Kerby Anderson

You have probably seen campaign yard signs popping up in your neighborhood. That is a vivid reminder that we are headed to another election season. The general election isn’t until November, but party primary elections will be taking place in the next few months.

What will be the agenda for the candidates for these political parties? The Republican agenda should be fairly easy to predict. Incumbents will point to the recently passed tax reform bill and ask to be reelected to focus on unfinished business like health care reform and welfare reform. Other Republican candidates may argue that they should be put in office instead of career politicians so we can “drain the swamp.”

The agenda for Democrats isn’t so easy to predict. They can point to wins in Virginia and Alabama. They say President Trump is unpopular. But they don’t really have an agenda that would make people want to vote for their candidates.

Some have suggested that the current debate about DACA and dreamers will be a possible item on the Democratic agenda. Matthew Continetti in a recent column explains why that won’t be an effective strategy. A Pew poll that surveyed public priorities ranked immigration fifteenth. The top three items were terrorism (76%), the economy (73%), and education (69%). It is also worth mentioning that the debate about the status of dreamers will be resolved (one way or the other) long before the November elections.

Running against the president and the Republican leadership in Congress isn’t a very compelling reason for potential voters to turn out in an off year election. Matthew Continetti says the Democratic policy cupboard is empty. “There was no alternative Democratic health care bill, no alternative Democratic tax bill.”

This isn’t the first time both Republican and Democratic candidates have tried to run on an agenda of obstruction. I think voters are looking for more.