Column: Campaigns should be about issues over partisianship

Watching the rhetoric of the presidential candidates, you would get the impression that it was a race between Democrats proposing bold new ideas and Republicans trying to stop said policies.

Hillary Clinton has made a series of high profile speeches on criminal justice, economic reform and climate change laying out the policies she would implement as president. Republicans, for the most part, just take shots at Clinton and President Obama over their proposals rather than giving any of their own. Sure, a few ideas have come out of the field, such as defunding Planned Parenthood and cutting taxes again, but almost all of their promises and platforms are to stop something that Obama or Clinton have done or are proposing rather than actually suggesting new policies. The party is more united around stopping Democrats than implementing their own new agenda.

In the meantime, on the far left, Bernie Sanders has been surging among people who don’t think that Clinton would be liberal enough. His supporters are looking for bold, new economic policies to balance out the economy so that the scales aren’t tipped away from the little guy.

All of these developments are ridiculous and miss the real point of the election.

Let’s imagine that Clinton gets elected. She gives her first inaugural address and State of the Union outlining ambitious strategies on Wall Street reform, LGBT rights, climate change and criminal justice reform. Let’s even imagine that her coattails are long enough to reclaim the Senate for Democrats in 2016. But the House of Representatives is so gerrymandered that there is no way she reclaims it in 2016, or even makes much of a dent in the Republican majorities. Fueled by decades of blind hatred towards the Clintons and a campaign cycle that revolved around stopping the liberal agenda, it seems improbable that House Republicans would suddenly cooperate on anything at all. If anything they might be more hostile to her than Obama. While she might be able to do some things through executive order and make Supreme Court nominations (it’s an open question as to whether or not the Senate Republicans would allow anyone to be confirmed), there isn’t much that she would and could do that Obama already hasn’t.

In the absolute best-case scenario for her, within two years Congressional Republicans make a disastrous misstep such as a shutdown, default or impeachment attempt. In 2018 a few governors’ mansions and House Seats flip and she retains a majority in the Senate, possibly expanding it. Then in 2020, another weak Republican candidate keeps her in office and the trend going. When new House seats are drawn for 2022 the Democrats either undo Republican gerrymandering or flip it into their favor. Afterward, some miracle lets her expand House seats in both midterm elections, which is functionally impossible, and she can finally implement her reforms in her last two years of office. Just in time for someone else to start campaigning to be the new president.

The ideal policies of the Democratic candidate are basically irrelevant. Sanders would be blocked just as badly. Joe Biden would be viewed as a loathsome relic of the Obama administration. Really only Jim Webb might be able to get Congress to go along with him. He’s polling around 2 percent right now.

On the flip side, a Republican president with a decent performance in Senate races would be given the ability to govern with both chambers of Congress and a much less vocal resistance in the Senate. They would actually be in a place to implement broad new measures on everything from foreign affairs to health care to Wall Street. The proposals of Republican politicians could actually matter, which is why it’s shocking there have been so few of them, especially in a crowded and ideologically diverse field. The Republicans should be competing to convince their electorate that they offer the best policy vision, rather than the best chance of stopping liberals, and then trying to convince America that their policies are good. The Democrats should be trying to convince their base that they have the best chance of fighting against conservative policies and candidates. Then they should convince America that a Republican agenda would literally be worse than continual stalemate.

Instead, for whatever reason, the parties are still both complicit in spreading the lie that the 2016 election is about new liberal policies or stopping Hillary. Whatever happens, Clinton is already stopped and liberal ideas are going nowhere. The Republicans’ chief mission is already accomplished and the Democrats’ is impossible. 

So let’s call the race what it is and focus on the Republican’s policies and not just how much they hate liberals.