Republicans Should Embrace "Party of No" Label

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

In the current issue of the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes makes the best case I've seen (and the only one) for the GOP to embrace being the Party of No—and why, historically, it's led to Republican landslides in 1938, 1946, 1966, 1980 and 1994. And while he encourages new ideas from Republican thinkers, Barnes believes it's more important to oppose bad ideas from the Obama administration on a number of policy fronts:

Opposing Obama across-the-board on his sweeping domestic initiatives makes sense on substance and politics. His policies—on spending, taxes, health care, energy, intervention in the economy, etc.—would change the country in ways most Americans don't believe in. That's the substance. And a year or 18 months from now, after those policies have been picked apart and exposed and possibly defeated, the political momentum is likely to have shifted away from Obama and Democrats...

There's no reason for Republicans to hold back. It's evident now that Obama and the congressional Democrats have no interest in compromise. Their intent is to push far-reaching liberal policies through Congress quickly and with minimal debate.

Barnes makes a solid case against the administration's plans not only on health care and the environment, but on further Big Two bailouts and the closing of Guantanamo, neither of which is a slam-dunk with the American people. And while GOP efforts to avoid being tagged with the 'Party of No' label are understandable, he writes, Republicans have a lot more to gain by saying "no, no, no, a thousand times no" than by agreeing to bad policies that the American people oppose. Time for "aggressive, attention-grabbing opposition" to the Obama agenda. I think he's right.

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