Tuesday, April 10, 2012

May I Make a Suggestion?

Who would have thought that Wisconsin of all places would be in the headlines so much?  Anyway, it's there again, this time because already beleaguered Governor Walker signed a repeal of a law passed in 2009 that made it easier for plaintiffs to win bigger awards in sex discrimination cases.    

Predictably, the Left and the Democrats across the country, including the Obama campaign, were quick to pounce, calling the repeal even more evidence of the GOP's ongoing War on Women.  Well, the editors at NRO, for one, would have none of it and quickly fired back, setting the record straight with this piece: "There is No War on Women in Wisconsin"

All of this is instructive, for conservatives and the Republican Party, that is.

With all due respect to the editors at NRO, aside from the cute alliteration in the title, the substance of the piece is all wrong.  Thoughtfully rehearsing the reasoning behind, the very sound reasoning behind Walker's repeal is not enough, it's not even the point.  The point is that we are now deeply into a political war where all the predicates have already been laid.  What the editors, what conservatives everywhere, and what the GOP especially ought to do is, like the Democrats, attack.

Instead of defending the repeal by explaining it once again, Republican spokesmen should ask, with an effective dose of righteous indignation by the way, feigned if they have to, why it is that  Democrats remain forever in favor of frivolous lawsuits?  Is it their almost incestuous relationship with the nation's trial lawyers and the substantial campaign contributions those lawyers make to the party?  Are they eager to increase the cost of doing business by making the price of insurance against such frivolous lawsuits even more expensive, a cost invariably paid by the consumer anyway.  During these times of stubbornly high unemployment, do they want companies' funds to be held in reserve in order to pay off claimants instead of being used for expansion, for hiring new people?  And why do they want to make it more it even more difficult for women to get good jobs as the former law encourages employers to shrink from hiring women in the first place for fear of later being sued?  Are the Democrats engaged in a War on Women?

That, I submit, is the way the game is played.

Or at least it is if you want to win.

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