×
Harold Meyerson points out that the Republican candidates can't seem to put forth policy proposals of their own, so they've taken to simply repeating that they're against everything Hillary Clinton is for:
Both David Brooks and Michael Gerson, writing last Friday in the New York Times and The Post, respectively, expressed a mixture of amazement and horror at the disdain that the candidates display toward broadly centrist proposals to bolster Americans' economic security, and at the candidates' apparent indifference to their need to craft such proposals of their own."The Democrats propose something" such as expanding health-care coverage for children or providing federal matching funds for 401(k) accounts for families of modest means, bemoaned Brooks, "and the Republicans have no alternative." Gerson grumbled that the candidates were taking gleeful potshots at the "baby bonds" notion -- providing newborns with small savings accounts -- that Hillary Clinton briefly floated, despite the fact that the idea has won support from the right as well as the left.In fact, with the honorable exception of long-shot candidate Mike Huckabee, the Republican field seems content with an economic program that comes down to opposing whatever Hillary Clinton proposes. Rudy Giuliani, campaigning hard to convince the Republican base to overlook his heresies on such cultural hot buttons as abortion rights, seeks to win over the faithful by claiming the mantle of Hillary-Basher Club Champion. A tax credit for parents struggling to pay their children's college tuition? Matching funds for 401(k)s? Baby bonds? Crazy notions all, not because of their substance -- Rudy can't be bothered with their substance -- but because they were proposed by -- get this -- Hillary! The GOP crowds roar.Read the rest (and comment) here.--The Editors
