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The Seductive Lure of "Ideas"
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Some Republicans want a new "Contract With America." It won't make a difference one way or the other.
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http://prospect.org/article/seductive-allure-ideas
In 1994, as Republicans were headed for a historic midterm election victory, Newt Gingrich and his compatriots produced the "Contract With America," a point-by-point description of what they wanted to do should they prove victorious. After the election, there was much talk in the media about how their agenda for change had won the day, but the truth was that barely anybody noticed it. A poll from ABC News and the Washington Post in January of 1995—that is, after all the press coverage—found 55.6 percent of respondents saying they had never heard of the Contract, and given that people are generally reluctant to express ignorance about anything in polls, the real number was almost certainly higher.
The Contract itself was a mixture of minor procedural reforms (eliminate the casting of proxy votes in committee markups!), poll-tested nostrums, and what passed for conservative good-government reforms at the time (term limits, a presidential line-item veto). That few voters knew any of its content wasn't surprising. But the idea of ideas—that the existence of the Contract meant this was the party that was thinking thoughts, imagining change, and looking boldly toward a future of transformation (to cite one of Newt's favorite words)—was extremely powerful for those who got swept into office that year. It formed, for many of them, a narrative to explain how they had been successful, and one far more appealing than the truth, which was that the president's party always loses seats in the first midterms, Clinton was struggling particularly, and a lot of Republicans turned out to vote.
You may recall that the next major Republican sweep, in 2010, had no "ideas" behind it, unless you consider "Grrrr, Obama bad!" to be an idea. But the electoral impotence of ideas has not lost its allure, which is why Republicans are now talking about coming up with a new Contract With America for voters to ignore.
The Contract itself was a mixture of minor procedural reforms (eliminate the casting of proxy votes in committee markups!), poll-tested nostrums, and what passed for conservative good-government reforms at the time (term limits, a presidential line-item veto). That few voters knew any of its content wasn't surprising. But the idea of ideas—that the existence of the Contract meant this was the party that was thinking thoughts, imagining change, and looking boldly toward a future of transformation (to cite one of Newt's favorite words)—was extremely powerful for those who got swept into office that year. It formed, for many of them, a narrative to explain how they had been successful, and one far more appealing than the truth, which was that the president's party always loses seats in the first midterms, Clinton was struggling particularly, and a lot of Republicans turned out to vote.
You may recall that the next major Republican sweep, in 2010, had no "ideas" behind it, unless you consider "Grrrr, Obama bad!" to be an idea. But the electoral impotence of ideas has not lost its allure, which is why Republicans are now talking about coming up with a new Contract With America for voters to ignore.