Republicans: 'We Don't Need To Stinking Contract With America'

David Frum on the Republican party's conundrum for the midterm elections:

Eight weeks to Election Day, and still no sign of an updated "Contract with America," the famous Republican campaign manifesto of 1994.

Party strategists may have decided they don't need a manifesto: they are winning without one. They may also find it too difficult to agree on the manifesto's content: how do you appeal to Tea Party radicals and swing voters at the same time?

Post-election, though, Republicans will be sorry. The Contract with America helped to discipline the new Republican majority of 1994, enabling Republicans to help achieve important things: welfare reform, a cut in the capital gains tax, a balanced budget.

If Republican majorities arrive in Washington in 2011 without a program, the risk is very real they will fall into trouble: pick the wrong fights with the administration, fail to deliver results, share the blame if employment continues to lag.

...not to mention lose (even more) credibility with the American public.

This makes sense. The GOP could will likely make quite a few gains in November, in both the House and Senate. But, if that is all that Republicans want -- gains -- then they could very easily lose them again in 2012.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: reports of the death of the GOP have been greatly exaggerated, but so have reports of it's comeback...

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