GOP executives are swearing off polarizing battles. Battered GOP govs change tune

They stormed into office two years ago willing to knock heads and make enemies. But now several Republican governors are suddenly in a fix – up for reelection next year in states that Barack Obama carried in November, and with dangerously low approval ratings.

So the GOP executives — including well-known figures like Scott Walker and John Kasich —are swearing off polarizing battles over union power and budget cuts and presenting a softer side to voters. Instead of red-meat conservative causes, they’re emphasizing the pocketbook issues that got them elected in the first place — a shift that will likely be on display this weekend at the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington.


Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s surprise expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare is the latest in a series of moves to improve his standing with the independents who will decide if he gets a second term. After slashing education spending by $1.3 billion in his first budget, for example, he called last month for all teachers to get a $2,500 pay raise next year and a $250 debit card to help cover out-of-pocket classroom costs.

( Also on POLITICO: The GOP split on Obamacare)

Ohio’s Kasich signed a law to curtail public employees’ collective-bargaining rights that generated massive protests in Columbus and a successful ballot initiative to overturn it. Now he too has embraced the Medicaid expansion and proposed a change to the state’s education funding formula that irks many in his own party.

Walker of Wisconsin withstood a recall effort sparked by his overhaul of collective bargaining and deep budget cuts. But right after the election in June, he invited Democrats in the state legislature over for beer and brats – and he’s worked with their leaders since then on issues like mining.

( Also on POLITICO: What's the matter with Tom Corbett?)

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett got sidetracked last year with fights over social issues like whether women should be required to get an ultrasound before an abortion. Now he’s pushing to raise gas taxes to pay for transportation projects — a plan that tests well with the public and drew a rebuke from Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.

An exception to the trend might be Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. He avoided some of the headline-grabbing conflict in the first half of his term, only to sign a right-to-work bill pushed by conservatives in the state legislature in December. His approval rating has dropped sharply.

Republicans expect that the economy will remain the top concern of voters through 2014. So gubernatorial strategists plan to relentlessly highlight job gains in each of their states since the start of their terms in 2011.

(Battered GOP governors change tune ahead of 2014)

“You make the big controversial decisions as soon as possible,” said Republican Governors Association spokesman Mike Schrimpf. “You make all the cuts and the tough reforms in your first budget, partly by necessity and partly because it’s the politically smart thing to do. They made the tough decisions early, and those decisions have worked and their budgets are in healthier shape.”

Democrats say there’s been a change in tone, not substance. And they plan to link GOP incumbents to Mitt Romney and George W. Bush.

“They seem wedded to the same policies that caused the mess in the first place,” said Democratic Governors Association spokesman Danny Kanner. “They won in a wave election in states they have no business winning in. They will lose because their policies are the very same policies that were just rejected last year.”

Republicans highlight the blue-state governors who are in good shape. Some of the nine Republicans up for reelection next year in Obama-won states, including Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, are popular and on track to coast to reelection.

Iowa’s Terry Branstad, who returned as governor after serving 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s, is by disposition not a bomb thrower. He’s unlikely to face a serious challenge should he run again.

Another exception to the conciliatory trend might be Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who won a three-way race with less than 38 percent in 2010. The Democrats took control of the state legislature in November, but he refused to even sit down with the House speaker and Senate president until this month because their state party has been sending a tracker to his public events, according to the Bangor Daily News.

Florida, though, is the most significant example of a Republican governor trying to rebrand himself in the face of anemic poll numbers.

Scott, a former health care executive, was one of the most vociferous critics of Obamacare. Then immediately in the wake of Obama’s victory in his state in Florida he signaled a willingness to work with the administration on implementing the law.

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, seen as a future GOP candidate for governor, blasted the embrace of bigger entitlement liabilities as “extremely disappointing.” There was even buzz this week that Scott could face a primary challenger next year.

“His poll numbers should warrant some rebooting,” said Florida Republican strategist Ana Navarro. “People need to like you before they vote for you, and Rick needs to work on that.”

“If the grumbling ends up being nothing more than that, and he doesn’t get a serious primary challenge, it’s helpful. It makes him more appealing toward the independents,” she added. “Rick Scott can’t be the tea party governor of Florida…We are a swing state. People need to understand that you have to have a broader approach to things.”

In Ohio, Kasich’s allies downplay the repudiation by voters of Republicans in Nov. 2011 and Nov. 2012. They take credit for not raising taxes and putting more than 120,000 people back to work.

“Obviously he campaigned hard for those reforms. He thought, quite frankly, they would be better for Ohio. The voters spoke, he gave his remarks on election night about it, and I don’t think we’ve talked about it since,” said Ohio GOP executive director Matt Borges.

Borges said creating jobs has guided every decision that Kasich has made in office.

“Any time you stand for reelection, you’re asking voters to kind of renew their commitment to the direction you’re taking the state,” he said. “With John Kasich, it’s going to be a referendum on the drastic change from the direction our state was heading in to where it is now and where it’s going.”

Kasich, like the other governors highlighted in this story, was not made available for an interview.

Ohio Republican consultant Bob Clegg said Kasich changed his public persona to be more of a pragmatist after the collective bargaining rights measure was overturned. He’s proposed to cut income taxes, partly by increasing the severance tax on money made from oil and gas drilling.

“He slipped into that manager mode after Nov. 2011, and I think that’s what the state needs,” he said. “When he released his budget … you had some criticism from Republicans because of some of the things he wanted to do on oil and gas taxes…When you start taking fire from both sides, you must be doing something right.”

Polls consistently show Corbett as one of the most vulnerable governors in the country, and many in D.C. see him as a sort of dead man walking. But former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said that his successor has a lot of built-in advantages, especially with lower turnout for the midterms and the ability to raise a lot of money.

“He’s got to move a little bit to the center between now and when he runs in 2014, and transportation is a step in that direction,” Rendell said. “The governor will have a lot of money to tout whatever his achievements are. There are some…It’s certainly not an easy sell, but he’s going to have a lot of money and time to sell.”