Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has the right idea. He turned on the Republican national leadership yesterday at the annual governors conference in Arizona, his last day as head of the association before he passes the torch to Chris Christie, and called on them to employ a new technique.
“We no longer want to outsource our brand management to the folks in DC,” Jindal said. “Too often in Washington, we are defined as the party of no. Too often we’re defined by what we’re against. We need to do a better job as a party of defining what we are for.”
Jindal’s advice couldn’t come at a better time. With the ObamaCare rollout a complete and utter failure, the possibility of delaying the individual mandate up for discussion and more Democrats turning on the President every day, there is certainly an opportunity for the Republicans to set out an alternative plan and to garner widespread support.
“ObamaCare has to be repealed – I think it’s an awful solution – but the president was right in diagnosing the problems with the American healthcare system,” Jindal told the Guardian. He went on: “So just repealing ObamaCare is not enough. The status quo is not enough because those problems are still there.”
As I have argued for years now, the Republicans have to offer a viable alternative strategy to Democrat plans. It really isn’t enough just to say that ObamaCare is a bad policy – in truth, many legislators on both sides of the aisle are in agreement on that fact at this point. The question then becomes what is the Republican health care plan?
What’s more, immigration reform is set to be a big issue for the 2014 midterm elections and the Republicans have yet another opening to articulate their vision in positive terms as opposed to just disagreeing with the Democrats. Americans have shown that they’re open to many perspectives on immigration policy. But up until this point there has been no coherent narrative. This is a chance for Republicans to put something out there that will unify the party and, at the same time, hopefully sway Hispanic voters who would vote Democrat.
Paul Ryan’s work with Patty Murray on the budget is another opportunity for Republicans to show that they have a plan and, crucially, that they can compromise. That said, all reports out of Congress are that the budget conference is “hobbling along.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever get a budget deal done,” Democrat Congressman Collin Peterson said. “I would be shocked, but I’ve been wrong before.”
To be sure, it’s the responsibility of both parties to work together to get a budget deal and both Ryan and Murray have come to the negotiating table with their own plans – plans that they are attached to.
But at the end of the day, the onus is really on the Republicans to show that they can do better than they have, to show that they can play nice and that they can be something other than the party of no, as Jindal put it.
I remain unconvinced that the Republican establishment and, indeed, the Tea Party wing will come around to Jindal’s logic. But as Congressman Peterson said, I’ve been wrong before.
