Republicans' 'Liberal' Attacks on Democrats Losing Their Sting
For many election cycles, Democrats have had major problems with being tagged as tax-and-spend liberals. The "L word" was a motto used by Republican candidates to sink their Democratic rivals.
Guess what? The Republican brand may be the losing one in 2008. Even some Republicans are openly talking about it in the face of significant losses in recent special elections.
Previously-held GOP House seats in Illinois, Louisiana, and even Mississippi have been won by Democrats. The Republican candidates looked to the L word and linked it to Sen. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal.
It didn't work.
Some Republicans on Capital Hill are scurrying around for answers. For instance, a new slogan, The Change You Deserve, was trotted out.
One little problem there was that the word change has been a constant drumbeat by Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Even a Republican veteran in Congress, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, said his party was in its worst condition since the Watergate scandal. The GOP lost 47 seats in the House in the first post-Watergate election.
Davis is not seeking re-election this year although he could probably have held his seat. The Democrats could capture it.
All of this occurred while President Bush was on a swing through the Middle East with almost nothing to show for it.
The president inserted himself into the presidential race by calling it appeasement to talk to terrorists or radicals. He told the Knesset in Jerusalem that it reminded him of actions before the German Army swept into Poland in World War II.
The next stop was Saudi Arabia, where the leaders of the kingdom were not pleased with Bush's warming words to the Israelis. Bush's call for increased oil production fell on near deaf ears in a country we have been generous toward with arms.
Before a return to Washington, Bush had words of warning for the Palestinians and the Israelis on the need for peace and a Palestinian state. That did not sit well with either side.
So the L word may still be a call to arms by the Republicans this fall, but voters may not be listening.
Tags: Democrats | elections | liberals | Republicans
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Reader Comments
The change we really deserve.
I find it hilarious that the Republican party came up with any slogan with the word 'change' in it. As a conservative party, by its very nature, it is meant and seen to preserve and perpetuate the status quo. So how I read that slogan is, "We're not changing anything." Not because they won't. But because they can't. They're conservatives. Conservatives don't change anything.
Chalk it up to Bush's stubbornness and the Republican Congress' willingness to cater to his every whim, or to the fact that the ship of state grounded on the rocks of economic, environmental and political disaster under the Republican leadership. That's not the change we deserve. Shedding that image will take far more than a sound bite or a slogan or campaign promises. And so far, that's all they've given us.
If being a 'tax and spend' liberal is a bad thing, how much worse is being a tax cut and spend conservative? At least the liberals know that when you over-spend, you have to pay for it somehow and preferably not by indenturing our children's children's children as the Republicans have done.
The Republicans had their chance and they blew it. BIG TIME. When the status quo sucks, screaming "LIBERAL!!!!" at one's opponent is equivalent to saying, "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DO WHAT I DID!!!!" And we, the voters, are saying, "Thanks god that liberal is going to FINALLY bring the change we deserve."
Why it doesn't work.
It's kind of hard to make an accusation of "tax and spend liberals" sting when you and your party have been "cut tax and spend liberals" for going on 8 years.
When you get elected to office on a platform of limited government and fiscal responsibility and then you expand government power over people at record rates and engage in what is best described as "drunken debt spending sprees", you really do look like a fool if you try to preach against what you just got done engaging in.
The republican party has been the party of big brother government spending our future tax dollars with wreckless abandon and having nothing to show for it but an anemic economy teetering on the brink of ruin.
Stupid slogan
The Republican's "new" slogan, "The change you deserve" shows their complete and utter desperation. Not only does their emphasis of "change" make them look like second-bananas to Obama (where have they been the past year, and when was this slogan cooked up, 1992?) but of it's OBVIOUS vulnerability...
You mean there's change we DON'T deserve? How dare you!
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John W. Mashek covered politics in Washington for four decades with U.S. News & World Report, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Boston Globe. His primary beats were Congress, the White House, and national politics. He covered every presidential election from 1960 to 1996. He was a panelist in three televised presidential debates in 1984, 1988, and 1992.