For Immediate Release:
September 28, 2007

The Idea Man

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are far ahead of Republicans in utilizing the politically powerful blogosphere. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are regular contributors to DailyKos and other leading blogs. Now, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, is trying to get his party caught up, recognizing that direct communication with conservative bloggers, and voters around the country, is essential to any GOP revival. But McCotter still has a long way to go.

Since his election to the Republican Policy Committee chairmanship late last year, McCotter has sought to transform the typically sleepy and obscure arm of the leadership into a lively idea mill. With the blessing of Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, he opened up the group's previously limited membership to essentially any House Republican who wants to join. "Wanting to get a message out is worthless if the message is worthless," McCotter said in an interview. "And so our job is to be a think tank, and we have a lot of people here who think."

McCotter, a 42-year-old lawyer serving his third House term, contends that cerebral stagnation overtook his party after it held the majority for a dozen years. "The day-to-day grind of governance tends to lead to a bit of myopia as to what the American people are thinking and desiring of their government," he said. "You become process-based instead of policy-based."

Renewing their commitment to firm principles and policies could help Republicans rebuild the party's reputation around the country, McCotter maintains. "Two-thirds of the American public thinks House Republicans are dung," he said. "Which means if you yell about how bad Democrats are -- 'The Democrats are scum' -- the American public will say, 'Yeah, but you're dung.' You have to offer [voters] something you can get done should you get the honor of returning to majority status.... We need to provide a long-term picture of what we're going to have to deal with."

Thus far, McCotter's policy committee has posted eight lengthy "Thinking Papers" on the "Deep Thoughts" section of its website, dealing with such issues as the "pay-as-you-go" budget rule, Medicare pricing, embryonic-stem-cell research, and homeland security. The tone is far more intellectual and in-depth than the usual political talking points that party strategists put out. But McCotter -- the lead guitarist in a band of House members called the Second Amendments -- also tries to keep it interesting by peppering the papers with musical references to Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, the Rolling Stones, and Bon Jovi.

During the spring, the policy committee started a blog to try to get the product of its thinking out to the masses. It has met with what might generously be called limited success, and for good reason: It is difficult to get a congressman to write like a blogger. Some get it, and some don't. Some posts have read like a press release or a congressional newsletter, and some of the comments, ostensibly from the public, read like they were written by someone intimately familiar with the bill in question.

McCotter, though, used a recent post to discuss what he called the "Battle of 'the Bums,' " in which he tried to debunk claims that the failure of Iraqi politicians to meet political benchmarks would harm Gen. David Petraeus's goals. The piece reads like a blog, and editors at the popular conservative blog RedState.com praised it and cross-posted it on their site. As more members get involved, McCotter hopes, more traffic will flow to the policy committee site. If more of those participants end up writing like McCotter, in a way that engages right-leaning bloggers, the back-and-forth could become a clearinghouse for Republican ideas.

McCotter's utopian plan to bring more members into policy discussions does not come without risks. His policy committee could become too large and unwieldy to reach any sort of consensus. And other groups, such as the conservative House Republican Study Committee and the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership, come up with their own policy proposals. GOP leaders haven't signaled which group, if any, they would like to take the lead on developing forward-looking policy proposals.

"Until House Republican leaders have determined that they should want what they need, we sit here with our purchased land, our cleared lot, and wonder if the happy couple is going to build a house or not," McCotter said.

In the meantime, McCotter himself could become the chief beneficiary. Previous policy committee chairmen have moved up the leadership ladder, including former Minority Leader John Rhodes, R-Ariz., former Republican Conference Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and current Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, R-Fla., plus a number of others who went on to chair major committees. Perhaps the most famous alum of the policy committee chairmanship was Vice President Cheney, who became minority whip before leaving the House to serve as Defense secretary to President George H.W. Bush.

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