"Yes, Republicans can win without offering an agenda"

Yes, Republicans can win without offering an agenda

By Paul Waldman at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/09/25/yes-republicans-can-win-without-offering-an-agenda/?tid=rssfeed

"SNIP........................

All were primarily negative campaigns won for negative reasons. In 2010 and 2006, voters were mad at the president. In 2002 voters were just terrified, and in 1998 they were disgusted with the Republicans.

Ah, you say, but what about the original Contract With America? Wasn’t that inspiring document the surfboard of glory on which Newt Gingrich and the Republicans rode to victory in 1994? No, it wasn’t. Polling before the election showed that few voters had the faintest idea what it was.


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It is sometimes said that parties need a “positive agenda” so that they have a template for governing — something around which they can claim a “mandate” once they win. But there’s no reason to believe that’s true, either. The fact is that once a party has control of one or both houses of Congress, it will do whatever it is going to do, regardless of whether it has whatever it is we call a “mandate.” Every election winner acts as though they have one, whether they campaigned on a “positive agenda” or not.

It may be helpful for a particular candidate to show her voters that she’s got shiny new ideas about where the country should go. But overall the party will do just as well (or as poorly) whether they have an agenda or not. Consequential policy issues like whose chickens crapped on whose lawn could actually be enough to help swing the Senate this time.



..........................SNIP"