WSJ: GOP Calibrates Role as Opposition

Today's WSJ has a great piece on what's next for the GOP. Read it here, excerpts below.

WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader John Boehner recently attacked the potential "wasteful spending" and "mountains of debt" in President Barack Obama's stimulus plan. A few days later, he warmly invited Mr. Obama to address House Republicans, saying, "We do not want partisan differences to stall achievement."

The contrast captures the balance confronting Republicans as they enter the opening act of what is likely to be a dynamic Democratic presidency. For the first time in eight years, Republicans don't occupy the White House, making Mr. Boehner and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, the party's leaders.

The November elections were widely seen as a rebuke to Republicans, and Mr. Obama has claimed the economic crisis as a mandate for action, leaving Messrs. Boehner and McConnell groping for the right blend of cooperation and defiance.

Republicans can't simply be "the party of 'no,'" Mr. Boehner, of Ohio, said in an interview this month, but must offer solutions to voters' problems. "We have to give the American people reasons to take a look at us," he said. Tuesday, Mr. Boehner issued a statement congratulating Mr. Obama on his inauguration, vowing to find "common ground with the President on solutions to rebuild our economy, strengthen American families, and keep our country safe."

...

Republicans say they will adopt different strategies for different bills. While they support elements of the stimulus plan, for example, they are dead-set against "card check" legislation making it easier for workers to unionize, and the parties are likely to wage a heated battle over that issue.

In all these fights, Republican leaders face a central challenge: re-energizing party loyalists while beginning to win back the centrists who just rejected them so decisively.

"You have to be a pragmatist," Mr. McConnell said. "I'm a right-of-center senator, but I'm also pragmatic. I have to deal with the art of the possible."