GOP: playing into Dems’ hands?

By LIZ SIDOTI

AP National Political Writer

WASHINGTON

Being simply the “party of no” against President Barack Obama has worked well for Republicans all year, and they’re poised for big election gains.

But now, after internal GOP debate and relentless White House goading, Republicans eager to show voters that they’re ready to govern and that they stand for something have rolled out a policy agenda of their own. And, perhaps, played right into the Democrats’ hands.

House GOP leader John Boehner cast the “Pledge to America” as “a new governing agenda, built by listening to the American people, that offers a new way forward.” But he also acknowledged that it lacked specifics on important subjects such as Social Security and Medicaid.

Much of it also adhered generally to age-old GOP principles.

“They want the next two years to look like the eight years before I took office,” Obama asserted in New York. He derided the GOP plan as “the exact same agenda” even before the GOP officially rolled it out.

And his Democratic Party piled on.

“All House Republicans did was recycle the failed economic policies of President Bush that put special interests and multinational CEOs above American families,” said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who leads the House Democrats’ campaign effort.

Facing a stiff political headwind, Democrats are grasping for any strategy they can find to minimize an expected shellacking Nov. 2. And the GOP’s campaign manifesto gives the president’s party a potentially valuable tool as it tries to cast the midterm elections as a choice that voters must make between two economic visions rather than a referendum on Obama and the Democratic- controlled Congress as Republicans want.

With the 21-page GOP document, Democrats now have something to point to as they seek to bolster their claim that Republicans offer nothing more than the same policies of the past. The plan also is filled with material for Democrats to use to draw sharp contrasts with GOP candidates in a campaign that has been tilting the Republicans’ way.

Also, just when Republican primary-season divisions were starting to heal, the GOP agenda is highlighting fissures within the party. Republicans in the Senate, GOP governors and several of the party’s potential 2012 presidential candidates signed on, but conservatives complained about what was included and what was left out.

None of that is ideal for Republicans with just over five weeks until the election.