Labrador: GOP needs clear vision

COEUR d'ALENE - Congressman Raul Labrador said the Republican Party doesn't have a clear vision, and that is why it appears fractured to most.

Labrador met with almost 70 constituents at North Idaho College Thursday for a town hall meeting to discuss federal issues.

Many of the topics are the same topics Congress has been debating for several years, but now with the GOP in control of both houses of Congress, some wanted to know why things aren't getting done.

Just a few minutes into the event, one audience member stood to voice his concern with what he sees as a result of Republican infighting.

He said while the Republicans are fractured, the Democrats keep voting as a block and it still appears to be deadlocking the political system.

"Can't we please use the word 'compromise' and try to make some progress?" the man said. "Somebody is going to get blamed for a do-nothing Congress, and I hope it's not us."

Labrador said the party is fractured a little bit, but he said that always happens when a party is in the majority.

"I actually think that fracture is symptom of a party that is alive and well," he said, explaining that majority parties begin to appear fractured as members with competing issues and different priorities try to move their ideas forward. "I don't always see that as a completely negative thing."

Labrador said he went to Washington, D.C., to make changes because he realized the Republican Party didn't have a clear enough vision.

"That is my main concern," Labrador said, adding if that continues the party will continue to lose elections. "And that is not good for the nation, because look at what happened to our party in the last eight years under Obama. We didn't do so well."

He said if the party keeps nominating candidates like John McCain, or Bob Dole, who are both popular with the media, you lose elections because they cannot communicate a clear vision to America.

He said Obama had a vision and was very clear in articulating that vision.

"We haven't had a candidate that can clearly communicate a vision," he added.

Labrador told the audience about a speaker they had at a Congressional retreat a few years ago, Tom Monaghan, CEO of Dominos Pizza.

He said Monaghan explained to the congressmen how he was able to turn the company around by honestly rebranding and revamping its product line.

Dominos was at the bottom of the list for fast food pizza and turned that around in the course of two years by publicly admitting its shortcomings and fixing them.

"They accepted responsibility," Labrador said. "Dominos Pizza president said 'We screwed up. We haven't been giving you a good product.'"

Monaghan's board thought he was crazy when he proposed the campaign.

"He went out and spent million of dollars telling the American people that his pizza was bad and they were doing a terrible job," he said. "And then he said, 'We listened to you. We have all new ingredients, and we have a whole new pizza.'"

They went from being the last in flavor to being the first in flavor, Labrador said. Dominos also went from last in sales to second and third in overall sales.

"This man is trying to help the Republican Party. He is telling us 'you guys need to do the same thing,'" Labrador said. "Then one of the members of our leadership stood up said, 'But what if there is nothing wrong with our pizza?'"

Labrador said Monaghan didn't know how to respond to that question.

"This the CEO of a major corporation taking the time away from his company to try and help the Republican Party change the way we are delivering pizza and our leadership's only question is 'What if there is nothing wrong with our pizza?" Labrador said, adding. "That's why you see these incredible struggles, and you're right; we have to fix that."

Labrador said the country will have an opportunity to do just that in 2016. He urged the audience to get behind the party's nominee - even if it's not the perfect candidate.

"Just remember that elections have consequences," he said. "If we don't work hard enough to elect a Republican president, then you are not going to be able to investigate some of these things you want investigated.

"I work as hard as I can in the primary to get the most conservative candidate to win that primary," he added. "After that, I am going to vote for the Republican candidate, and I don't stay home, because the alternative could be 10, 20, 30, 40 times worse than what we have."