Once impeachment is over, the Republicans will launch a furious debate on how to get out of this fix. One side of the party thinks the answer is to go more aggressively conservative: brag about the impeachment fight and promise to cut taxes by 30 percent. But the party establishment prefers another course. They would not put it this way, but their strategy is to Clintonize the GOP by using the same tactics that the president used to modernize the Democrats to renovate the Republicans. This view may prevail: the events of the past few years–Newt’s rise and fall, the impeachment war–have hurt the right wing. And in the last 47 years there has been only one Republican presidential ticket that didn’t have a Nixon, Dole or Bush on it (1964), and 2000 may continue the trend. Here are the Clintonite strategies the party leaders are likely to use to redefine the GOP:
Pull a Sister Souljah. In 1992 Clinton attacked the rap artist Sister Souljah to prove he was no captive of the cultural left. Republican leaders may try to find some figure to demonize to prove they aren’t captives of the cultural right. This does not mean going after the pro-life movement, as some of the big GOP donors would like. That would be political suicide. Instead it means maybe singling out one of the conspiracy types who accuse Bill Clinton of murdering Vince Foster. Or it might mean picking a fight with some conservative on tolerance toward homosexuality.
The compassion card. Bill Clinton steals GOP ideas. Now Republicans are stealing Democratic feelings. They’re going to be so soft and sentimental they’ll make Alan Alda look like Patton. ““The most successful politics of the future is the politics of the soul,’’ says presidential hopeful John Kasich, promoting his new book of heartwarming stories about children with fatal diseases. Last month Jeb Bush had a meeting with anti-affirmative-action activist Ward Connerly, and Bush came out saying he’s no confrontationalist. Connerly, Bush said, ““wants a war. I’m a lover.''
‘Constructive government.’ When the GOP took over Congress in 1995, it said government’s only job was to get out of the way. That approach gave Republicans something to be against–but not much to be for. Now the GOP elite is trying to be more positive. In his State of the State speech, Texas Gov. George W. Bush spoke of ““limited and constructive government.’’ He championed GOP core issues like tax cuts and school choice, but also some quintessentially Clintonite items, like tax cuts for diapers (how did Dick Morris miss that one?).
Right now, the GOP is so scared of total meltdown that it’s going to do whatever it takes to win. Even if it means imitating Bill Clinton.
