Friday, January 15, 2010

Cornyn: Voters Willing To Give GOP A Chance

By Alexis Simendinger   

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas

National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told National Journal reporters Dec. 17 that voters will turn to GOP candidates this year because the Democratic legislative agenda has been both sparse and unpopular. What follows are edited excerpts.

NJ: What were some of the first-year mistakes you think President Obama and the Democrats made with their agenda in 2009?

Cornyn: The most obvious one to me is that they thought 60 votes meant that they could run the place, and as we've seen on the health care bill, it has not been Republicans they've had to deal with. It's been internal divisions and disagreements in their own caucus. I presume that anytime [Majority Leader] Sen. [Harry] Reid has 60 votes, he has all of his people on board, that he will call for the cloture vote and he can pass [what he brings to the floor]. There isn't much we can do about it. That's why I think that one of the most important things that I can do as an individual is to help get reinforcements [in the midterm elections] so we can get 41-plus senators, so we can get back into the game. I think it's pretty amazing that we've gotten as far as we have with 40 [senators], but it's because we've been united and we've had a real debate about the issues, rather than just having them rammed through without the American people being able to understand what's going on.

NJ: When you say "amazing," do you mean that you did not expect to wield minority power in the Senate?

Cornyn: I think [Obama has] been pretty hands-off. They have let [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and Harry Reid basically run the show. Unfortunately, they've run it pretty far to the left, and they've refused to let Republicans participate.

NJ: After President Clinton's first year in office, there was some second-guessing that he should have taken up welfare reform before health care reform on the theory that it would have helped the Democratic Party brand. Do you believe there is a similar sequencing issue for President Obama in his decision to concentrate so intensely on health insurance reform in his first year in office?

Cornyn: I do. I do think the sequence has made a difference. If they had done this first -- I'm not sure they would have had that luxury, given the challenges of the economy -- but if they had, I think there's a lot better chance they would have been successful. I think the context in which we're debating health care is having spent $1 trillion-plus on a stimulus package, and takeovers of the car companies and of some of the largest financial institutions in the country. There's takeover fatigue among the public.

NJ: The House has piled legislation at the Senate's doorstep, including climate change, financial regulation, a higher education bill, a jobs bill. Do you envision the Senate taking up all those agenda items?

Cornyn: You may remember that [Banking Committee Chairman] Sen. [Christopher] Dodd initially came out and said he was just going to pass a partisan bill out of committee. Apparently he's now reconsidered and they apparently now have a pretty constructive, bipartisan process going forward in the Banking Committee.

I thought the financial regulatory reform was the one area, beyond Afghanistan, where you'd likely see some real bipartisanship. At least a bipartisan financial regulatory reform would be a victory they could claim, something they could point to as an accomplishment. If they don't prevail on health care, climate change, I think, is probably just as unpopular, if not more so, than the health care bill. I don't see that going anywhere.

NJ: You said "if they don't get health care." Do you believe the minority can defeat it in the Senate?

Cornyn: I think there's an appetite among Republicans to try to be constructive, but what we saw in the Finance Committee and the HELP [Health, Education, Labor and Pensions] Committee and now on the floor was a rejection along party lines of virtually every suggestion we've made. So people have decided rather than try to figure out how we can work together on a bipartisan basis, they've just sort of suited up and they are on the opposite sides of the line of scrimmage and they're waiting for the snap of the ball to clash.

NJ: If Republicans vote against a health reform bill and warnings about the dire effects of a new law don't materialize, what is the risk to Republicans?

Cornyn: I do think there is some risk. [It is] one of the reasons you don't see anyone glorying in the fact that we have 10 percent unemployment. This is a tragedy. But in spite of the job-killing policies out of the administration, I think we've got a resilient economy and I think it will come back, although slowly. Jobs are the number one thing [on voters' minds], and they [Democrats] seem to be about a lot of other things.

NJ: If Democrats enact a health care bill, what is your advice to your GOP candidates in 2010?

Cornyn: I think the biggest concern people have across the country is spending and debt. Whether it is cap-and-trade or health care, all of these things exacerbate that situation in the minds of most people. They see, as John McCain likes to say, Congress acting like a drunken sailor and the bar is still open. They are plenty smart. In a recession, I think they need to see real action when it comes to dealing with those unfunded liabilities. In some ways this debate is not as much about health care as much as it is about power. I think people see bigger government, more takeovers, that government is getting more power over their lives and leaving them with less. I think there are a lot of fundamental things in play here, but the top line is spending and borrowing.

NJ: If the Democrats scale back their agenda and the unemployment rate improves, what will the Republican message become?

Cornyn: Everyone I've talked to says that this economy will probably bounce along the bottom for quite a while, and it's not that long until the elections in 2010. I think [voters are] ready to give the Republicans a listen. I don't think they're in love Republicans yet, but they're willing to give us an opportunity. There are some seismic shifts going on among the electorate in 2010. People are getting scared. I think the one thing that will probably help us as much as anything in this election is that people look at single-party government and they say "we need some checks and balances." There is no place better to make that happen than in the Senate, because of our unique rules where 41 can basically play.

NJ: What will be your definition of success in the NRSC chairman's job for the results of the 2010 midterm elections?

Cornyn: Forty-one-plus. I won't tell you what the plus is, because I don't know.

NJ: Are you having more fun at this job than you might have imagined at the outset?

Cornyn: Well, some days, yeah! It's been good. The timing has worked out well. We have great candidates and our fundraising is up about 22 percent from where we were this point last year, so I don't think we're going to run into what we did in 2008, which was tough recruiting. The other side outraised us by $70 million, then they were able to pool those resources and concentrate on our incumbents and knock them off. This will be a much better year.