Republican Conundrum

One of the more delicious events in recent politics has been played out over the last few days. It was the complete undermining of the GOP’s Senate leadership by its own ranks.

Last week we went from one extreme to another as the GOP desperately tried to maintain any form of relevance in the face of the rapid public reaction to the Goldman scandal.

One day we had McConnell announcing the rock solid opposition of his caucus to any form of reform. Next we had the Goldman scandal break. Then we had Senator Grassley break ranks and support the Democrats in pressing for derivative regulation. After that the dam seems to have burst and the GOP leaders were swept away by events and public opinion firming against them. Even in these days of partisan divide, a full 61% of the public support strong bank regulation. With the tide turning so strongly the Democrats way, they have become more and more determined to avoid the farcical slow motion ‘negotiation’ that accompanied health care reform. Instead they are steadily walking back compromise proposals and taking a good look at amendments that would beef the law up.

Within this sudden turn of events the GOP appears totally lost and irrelevant.

That raises quite a conundrum.

The entire GOP strategy in the Obama presidency has been based on the idea that they can stall, obstruct, and maintain an uncooperative stance on all major legislation, the notion being to paint the Democrats as ‘big government’ social worker types intent on undermining ‘good old American values’ – whatever they are.

The plan worked well, and, in the absence of a solid Democratic rejoinder, nearly derailed health care reform, which was an issue easily painted as ‘big government’.

The problem with bank reform is that, while it is clearly an abandonment of Reagan style Republicanism, and implies the use of a heavy government hand in the economy, it is extremely popular with voters and appears to be getting more popular. The banks have done their utmost to solidify public opinion against them, and the public seems, at last, to be comprehending the catastrophic role the banks played in undermining our economy.

So, the GOP is faced with an awkward choice: does it keep up the implacable ‘no’ strategy? Or does it buckle in the face of public opinion and work alongside the very enemy it was just demonizing as anti-American?

I suppose this difficulty should stand as a warning to us all: if you want to oppose someone in politics, do so on the basis of a positive opinion about something – take a position – rather than simply hiding behind the word ‘no’.