Scoreboard....GOP Motivation

"I won."

When President Barack Obama used those words to reply to Republican objections to the massive spending bill working its way through Congress, he did much more than deliver a good laugh line and declare the GOP proposals irrelevant.

Obama also signaled to us all that the campaign talk about bipartisanship and “a new way” was just the clever rhetoric of a highly choreographed campaign.

“I won” is the confident declaration of a leader who doesn’t need his opponents’ approval or votes.

“I won” is a little extra measure of contempt, though surely delivered with a grin.

“I won” means the Republicans lost and they had better get used to being ignored.

It is also a tremendously liberating and unmistakable message to the GOP as its House wing gathers on retreat this weekend. They don’t have to worry about being accused by the president’s wall-to-wall admirers in the mainstream media of a grumpy, “old politics” attachment to partisanship in Washington’s new era. Obama brought the curtain down on the 48-hour era of bipartisanship with those two words.

“I won” is of course a celebration of partisan triumph, and a hard-earned and clearly defined victory it was. Many voters didn’t think they were voting for an “I won” kind of guy, but observers of the always competitive Obama can’t be surprised. Hillary Clinton knows. John McCain knows. And now House and Senate Republicans know.

Maybe even some of the smitten press will figure it out. This is a tough Chicago pol, not some sort of faith healer.

So what to do? I was invited to join the House GOP in West Virginia this weekend, but try getting from California to there and back in time for the Super Bowl. Here’s what I would have said had they had the good sense to gather on the West Coast:

Every day requires a disciplined message delivered by a senior figure that focuses on a key difference between the president’s agenda and that of the Republicans, a message that contains facts about what the Democrats are proposing and how it affects voters.

There should always be a designated member or senator ready to go on any radio or TV show — no matter how inconvenient the timing or how small the market — to make that and related points. The party needs to vote as a party and explain its opposition every step of the way. Keep asking Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal and other senior GOP figures to appear alongside you in D.C to make points and guide press coverage. Deliver expertise on such things as cap and trade, and rebuild the platform into a coherent whole.


The party has to establish and fill the coffers of funds devoted exclusively to taking back House and Senate seats. The new party chairman and Minority Leaders John A. Boehner and Mitch McConnell have to talk about restoring balance to D.C. as soon as possible in order to stop the hemorrhaging of money that has begun in the first week of the new administration.

Candidate recruitment is already behind schedule. List the 50 most competitive House seats held by Dems and rally behind a viable candidate. On the Senate side, open an account for whichever Republican eventually wins the primary in Arkansas and other states where the GOP can mount a challenge to an incumbent Dem. The country is 21 months away from a recalibration of the power grid in D.C. Take every opportunity to say: “This might have worked out if the Democrats didn’t run everything.” Tell incumbents they are on their own. Raise money for challengers.

On Monday, Boehner’s office distributed a guide to the spending proposed by House Democrats that included notes on the $600 million set aside to buy new government cars, $50 million for arts funding and $44 million for rehabbing the Department of Agriculture. These are the sorts of data points that define the Democrats in the public’s mind and raise the chances of a snap-back in 2010. But they are needed on every single bill that crosses the Congress from House to Senate or Senate to House.

And in the new media world, the GOP staff should be distributing not just e-mails but audio and video of the Democrats saying what they really think. Republicans are along for the ride, with zero control over direction or destination, but with a perfect back seat from which to describe the inanity of the driving and the direction. Don’t wait for Rick Sanchez on CNN to discover the zaniest thing John Conyers has said today — push it out to him and every other talking head across the country. Help the networks and talk shows and blogs tell the story of the Obama era in all its details, not just the ones the White House wants to push.

The new media outreach effort to activists is not remotely up to speed, but there are signs it is getting better. Check out ReadTheStimulus.org for a glimpse at what distributed networks can achieve.

Americans wanted a stimulus bill that would produce rapid expansion in jobs and economic activity. They are instead being offered a federal fire hose of payoffs and pork, the only utility of which is to underscore that a long eight years out of the White House didn’t change basic Democratic impulses. This is a teaching moment with few equals, and the GOP needs to pound it home again and again: Giving the Democrats all of the power meant giving them all of the money, and they intend to spend it.

“I won” was a sharp slap in the face of the GOP, but it ought to have hit the American people as well. At this point, all the GOP can do is make a play-by-play commentary of where the money is going. They have begun to do that and need to keep it up.