Yes, House Republicans can “compromise,” or at least they can try. Right now they are struggling to compromise with themselves, of course, over a bill Speaker John Boehner has put forward that both the White House and the Senate majority leader says can’t go anywhere. But the exercise, as fruitless as it may be, gives Republicans the chance to flex muscles they generally hate to admit they have.
When House Republicans argue for compromise, they have other approaches than embracing the concept of compromise as an inherently good, which just happens to be the White House messaging strategy this week. Here’s what they do instead:
Claim to punch above your weight. Rep. Paul Ryan rolled out this argument Tuesday when he came out in favor of the Boehner plan. “House Republicans control only one-half of one-third of the federal government,” he mused amid a dependent clause that prefaced his endorsement of the plan. It is always strange to hear the head of the House budget committee minimizing the role of the House majority in making budgetary policy. But then everyone wants to be an underdog.
Claim to have over-performed expectations. Politician-turned-actor-turned-politician-turned-reverse-mortgage-pitchman Fred Thompson debuted this tactic in an op-ed in the National Review. “I respectfully suggest that you rake in your chips, stuff them in your pockets, and tell the dealer to deal the next hand,” he wrote. “Now it is the time to accept a well-won victory and move on.”
Feel the pain. Sometimes it’s easier to do hard things by focusing on the agony. This is the tactic adopted by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. “The debt limit vote sucks,” he said. Yes, it does. For all of us.
Claim the alternative is defeat. This is how the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page cast the decision on Wednesday. “The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame,” the editors write of those conservatives now opposing the Boehner plan. “This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into GOP Senate nominees.”
Downplay perfection. This is the approach of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “We cannot get a perfect solution controlling only the House of Representatives,” McConnell said. “I am prepared to accept something less than perfect because perfect is not achievable.” This creates a nice binary: The perfect and the not perfect. And once you have embraced the not perfect, compromise is there for the taking.
