Looking for a silver lining

Republicans: Democrats want the economy to fail! Democrats: Republicans made it fail! They're both wrong.

By Ben Fritz

Jul 23, 2002 | Based on a single disputed story about House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and how he thinks his party might take back the House of Representatives in November, Republicans are accusing Democrats of intentionally trying to hurt the economy. Democrats, in return, are taking the anti-regulatory bent of the GOP's 1994 "Contract with America," and one related statement by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, to claim that Republicans caused the current corporate problems.

Both are guilty of overreaching.

According to an article in Roll Call, Gephardt recently "told senior Democrats that the party could pick up as many as 40 House seats if the continuously unfolding corporate scandals can be kept on the political radar screen until November." One attendee characterized his remarks as follows: "He said if this thing plays out right, we could pick up 30 to 40 seats." Gephardt has since disputed the report, calling it a "misunderstanding."

Regardless, a fair conclusion can be drawn that Gephardt wants to keep media and public attention on the corporate scandals. This may be a bit crass, but it's basic political strategizing. It is also true that continuing economic difficulties, more corporate scandals, or further declines in the stock market would likely benefit Democrats in the November election.

Some Republicans, however, have seized on this report and twisted it to claim that Gephardt is actually trying to make the economic downturn worse. The Washington Times reported on Friday that House Speaker Dennis Hastert said in response, "Hoping -- for political reasons -- that the stock market continues to slide or that scandals continue to hit major American companies is simply wrong. People's livelihoods are at stake here." It also quoted DeLay, in a new twist on the phrase "politics of personal destruction" as saying, "In a time when we as leaders should be helping to restore confidence in our economy and the free-market system, Dick Gephardt is practicing the politics of economic destruction."

DeLay was even more explicit on CNN's "Saturday Edition": "The Democrats are working to extend America's misery for their own political gain, and we just think that's just outrageous."

Radio host Rush Limbaugh has broadened this line of attack , accusing the entire Democratic Party of trying to bring the economy down. "They're talking down the economy, which is up, and they're making a big deal out of these corporate scandals, and they're gonna keep doing it until November," he said on his show on Thursday (Windows Media Player audio file). "They want you to get hurt, folks, so that you'll vote for them to fix it ... These guys are praying for mass economic failure."

On Friday, Republican National Committee chairman Marc Racicot even implied that Democratic positions on issues ranging from taxes to trade represent an attempt to disrupt the economy rather than sincere disagreement over policy: "It seems to me that Democrats are so eager to win that they aren't really interested in helping the economy grow by making the tax cut permanent, controlling spending, expanding trade with [trade-promotion authority], passing the energy bill, providing terrorism insurance, or quickly coming to agreement on a sensible corporate governance bill because they feel the only way they can win is if the economy is disrupted. Shame on them."

Gephardt himself, though, has attacked the Republican Party's position on government regulation, even claiming that the GOP caused recent corporate fraud and misconduct.

Next Page: Blaming Republicans for "a wink" too far

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