Content by Rep. Tom Cole
Posted at 3:47pm on Jul. 19, 2007 On Pace To Lose The Minority
By Rep. Tom Cole
It took House Speaker Nancy Pelosi less than 100 hours to prove to voters across the country what the consequences of a Democrat majority really were – and the poll numbers prove it. Americans across the country are fed up with the failed leadership of the Democrats, while Republicans in the U.S. House have every intention of making our stay in the minority as brief as possible.
With 202 members, the largest Republican minority in over 50 years, we are within striking distance of the majority. And we are playing to win.
As we head into 2008, we will be looking at a fairly broad playing field, from seats either in districts that President Bush won or Sen. John Kerry (D-Ma) won by a slim margin, to seats where the sitting Democrat hasn’t had a tough race in awhile. We will look first at the 61 seats currently held by Democrats in districts that President Bush carried in 2004, but we won’t stop there. We plan on targeting every seat in which a Democrat member is out of line with the views and values of his or her district.
Read on . . .
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Posted at 6:05pm on May 10, 2007 Let Me Set The Record Straight
By Rep. Tom Cole
Let me be clear: I believe that cutting spending, lowering taxes and limiting government are core principles of the Republican Party and values that are indispensable to the future of our democracy. When it comes to the issue of spending and taxes, the NRCC has made it a top priority to point out that House Democrats are looking to enact a bloated federal budget that would pave the way for the largest tax hike in American history. That is unacceptable and I firmly believe that support for such a disastrous policy will come back to haunt House Democrats in 2008.
I want to clarify my comments in yesterday’s Washington Post on spending. There were many factors that contributed to the poisonous environment for Republicans in 2006, including spending, ethics, incompetence, and, as I noted in the article, a sense that Republicans overreached in Washington. However, numerous polls indicate that when it came down individual races the main issue for voters was, and continues to be, dissatisfaction with the direction of the War in Iraq.
The last election provided the worst electoral defeat for the GOP since the Watergate-era. The silver lining for conservatives is that the results were by no means an affirmation of Nancy Pelosi and MoveOn.org’s liberal agenda. Republicans in Congress are committed to getting back to our roots to regain the trust and support of the American people. Our goal is to become a governing majority that has the power to implement our conservative agenda of lower taxes, smaller government and a stronger defense. This is an objective on which I know we can agree.
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