BackgroundAs the results of the 2004 presidential election became clear, the comparisons to 1932 began to be made. Like FDR, Hoffa was carried into office in a landslide; a sound rejection of his Republican predecessor. In his inaugural address, Hoffa pledged “a fair shake” for the American worker, and the phrase would become the shorthand for the extensive reforms that the president would undertake with the help of the ironclad Democratic majority in congress.
The president made good on his promise of peace in Europe; American forces departed Moscowian territory for good in early 2006. To the glee of labour leaders across the country, Taft-Harley was repealed in 2005. Across the country, union membership rolls swelled. The federal minimum wage was raised across-the-board to $10/hour, and indexed to annual inflation. As promised, Hoffa took a hatchet to the guest worker visa program instituted by president Weld and worked with congress to double ICE’s presence on the southern border.
The unilateral nationalization of the banking sector proved controversial, but the administration insisted that it was necessary to stabilize the economy. As part of the government’s economic stimulus, large scale public works projects were enacted nation-wide; bridges, highways, damns, and transit systems were designated as targets for civic renewal.
Congressional Republicans had hoped to stage a comeback during the 2010 midterms but a solid economic recovery, peace abroad, and the public’s support for the president’s populist reforms delivered the Democrats an even greater majority in the House and Senate. Throughout the Republican party, there is a nagging fear that the GOP is going the way of the Whigs.
Your Republican candidates:
Congressman Newt Gingrich, long confined within the fringes of a libertarian GOP, emerged as the new House Minority Leader following the 2004 rout on a mission to redefine the party and ride it to victory once more. Among his top proposals, Gingrich favours education reform with rigorous new standards on mathematics and science; a massive expansion of the space program with a long-term mission of establishing a moon colony; beefing up national defence to counter global terrorism; and a new commitment to conservation efforts, beginning with expanding the national park system.
Lincoln Chafee is the former junior senator from Rhode Island and an influential voice of the left-libertarian wing of the GOP. Although he was one of the many victims of the Republican wipeout of 2004, Chafee remains a well-known advocate for free trade, progressive social policy, gun control, and non-interventionism. Chafee has broken with his party by supporting president Hoffa’s increases to the minimum wage and top tax rate. Quixotically, he has come out in favour of the metric system.
Senator Joe Scarborough is a rising star of the post-Eastwood GOP. The young congressman from Florida’s 1st district resigned his seat in 2000 but was eventually drafted into a 2006 senate run, which he handily won. A reform conservative and a federalist, Scarborough favours the localization of government services and incentivizing virtuous behaviour; his platform proposes a generous tax credit for parents, income splitting for married couples, and substantial tax cuts across the board for the middle class. Scarborough is a prominent member of the Bi-Partisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, which has earned him the ire of many on the Eastwood/Weld wing of the party. As a congressman, Scarborough introduced legislation that would see the U.S. dramatically reduce its role as part of the United Nations.
Former Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina has claimed the mantle of former vice president Ron Paul, and is staking out his place as the leader of the right-libertarian faction of the GOP. Sanford is a vocal non-interventionist in regards to foreign policy, but he has criticized the decline of military readiness under president Hoffa’s administration. Although he is personally socially conservative, Sanford rejects the bi-partisan proposals for constitutional amendments on gay marriage and abortion. The former governor has pledged, if elected, to roll back the welfare state and reduce taxes across the board. Sanford is selling himself as the consensus candidate, someone who can unite libertarians, social conservatives, doves, and hawks.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg jumped into politics after the ascension of fellow billionaire Ross Perot to the presidency, and now Bloomberg seeks follow his footsteps to the highest office in the land. Bloomberg has attacked the Hoffa administration for being “anti-business,” calling for repealing bank nationalization and protectionist policies in place and pushing for new trade agreements with Asian and South American countries. Bloomberg also favours a ban on handguns, a large-scale development plan to introduce mass transit nationwide, and a multilateral foreign policy with stronger ties to the United Nations.
Senator Tom Coburn, also known as “Dr. No,” has been one of President Hoffa’s fiercest opponents in Congress from the very start, decrying “top-down, engulfing socialism.” Coburn is running on a staunchly conservative platform of rolling back almost all of Hoffa’s accomplishments in office, with bank nationalization and the strengthening of labor coming first. In addition, Coburn calls for two constitutional amendments: one requiring balanced budgets, and another prohibiting abortion.
Which of these men will carry forward the Republican banner in '08?
Poll
