NRCC Chair looks to regain House majority

Last November, Democrats across the country rejoiced as they gained control of the U.S. House and Senate. Congressman Rahm Emanuel, then-chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), in particular, was praised by some as the brains behind the operation for retaking the House. Now Emanuel’s friend, Congressman Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, is tasked with undoing that work as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). He sat down with the Iowa Independent on Saturday and explained how he hoped to lead Republicans out of the political wilderness—opinions that have not gained him some friends on the Right.

Cole said three major factors were at play in the Democrats’ 2006 victory though he said, “I’m not sure they won as much as we lost.”  Cole said that there was a “pretty predictable” level of Bush fatigue that hurt the party. “In the sixth year of any eight-year run, it’s usually a pretty tough go for the party in power, and I think we had that,” he said, noting the same happened to presidents Ronald Reagan in 1986, Lyndon Johnson in 1966 and Dwight Eisenhower in 1958. “Second, I think Iraq, no question,” he said. “We can debate the merits of the war, whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing, it’s not a popular war and so politically, I think we paid a price for that.” And third, he said that the unethical actions of several Republicans like Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley led to the loss of several individual seats as well as “cast a pall” on the party. “I think those three things came together and created a very difficult environment for us,” he said.

In a different interview, Cole also countered what some conservatives had argued after their drubbing at the polls. “Oh, I don’t think the problem was spending,” Cole told the Washington Post in May. “People who argue that we lost because we weren’t true to our base, that’s just wrong.”

This garnered criticism from some in the conservative blogosphere, including Richard Viguerie, an icon of the conservative movement, who has even started a petition calling for Cole’s resignation.

“Oh I know, a lot of people are mad at me over that,” Cole said with a chuckle. The specific question asked had been over spending, he said. “Now I think spending is an important matter. I’m a fiscal conservative and I’ve got the voting record to prove that. But do I think that’s the cause of our defeat in 2006? No. I can point to members who lost because of the Bush factor; I can point to members who lost because of Iraq; I can point to members who lost because of misbehavior. I can’t point to any single member who lost on that issue alone.” Cole said that people’s attempt to interpret elections in “a way that positions them on what they care about going forward” is natural in politics but can be very dangerous. “The problem with that is it can lead you to do the wrong thing,” he said. “You have to be brutally honest in this business about why you win and why you lose.

Viguerie’s call for Cole’s resignation was also prompted by this from the Post:

Sources say he hasn’t pushed such conservatives as Jim Ryun (Kan.) or Richard Pombo (Calif.) to try to reclaim their House seats, because he thinks more moderate candidates might fare better.

“I’m into finding candidates that can win,” Cole said. “Obviously I want to find Republicans, and I assume they’re going to agree with me on most of the issues, but I assume they’re not going to agree with me every time on every issue. They’ve got to be free to represent what the people in their districts believe.” This strategy seems to echo Emanuel’s 2006 strategy, and Cole said it was indeed similar “to some degree [because] I think finding candidates who broadly mirror the point of views of the district is generally a good idea. That’s the way a political professional from either party looks at it.” Cole said it is impossible to divorce principles from pragmatism. “At the end of the day, I believe politics is about principles and points of view. But there’s also an element of being pragmatic and flexible and that is what is required to govern. You can either have theological debates or political solutions; they’re usually not the same things.”

Cole was also forthright with his strategy for winning back the House. “I don’t think its any mystery,” he said. “A good campaign committee operates like the old Green Bay Packers. You really did know what the Green Bay Packers sweep was: Pull Fuzzy Thurston and Jerry Kramer, and they were going to pitch the ball back to Paul Hornung and [Jim] Taylor was going to be the lead blocker and you try to stop him.”

“So, I start looking at this in three ways,” he said. “One, what’s our basic position that we start from? I would argue it’s pretty good.” Currently, he said, there are 61 seats held by Democrats that George W. Bush carried in 2004 while only eight Republican congressmen in districts that John Kerry carried. “You just look at that number, and we ought to play more offense than defense in this cycle,” he said. Second, “The Democrats are going to have to do something they haven’t had to do in a long time, and that’s cast tough votes” like on the Iraq war or the budget, he said. “The job of the majority party is to govern; the job of the minority party is to become the majority, so they’ve got to govern and that will create big issues,” he said. Finally, the increased turnout in a presidential year may also be of help. “Turnout will probably be up from 30 to 50 percent,” he said. “Most of those people don’t care a great deal about Congress, otherwise they would have voted last year.”