RNC Chairman Duncan Wants To Keep Job
The man who oversaw the Republican Party during the past election is running to keep his job. Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan announced that in a video this week. Although his party lost, Duncan tells Steve Inskeep that the party's organization is stronger than pundits predicted.
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The Republican Party is still absorbing last month's election defeat. But the man who oversaw the party during the campaign put out a YouTube video this week saying the party is still fundamentally sound.
(Soundbite of YouTube video)
Mr. MIKE DUNCAN (Chairman, Republican National Committee): They said the Republican brand had lost its luster. Well, I'm here to report that when it comes to the Republican National Committee, they were very wrong.
INSKEEP: That's Republican National Chairman Mike Duncan who announced in a video this week that he is seeking to keep his position. The party has also put up a Web site called "Republican for a Reason." It asks Republicans to give the party advice, and people have posted thousands of responses. Some call for change, while others urge the party to hold to its principles, like the note that reads, "Go all the way to the right and stay there." We visited Mike Duncan's office to talk about the debate within the Republican Party.
Mr. DUNCAN: Campaigns are won on ideas, and we have to make sure that people understand the values and principles of the Republican Party. And we have to articulate those better.
INSKEEP: I've printed out some letters from the Web site. Patrick(ph) from Bellevue, Washington, writes, obviously we lost the 2008 presidential election in large part because people believed the Democrats would handle the economy better. I actually agree - this person who writes as a Republican. This is one issue that I think the Democrats have a better handle on. The GOP tends to support trickledown economics.
Is this letter writer correct in that the public at large feels that the Democrats - not just that there was a problem with the economy under President Bush, but that the Democrats actually have a better handle on what to do in an economic situation...
Mr. DUNCAN: First, I don't believe that the Democrats have a better handle on what to do. I do think that there was a perception during this campaign that we'd been in charge for the last eight years and that we were being punished. Because when you had the recession and the economic downturn, that's when the polling numbers went the other way, and that's when we started losing some of our supporters. But the truth is the Republican philosophy is a philosophy that works. The idea of taxing your way out of a recession has been rejected by every president since Jack Kennedy. You just don't do that. And by making sure that we return more of the money to the American people, we stimulate the economy.
INSKEEP: David Frum, the conservative writer, had another take on that. He was saying the Republican Party is and should be the party of lower taxes. But once you establish that, you want to ask people what concerns them. And if people say, what I'm really worried about is health care, you can't respond to them, well, I'm going to keep your taxes low, because you just seem irrelevant to that voter. Has the party missed some of the key issues, do you think?
Mr. DUNCAN: I think communication is always something that we have to do better as a party. We have to articulate our ideas in ways that people understand on a daily basis. And that's one of the things that we're going to have to work on going forward. I'm going to be announcing soon that we're going to have a center for ideas here at the Republican Party.
INSKEEP: Center for ideas?
Mr. DUNCAN: Center for the Republican renewal. When we're out of the White House, we have to help stimulate new ways of thinking, new ideas, new words to help us communicate with the American people. And we're going to be announcing that soon.
INSKEEP: When you say we need to articulate our ideas better, what that translates to in my head is we don't need to change what we believe, we just need to be better tactically in order to win elections.
Mr. DUNCAN: Well, you always want - change is a part of life. And accelerating change is part of what we do on a daily basis. So there are always new ideas. And we look to the governors and we look to legislative leaders and members of Congress to help us bring those new ideas in. But the basic principles that you have, the principles that the party stands on, are timeless.
INSKEEP: Another letter here from the Web site that you guys put up. Jerry(ph) from Sisters, Oregon, writes, the Republican Party simply has to get a little distance between itself and the religious right.
Mr. DUNCAN: We embrace lots of different people in the Republican Party. As chairman, I've had the chance to travel in 46 different states, and I can tell you that every state is different. And we have a lot of people who are Republican for lots of different reasons. And that's why we have this Web site. We think our values resonate better with the American people.
INSKEEP: Although Jerry from Sisters, Oregon, I think is suggesting that people feel excluded if you're too close to one group, the religious right, as he describes it.
Mr. DUNCAN: I do my best to include everyone in the Republican Party. I try to make sure that we have an opportunity to hear all voices. And part of what we're doing with "Republican for a Reason" is to make sure that we hear those voices.
INSKEEP: When he says the Republican Party simply has to get a little distance between itself and the religious right, is there an assumption that this person has that is mistaken? Is there an assumption this person has that is wrong about the way the Republican Party is set up, the influence that different people have?
Mr. DUNCAN: The Republican Party is a party of a big tent. We welcome people of different ideas and different philosophies in the Republican Party. And as chairman, I've tried to do that.
INSKEEP: Well, Mr. Chairman, thanks very much.
Mr. DUNCAN: Thank you.
INSKEEP: Mike Duncan is chairman of the Republican National Committee, and he's seeking to keep his job. In that interview we mentioned the views of another conservative, the writer David Frum. And we will get his views on the Republican future tomorrow.
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Once Snubbed By GOP, Now Hailed As Its Future
CorrectionA previous version of this story misspelled Cao's first name.
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Anh "Joseph" Cao, who this week upset embattled Democratic incumbent Rep. William Jefferson in Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District, has become the unexpected toast of the Republican Party.
He is the face of the future, national leaders gushed after Cao's victory Saturday, proof that after a dismal election cycle the GOP can win — and win with an unconventional candidate.
There's been a lot of media attention surrounding Cao ahead of his arrival on the Hill Wednesday. But there was a time not so long ago that Cao, who will be the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress, couldn't get anyone to pay attention to his long-shot bid to become the first Republican since the late 1800s to represent New Orleans in Congress.
He got the brushoff from local newspapers and television stations. He was all but invisible to state Republican leaders. And the GOP's big money people in Washington had never heard of the young lawyer. After all, what chance would an untested refugee have in a predominantly African-American district against a nine-term incumbent — even one indicted on corruption charges?
"They just ignored me," said Cao, 41, who fled war-ravaged Vietnam as a boy. "The message was, 'Why waste our time?' "
Now, after his hurricane-delayed election win, Cao has been besieged by interview requests and touted as proof that the beleaguered Republican Party is still alive and kicking. "The future is Cao," House Minority Leader John Boehner declared in a post-election memo. But an assertion by Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan that Cao's success shows the party still knows how to win seems more than a bit disingenuous, even to the victor.
"I'm a little bit mad at the Republican Party because they, like everybody else, ignored us until the very end — until they saw that we might actually win," says Cao, pronounced "Gow."
The party didn't pony up any money until three weeks before the election, he says — and then only at the urging of party leaders like Newt Gingrich, who says he recognized an opportunity against wounded incumbent Jefferson, who became the butt of late-night comics after investigators discovered $90,000 hidden in his freezer. "I know the impact of even the smallest word of encouragement," said Gingrich, who lost twice before winning a seat in Congress in 1979.
Endorsements were equally slow to come. Popular Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American and himself promoted as the future of the GOP, waited until three days before the election to back his fellow party member, Cao says.
And then there was the hurricane effect. Even Cao says that his victory was largely made possible by Hurricane Gustav. Its early September appearance in Louisiana pushed back the congressional contest from Election Day, when he would have faced Jefferson on a Democratic ticket topped by Barack Obama. Only 66,000 voters showed up for the Dec. 6 special election, about 100,000 fewer than on Election Day.
"If not for Gustav, we would have been swamped by African-American voters on Election Day, and I would still be ignored," Cao said in an interview Tuesday. Gustav, says Gingrich, "created the opportunity."
Jefferson has blamed his loss on the rescheduled election and on low voter turnout in a district where Democratic presidential candidates in 2000 and 2004 captured more than three-quarters of the vote. District data are not yet available for this year.
Cao, whose law practice is largely devoted to personal injury and immigration issues, will head to Washington this week with a unique personal story. After fleeing Vietnam as an 8-year-old, he lived with family members and eventually graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Later, as a Jesuit seminarian, Cao says he was transformed by the time he spent working with the poor in Tijuana, Mexico.
"I saw extreme poverty and the need for social change," he said. "At that time, I saw the fastest way to achieve that change was through political activity." That presented a conflict with his pursuit of the priesthood, as did his desire for a family. He left the Jesuits, eventually earned a law degree at Loyola University New Orleans, married and now has two young daughters.
Cao made a name for himself in his community after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. His own home and law office destroyed, he rebuilt and fought efforts to locate a garbage dump in the city's ruined Vietnamese-American enclave. "It would have completely diminished our community," says Huey Truong, 27, a secretary at Cao's law office. "He is a role model for Asian-Americans — I am really honored by his election."
Cao says his Washington agenda is simple: "To address the needs of the 2nd District, many parts of which are still decimated by Katrina." That includes, he says, fixing the health care system and restoring coastal wetland areas.
Cao says he also wants to bring a more progressive voice to his own party, including one that is "less anti-immigrant."
"When minorities like me hear that negative message, we really have to think what's going through these people's minds," he said. "Even though we need to have security and prevent illegal immigration, we don't have to express it negatively."
Gingrich says that Cao and Jindal could be key to reaching out to the broader Asian-American community, which he sees as receptive to a conservative economic message. But first order of business for Cao, Gingrich says, is to remain focused on rebuilding New Orleans, and to reach out to Democrats and the African-American community in his district.
Cao says that one of his most life-forming moments was when, as a 9-year-old refugee living with his uncle in Goshen, Ind., he received a letter from his father, who was being held in a prison camp in South Vietnam. "Son," the letter said, "you have to study hard, work hard and give back to your community and your country."
"That has stuck with me since," says Cao, who insists he is holding no grudges over earlier slights by his party and the media. "I'm being quite gracious to everyone — I'm for the people."
"I see great hope for Vietnamese-Americans in the United States, and this is a first step in what I hope will be many to come."
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