GOP revels as ‘party of no’

April 12, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

NEW ORLEANS

They know how to say no to President Barack Obama. Now, can Republicans get the rest of the country to say yes to them?

That’s the question facing the Grand Old Party as activists and candidates emerge from a three-day strategy session in New Orleans and head toward the fall elections for control of Congress.

Speaker after speaker at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference rallied the faithful with stinging denunciations of Obama and the Democratic majorities controlling the Senate and House of Representatives.

“Secular socialist machine,” cried Newt Gingrich.

“Dangerous power play,” said Liz Cheney of Obama’s health-care law. “Appease our enemies,” she said of his foreign policy.

Indeed, rather than dispute Obama’s criticism of them as an obstructionist “party of no,” most Republicans reveled in it as a badge of honor.

“There is no shame in being the party of no,” Sarah Palin said. “When they’re proposing an idea that violates our values, violates our Constitution, what’s wrong with being the party of no? We’re the party of hell, no!” she added to cheers.

Is it enough? Perhaps.

Obama’s approval ratings remain near or below 50 percent, a dangerous position for the party in power.

Also, Americans may be souring on the Democratic brand little more than a year after electing a Democratic president and adding to the Democratic majorities in Congress.

A new USA Today-Gallup Poll shows just 41 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, the lowest in the nearly two decades Gallup’s asked the question. By contrast, 42 percent had a favorable opinion of Republicans.

So, a throw-the-bums out approach might be enough. “It is easier to get people to vote against something than for something,” said Judy Smith, a Republican activist from Montgomery, Texas.

Few of the top speakers at the New Orleans conference stressed alternatives. Palin, for example, repeated her call for oil and gas drilling off U.S. coasts, but mainly stressed opposition to Obama.

Yet some prominent Republicans insist their party must move beyond the party-of-no label by highlighting their alternatives on such major issues as health care and taxes, wrapped into a tight package much like the Contract with America the Republicans rolled out in 1994 before they won control of the House for the first time in four decades.

“We should decide we’re going to be the party of yes,” Gingrich said, urging Republicans to talk up an agenda for cutting spending and taxes, creating jobs and reforming health care.