There’s a narrative that gets repeated quite often that goes like this. In the 1990’s, the Republican Party became a party of ideas which distinguished it from the tired old same-old policies of the Democrats that had been, on balance, running things in Congress for half a century. Some of those ideas came out of the ‘brilliant’ and iconoclastic mind of Newt Gingrich, but the rest came from a roster of talented governors like Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, George Pataki of New York, John Engler of Michigan, Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, and William Weld of Massachusetts (plus New York City’s mayor Rudy Guiliani). The reason this narrative keep coming up is because it is basically accepted that the Republicans currently serving in the nation’s capital have little to offer in the way of fresh ideas and it is hoped that new leadership will emerge from the states where Republicans still have power and where, rather than operating as an opposition, they must find solutions to the grave problems the country is facing.
Anytime this narrative appears in print, the same Republican governors get mentioned as the potential sources of the party’s intellectual revitalization: Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Loiusiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, and (for some asinine reason) Sarah Palin of Alaska. To be sure, these governors, like all governors, have to grapple with real-world revenue shortfalls, job loss, and the housing crisis. They cannot afford to ideologically oppose tax hikes when they have a Constitutional obligation to balance their state’s budgets.
So, ideally, they’ll have to come up with a distinctively Republican set of solutions for dealing with a new economic and political reality. If those solutions work better than the solutions attempted by their Democratic counterparts, they may strike upon the basis for a new GOP armed with new ideas for a new era. Or, so the reasoning goes…
However, any short-term hope for such a happy outcome has to be tempered by reports such as this:
BATON ROUGE, La. – A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.
Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.
I can’t imagine the governor of Louisiana turning down federal money for his state, but that’s exactly what Governor Jindal is threatening to do. And he is joined by all the other ‘great hopes’ so often listed in the narrative (save, Gov. Pawlenty of Minnesota).
Ironically, it may turn out to be true that the future of the GOP lies in the hands of a new breed of Republican governors who can overcome the ideology of the past and craft new solutions in a changing world. It just might be that the writers of the narrative have identified the wrong governors.
Not all Republican governors are reticent about using the federal cash.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist lobbied for the stimulus plan and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has embraced it as he looks to close a $2.6 billion deficit in the state’s budget this year. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has already figured the money into his state’s budget.
The Republican governors of California and Vermont have also lobbied for and welcome the federal stimulus money. Maybe this group of Republicans can start digging the Republicans out of their hole. Lord knows it isn’t going to happen as long we’re waiting for Sanford, Barbour, Jindal, and Palin (let alone, Boehner and McConnell).