They Think You're Stupid (3 page)

I asked a California congressman once why he could not support the idea of totally restructuring Social Security since the current system is clearly broken. He responded, "We can't do anything that might make President Bush and the Republicans look good." When did "for the good of the political party to regain control" overtake "for the good of the country and the people"? This Democratic strategy has driven many voters into the politically homeless zone.

In sharp contrast to the Democrats' expectations of "Republican devils" in control of Congress in 1994, the Republicans produced a positive, forward-thinking people's agenda called the Contract with America. Former Georgia congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his colleagues wrote the Contract with America prior to the 1994 elections. They voted on all ten of the contract's policy issues within the first one hundred days of the next legislative session and succeeded in passing nine. The contract was a clear policy agenda that focused on restoring in the U.S. House accountability to the public while reducing the size and influence of federal government. It focused on budget and spending restraint, personal responsibility, and economic prosperity for individuals and businesses.

Perhaps the most important feature of the Contract with America was that it connected its policy initiatives to common sense benefits that Leroy and Bessie Public could understand. Speaker Gingrich was a leader who successfully communicated to the public that the Republicans were not going to squander their new majority status.

In the Contract with America, Republicans offered a focused policy agenda and escalated American political discourse about the proper influence of government. The Contract with America inspired millions of Americans to believe that significant policy changes were possible.

Democrats, however, relentlessly attacked Gingrich and the Republicans over the contract. The popularity of the contract, the swiftness with which its policies passed through the House, and Gingrich's leadership forced Democrats to go into an aggressive attack mode, where they remain to this day.

It can be argued that the Democrats' tactics produced some degree of success, as Speaker Gingrich was forced out of Congress by 1998. That same year, the Republican Party, which expected to gain House seats, showed the poorest results in thirty-four years of any party not in control of the White House. Gingrich resigned from the Speakership and from his House seat in November 1998. Republicans retained control of the House and do to this day. But the departure of Gingrich left a leadership void in the Republican-controlled Congress that to a large extent has not been replaced.

I believe the Republican Revolution stalled for two reasons. First, during Newt Gingrich's tenure as Speaker of the House, not enough other Republican members felt a sense of ownership in the Contract with America. My thirty-five years of experience in the business world taught me that owners run things better than managers. Managers who share an ownership attitude in an operation run things much better than managers who feel they are just employees. When people feel a sense of ownership, they are much more motivated to achieve the desired results.

Since Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was president during most of the 1990s, Gingrich, as the highest-ranking elected Republican, was in many respects the face of the Republican Party nationally. It was easy for the political layperson to view the contract as "Newt's contract" instead of an agenda for the entire House Republican membership. Gingrich's departure in 1998 from the U.S. House therefore symbolized the departure of a clear Republican policy agenda.

The second reason the Republican Revolution stalled is that the Republican congressional majority became divided behind Newt's leadership. The Republicans were not solidly united behind Gingrich and his agenda in 1994, and many remain ideologically divided to this day. I believe this is due to the politics of politics, to which many longtime members of Congress have grown accustomed.

Gingrich received criticism from fellow Republicans when he negotiated in 1995 with President Clinton a reopening of the federal government. In addition, not all current House and Senate Republicans share the conservative wing's zeal for aggressive policy change. Many openly approve of increased federal spending and have moderate positions on social issues. Some Republicans formed the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of moderates devoted to a centrist approach to law making.

The primary effect of the ideological divide is that the current Republican congressional majority lacks the ability to design a new, focused policy agenda similar to the Contract with America. Leaders of any organization must always challenge its constituency to focus on a new vision to keep the people inspired. Republican leaders fail to understand that they must demonstrate bold leadership by setting an aggressive policy agenda, formulate a strategy to pass that agenda, and explain the benefits of their agenda to voters in a compelling way.

This is not to imply that there are no individual examples of members capable and willing to advance aggressive policy change. One example of an aggressive policy proposal is House Resolution (HR) 25, introduced by Georgia congressman John Linder and senators Saxby Chambliss and Zell Miller. Passage of HR 25 will replace the outdated mess that is the federal tax code with the national retail sales tax, also known as the FairTax. Linder and Chambliss are joined by more than fifty-two Republicans and one Democrat in co-sponsoring this aggressive legislation. The FairTax will remove the current onerous tax burden from the backs of U.S. citizens and businesses and cause the U.S. economy to skyrocket. Passage of the FairTax will dramatically benefit all citizens, especially the lowest wage earners. If this is the case, and I firmly and truly believe it is, why don't more members of Congress officially support the FairTax? The answer is that most of the members are waiting to be led, or to trade their vote for some "pork" to be sent back home.

Prior to entering the U.S. Senate race in Georgia, I consulted with former U.S. congressman J. C. Watts. I asked Congressman Watts about the culture of Congress, what I could expect if I were elected, and the nature of leadership in the U.S. House and Senate.

"About 15 percent of the members are interested in aggressive policy change, in setting and leading an agenda, and in taking their policy agenda to the people," he explained.

Congressman Watts continued, "Then you have about 15 percent who lead some of the committees, try to protect their sandbox, send some pork back home and get reelected."

"Well, what about the other 70 percent?" I asked.

Congressman Watts replied, "The remaining 70 percent are just happy to be there!"

Many conservatives throughout the nation are frustrated that they see in today's Republican congressional membership--in both the House and Senate--too many legislators who are "just happy to be there." They yearn for Republican leaders like Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich who were capable and willing to formulate visions and focused, aggressive policy agendas. And they are discouraged by either the inability or unwillingness of current congressional leaders to fight back against Democrats who filibuster legislation and continually deceive the public. Leadership cannot be left solely to the president, because he is a little busy leading our troops and running the most complex democracy in the world.

Reagan and Gingrich understood the needs of their nation and the world. They knew the public wanted to change the failed liberal policies of the past. They were not afraid to lead. They also understood that successful leaders in any endeavor take people where they would not go by themselves.

Today's Republican leaders in the U.S. House and Senate must assume the responsibility of leadership that their status as majority party demands. If they do not, they will soon be stripped of the opportunity to lead and find themselves in the same position they were in just ten years ago--the minority.

The 2004 Georgia Republican U.S. Senate primary received a lot of national attention, because it was assumed that the winner would be a virtual lock to succeed retiring senator Zell Miller. It also attracted attention across Georgia and the nation because a largely unknown businessman, who also happened to be a conservative, African-American Republican, was attracting voters and rising in the polls every week with a positive message of hope and change and a common sense agenda.

Many of the so-called political experts predicted that I would finish a distant third. After all, I was running against two seasoned political veterans who had spent most of their lives in political office and who had the name identification throughout Georgia to show for it. As is often the case in life, the experts were wrong. They underestimated the powerful combination of inspired hope and a common sense message of aggressively facing our nation's biggest issues. They had no idea that so many voters were hungry for a change in the status quo and were willing to work hard for a candidate in whom they believed.

The experts saw a conservative African-American Republican as a novelty
who wouldn't be embraced by a mostly White voter base. More than 173,000 voters enthusiastically embraced this novelty and my message. I am thankful to the Georgians who saw in my candidacy a real solutions agenda and the possibility that we can change Washington, D.C.

On July 20, 2004, I achieved an impressive second-place finish in the three-way primary contest versus two sitting U.S. Representatives. The central theme of my campaign was that we
can
change the status quo mentality so entrenched in our capital city if we first believe change is possible and then mobilize the voters to make the change happen.

We did not win the nomination, but we did not lose either. We
won
on the battlefield of big issues by forcing my opponents to address replacing the federal income tax code, restructuring the Social Security system, and reducing government influence in the health care system. These issues are now at the forefront of state and national debate. You can't imagine how happy I was to hear President Bush, on the night of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, call for a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth" tax system! Common sense would suggest that keeping the incomprehensible eight-million-word mess we call the federal tax code is not a viable option.

We
won
people to the polls like Charlie from Cobb County, who, before this race, had never registered to vote. Charlie is in his forties and had given up on government! Now he proudly carries his voter registration card, and he did vote. Then there was Miss Irene from Thomas County, who is in her eighties. She made time each week to help my campaign by talking to everyone in her town about my candidacy. Miss Irene and her friend Lillian would come to every campaign speech I gave within a hundred miles of where they lived. Each time, Miss Irene would not let me leave without putting a folded one hundred dollar bill in my hand as a campaign contribution. There was Whitney from Fulton County, a young woman who sought me out during a taping for a television program with tears in her eyes to tell me about her mother. Whitney's mother had recently passed away following a brave fight against breast cancer. One of her mother's final wishes was to vote for me because she was excited about my message of hope and change for the future.

We
won
thousands of college students who vigorously volunteered to help in the campaign, and we
won
hundreds of high school students who could not even vote yet. A tenth grade student, Jade, was asked why so many young people were supporting Herman Cain. She replied, "He gave us something to be excited about." Priceless.

We
won
thousands of white, lifelong conservative Democrats who told me it is time to turn the page on the racial divisions of the past, and we
won
scores of African-Americans who voted Republican for the first time in their lives. My eighty-year-old mother was at the front of that line.

We did not lose. We
won
thousands and thousands of new voters--
new voices
-- looking for a political home.

These new voters did not work hard every day to support me because I was a lifelong friend or a known celebrity. They supported me because they heard a new voice of common sense and renewed hope for substantive change. Stories like those just mentioned are a reminder that the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice by so many people were not in vain. We succeeded in spreading a message of economic freedom through aggressive solutions and inspired motivation to every corner of Georgia. The message resonated with people who had never before voted, who had never voted Republican, or who never would have considered voting for an African-American.

I believe this
new voter
phenomenon is occurring across the nation. Although the 2004 Georgia primary attracted just over 30 percent of registered voters, the general election this last presidential election year attracted a record number of voters to the polls, well in excess of the usual 50 percent turnout.

Conservative Democrats are leaving their party because it has adopted liberal positions radically different from the values of mainstream society. Any group convinced that it is a "victim" flocks to the Democratic Party looking for relief in the form of money from the federal treasury. Democrats run and get reelected to office with proclamations that the answers to this nation's problems are to throw more money at broken structures like Social Security, Medicare, and now health care. Senator Zell Miller documents the state of the national Democratic Party exceptionally well in his book
A National Party No More
.

Conservative Republicans are looking for other options. They feel taken for granted when their candidates move to the ideological center in election years and abandon traditional Republican ideology. For example, fiscal responsibility or spending the people's money responsibly has long been a pillar of the Republican Party. But in the last four years of a Republican controlled Congress, discretionary spending has increased in double-digit fashion every year. The cumulative increase in discretionary spending has been nearly 40 percent in four years.