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The unflattering appraisal could be ripped from Democratic talking points. Instead, it comes from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican up-and-comer who could wind up as John McCain’s running mate.
It’s a message Pawlenty brings to Washington on Wednesday for a National Press Club speech focused on how his party can remake itself to attract “Sam’s Club Republicans” — a modern tilt on Reagan Democrats. He wants the party to update its message both stylistically and substantively to appeal to voters hungry for fresh ideas and government results.
“The Republican Party sometimes can be too cynical, negative and needs to be more hopeful and optimistic and energetic,” Pawlenty said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“You actually have to have some ideas that are relevant and meet the needs and concerns of people,” he added. “I think the Republican idea factory has been a little fatigued lately. We need to have some new ideas.”
His diagnosis grows out of the ballot-box drubbing of Republicans in 2006 and in a few special congressional elections since. Pawlenty won his own re-election two years ago by less than a percentage point in a three-way contest.
Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College in New York, said Pawlenty is hardly alone in baring his party’s troubles and probably helps distance himself from the GOP struggles with his call for a new approach.
“The brand name is damaged. Things need to be rebranded in some fashion,” Sherrill said. “It’s got to be more than a slogan. There has to be some programmatic proposals about what to do.”
To date, details of Pawlenty’s “Sam’s Club Republican” agenda have been sparing. Broadly, he said it’s about making the bulk retailer’s attention to customer value apply to government, such as paying teachers more for demonstrating student progress or for filling positions in high-demand subject areas. He’s also tried to bring the same mentality to health care, reworking government employee insurance plans to reward providers that show good results and save money.
Pawlenty said he plans to lay out more ideas in Wednesday’s speech.
In Friday’s interview, Pawlenty refused to discuss whether he is under vice presidential consideration, including whether he has been asked to turn over personal documents to McCain’s campaign.
“I’ve just stopped talking about it because every time I comment on it, it sets off another round of speculation and much of it is inaccurate,” he said. “It just becomes a distraction.”
The Sam’s Club slogan can be traced to 2001, when Pawlenty addressed state Republicans weeks before launching a bid for governor.
“We need to be the party of Sam’s Club, not just the country club,” Pawlenty said. Back then, he denied that it was a jab at the millionaire candidate whom he challenged and beat for the party nomination.
The idea sat mostly dormant until Pawlenty began his own national political rise. He signed on in 2007 as a national co-chairman of McCain’s campaign, an early allegiance that helped put him in the thick of this summer’s vice presidential speculation. The phrase often appears in news stories about him.
“It doesn’t mean we’re throwing people overboard or not embracing the country club types, but we want to grow (the Republican Party) to include others, including the Sam’s Club types,” Pawlenty said.
Others have taken the philosophy further.
Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat lean heavily on it in their recently published book, “Grand New Party.”
In an interview, Salam defined “Sam’s Club Republicans” as working class voters without a college education who are anxious about the economic future of themselves and their children and looking to government to help ease those concerns. Ignoring their needs would cost the GOP, he said.
“What’s happening now is Republicans are in danger of losing the middle-class suburbs,” Salam said. “When you lose those middle-class, working-class suburbs, you lose the country.”
