking about 2012 today doesn’t have their eye on the ball. What we ought to worry about is rebuilding our party over the next year and particularly in 2010.”
GOP governors can’t afford to be unresponsive to their constituents. They have to actually listen. That’s something that most GOP legislators forget the minute they set foot in Washington, DC. The other major difference between GOP governors and GOP senators is that they aren’t listening to the constant defeatist drumbeat of the Washington media and the Beltway-bound Washington GOP parasites strategists.
In the mid- to late 90’s, Rebublican governors were the innovators. Tommy Thompson was the innovator on welfare reform. Bill Weld had a great reputation for welfare reform, too. John Engler was a great leader in education reform. He was a great tax cutter, too. Frank Keating and George Allen were rising stars, too.
I suspect that most of these gentlemen would win if they ran for US Senate. I particularly suspect that of Gov. Engler, who would be a stark contrast to Debbie Stabenow.
The past is the past, though. There are other current governors who deserve credit for being innovators. Jon Huntsman and Mitch Daniels are governors who can actually boast of still maintaining a budget surplus. Mitch Daniels won re-election in Indiana by 18 points. that’s some trick considering Barack Obama won by 26,000 votes.
The best thing about the current governors is that they aren’t associated in any way with the disastors that swept the GOP out of their majorities in the House and Senate. In fact, these governors have the opportunity to offer a competing vision of governance from Barack Obama’s governing vision.
Finally, these governors deal almost entirely with kitchen table and/or pocketbook issues. That’s exactly the message we need to tout from now until Election Day, 2010.
Technorati Tags: Governors, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Charlie Crist, John Engler, George Allen, Tommy Thompson, Reformers, Innovators, Barack Obama, Beltway
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog