The Unready Republicans

By Ross Douthat
NYT

When a political party suffers two consecutive thrashings at the polls, its supporters can usually look forward to a long period of exile — a time to lick wounds, settle scores, feud over policy and gradually map out a road back to relevance.

Not so the Obama-era Republicans. They were thumped in 2006 and left for dead after 2008, but all it took was a 9.6 unemployment rate and an unpopular liberal majority to bring them roaring back. The wilderness era lasted all of 22 months: conservatives had barely started arguing about what went wrong during the Bush era before the American public handed them the House of Representatives again.

To his credit, John Boehner, the presumptive speaker of the House, seems aware of how little the Republicans have done to earn their summons back to power. His rhetoric since last Tuesday’s sweep has been self-effacing, and his promises have been limited and largely procedural. Newt Gingrich took power in 1994 claiming a mandate and brandishing a list of legislative priorities, but Boehner has kept his cards closer to the vest. “It is the president who sets the agenda for our government,” he told supporters on Tuesday night — not the kind of statement, to put it mildly, that leading Republicans issued in ’94.

The modest Mr. Boehner leads a party with much to be modest about. Gingrich could brandish an agenda because he had an agenda — a raft of conservative policy proposals, on welfare and crime and taxes, that couldn’t get any traction in a Democratic-controlled Congress. Today’s Republicans, by contrast, know what they’re against (the health care bill, tax increases, cap and trade) but have a world of trouble saying what they might actually be for.

(More here.)