Life in Prison for Would-Be Times Square Bomber

After fanfare, few Republicans campaigning on 'Pledge to America'
Copyright by The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 5, 2010; 10:30 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/05/AR2010100501627_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010100501664By Ben Pershing


PINEY RIVER, VA. - A week after House Republican leaders gathered at a lumber yard in Sterling to release their "Pledge to America," one of the party's prized recruits stopped at another business about 150 miles away to give his campaign pitch on taxes, regulation and the role of government.

Virginia state Sen. Robert Hurt hit on many of the themes of the pledge, but he didn't mention it by name or quote a single line from the 48-page document. He hadn't even looked at it.

"I have not sat down and read it," said Hurt, adding that he had glimpsed "summaries of it."

For all the fanfare and publicity that accompanied the release of the pledge, relatively few Republican candidates across the country appear to be adopting it as a guiding vision, much less incorporating it into their campaigns.

That stands in stark contrast to the document the pledge is most often compared to, the 1994 "Contract With America," which was announced by Republicans just before they captured control of Congress. In September of that year, more than 300 GOP candidates and lawmakers joined together on the steps of the Capitol to endorse the contract and its tenets. Republicans then made it the centerpiece of their national campaign, and candidates incorporated it into their messages.

Nothing of that sort has happened this year - though the pledge has neverthless shifted the debate in Washington.

By laying out a vision, Republicans have robbed Democrats of their oft-repeated argument that the GOP has no plan for the future. The simple fact that President Obama has chosen to rebut the pledge, as he has done in weekly radio addresses and in a giant rally last week in Wisconsin, marks a clear shift, Republicans say.

"The president was attacking us as the 'Party of No,' and now he's criticizing our ideas," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the lead author of the document. "He changed his whole attack against Republicans."

And by laying out their vision in a long document full of rhetorical flourishes - in stark contrast to the bullet-point concision of the 1994 contract - Republicans have made it easy for their candidates to back it generally and difficult for their opponents to criticize it directly.

"What you want to do is give a candidate the flexibility to focus on the stuff they like from it," said Glenn Bolger, a Republican pollster who was not involved in crafting the pledge. "If there's stuff that doesn't fit their area, it's not something they would necessarily then tout. I think it's a little more flexible than a contract-style document."

The product of several months' work by a handful of key House Republicans, the pledge offers the party's plan to create jobs, cut government spending, "repeal and replace" the health-care reform law, reform the way Congress operates and strengthen national security. The package puts a heavy emphasis on jobs and the economy, with only a brief mention of social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Some Republican candidates said they view the pledge as an a la carte menu of policies from which to choose, not a manifesto to endorse.

Ryan Frazier (R), who is in a tight House race in Colorado, said that the pledge was not "all-encompassing" and that there were "things that aren't in there that I would like to see" on subjects such as education. Massachusetts Republican Jeff Perry called the pledge a "great statement of principles" but one that was "not all-inclusive of everything we have been talking about."

In Rep. Tom Perriello (D) from Virginia's 5th District seat, Hurt has covered much of the same ground that the pledge does without referencing the document. He wants to repeal the health-care law, downsize the federal government and cut taxes and regulations on small businesses.

But he hasn't talked much about congressional reform or other aspects of the document. And he said not a single voter has asked him about it.

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll taken Sept. 28 and 29 found that 47 percent of registered voters were "very" or "somewhat" familiar with the document, while 53 percent were "not very" or "not at all" familiar with it.

As Hurt campaigned last week through the 5th District, which stretches from Charlottesville to the North Carolina border, most voters appeared to fall in the latter category.

At Saunders Brothers Farm Market in Piney River, owner Paul Saunders said he believed "the government is taking over all of the things in the country and putting a stranglehold on us." But Saunders said he didn't really know anything about the Republican plan.

The crafters of the pledge said they did not intend to create a second "Contract With America." No candidates were invited to the event in Sterling, nor have Republican hopefuls been encouraged from Washington to publicly endorse it.

"It wasn't designed as a campaign piece, it was designed as a governing agenda," McCarthy said.

Not every GOP hopeful has ignored it. Cory Gardner, the challenger to Rep. Betsy Markey (D) in Colorado's competitive 4th District, endorsed the pledge the day it was presented. In Washington's open 3rd District, GOP hopeful Jaime Herrera also applauded its release, as did Ohio Republican candidate Tom Ganley and a handful of others.

But in this anti-incumbent environment, many candidates appear wary of explicitly embracing an agenda written in Washington by a small group of party leaders.

"What I hear across the 5th District is people are disgusted with Washington and they want change, and they are suspicious of every candidate," Hurt said.

Republican aides in Washington also say privately that while party leaders wanted to craft an agenda, they primarily want to keep the focus on Democrats, particularly since recent polls show that congressional Republicans are even more unpopular.

But their avoidance of the pledge hasn't stopped Democrats from making an issue out of it.

"I think that most of their candidates support what the Republican agenda is, and we're still using it against them," said Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Accompanying Hurt on his campaign stops last week was former Virginia governor and senator George Allen (R).

Allen said he had heard the pledge mentioned only once, when a student at Liberty University asked about it. But he said it still served a purpose.

"You need to play tenacious defense against all these bad ideas," Allen said, referring to Obama administration policies, "but it is equally important, if not more important, to say what we're for."

Staff Writer Chris Cillizza contributed to this report.