House GOP, “Can We Get a Mulligan?”

It’s been driving me INSANE listening to people claim that “oh well, the Republican’s opposed to stimulus but didn’t present a plan of their own.” I actually yelled at Mika Bernenski this morning when she said that to Michael Steele (and her I actually like). Never mind the hearings Eric Cantor held or the twenty-five different plans and/or amendments that were unanimously reject by the Democrats, we didn’t present any alternatives. The television told me so.

Here’s the rub though…it’s our fault. You and I know we had mad alternatives, the R’s in the House and Senate knows we had mad alternatives, but the cats on the television were more concerned with winning the daily news cycle my pointing out the wasteful spending in the bill. And while that was good for firing up the base (which we desperately needed), it rapidly turned the debate against us.

That’s all going to change. As per Byron York, who knows a thing or two aboot a thing or two…

I just got off the phone with a very plugged-in Republican strategist who told me that Republican reaction to President Obama’s speech, which the party will roll out in the next few days, will mark the beginning of a new GOP approach to opposing the president’s initiatives. (No, Bobby Jindal’s ineffective response was not part of that new approach — everyone seems a little embarrassed about that.) The Republican leadership in the House has concluded that in the stimulus debate, the GOP succeeded in dominating a number of news cycles but failed to score any points on actual policy. That, the leaders believe, has got to change.

The Republican role was limited to a) saying no to the Obama/Democratic bill, and b) having three moderates in the Senate approve of the bill as long as it offered a little less than what Democrats proposed. The idea that Republicans, mostly in the House, had an actual full-scale alternative, was lost. “On the Sunday talk shows, right after it passed, find me one person who mentioned the Republican alternative,” the strategist said.

So now Republicans want to try something new. They point to last year’s debate over energy, in which the GOP got the upper hand on the issue of drilling — so much so that majority Democrats were forced to retreat from their position. That, the strategist says, was the kind of clearly-articulated policy alternative that Republicans will be seeking to put forward today.

Here’s an example I’d like to see. I’m employed by a small business. 70% of American’s are employed by small businesses. Do you know how much of the stimulus bill helps small businesses? 1%. So unless you’re in construction or a Democrat special interest group, the stimulus bill doesn’t really stimulate your economy all that much…except for the extra $13 or so a week, that you’re going to lose in two years anyways.

I’d like to hear the GOP talk more aboot how they intend on helping the 70% of us who are employed by these small businesses, and less aboot President Pelosi’s rodents or Harry Reid’s new toy train set.

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