Yesterday Congressman Jason Chafets tweeted the following:

Earlier  Shannon Bream had him on to share his thoughts on the S&P downgrading the United States to AA+ Rating. He makes a strong argument about why Geitner has to go. It was only a few month ago that Geitner assured us that there would be no chance that the US would be downgraded and look what happened. Chafetz argues that if you want different results you need different people, it’s that simple.

What I like about this interview is that without even realizing he pretty much maps out what the Republicans argument in the upcoming election cycle should be.

I think what was shown through this whole debt ceiling discussion is  the president has no plan. And that’s one of my great criticisms. I hear a lot of, coming towards us saying, hey we need to be bipartisan we need to work together. When the president has no plan, when the budget that was submitted by the president went to the United States Senate it was defeated 97-0. They literally didn’t even get one Democratic vote for it. And yet I can look at the house Republicans and say, we passed a budget, it passed. We passed Cut, Cap and Balance it goes over to the senate, the senate didn’t even discuss is, they just tabled it. So, very frustrating that we’re not having a serious discussion about how are we are actually going to balance the books in this country.

Then he takes on the criticism that the “Republicans are the party of no” and throws it straight back into the face of the democrats and the president:

I was the primary sponsor of Cut, Cap and Balance coming out of the house. And I remember that the Speaker and leader Cantor  announced that we were going to bring this up to the floor the following week. I literally had in my own hands the only copy of the bill, it had not even been dropped yet,  and yet the White House was issuing a veto threat. They haven’t even read the bill, they were issuing a veto threat. So it’s very difficult to break through that and then when you send the bill over to the Senate, they don’t even discuss it. By a 46-51 vote the table it without any discussion or debate.

So much for the Republicans being the party of no.

Bream asked him that some would argue that what the Republicans sent over to the Senate was not a compromise and was all one sided. He responded by debunking the argument that Republicans are not willing to come to the table and talk and it is the Democrats that don’t want to even debate anything.

Then they should at least debate it and amend it. Let’s remember that the Senate, I don’t know what they do over there other than the Wednesday night, you know, bingo and potluck that they have at the wheelchair races. I don’t know what they have been doing. For 830 days they have yet to produce a budget. House Republicans; we produced a budget, we produced Cut, Cap and balance. We’ve been out there trying to be as compromising as we possibly can. For a guy like me to vote to raise the debt ceiling, I don’t want to do that, but I’m willing to come to the table and have that discussion. But, to have a president with no plan,  a Senate that wont produce a budget, when you send something over to them and they don’t even discuss it, I think the record we reflect without hyper partisan goggles on, the record will reflect that we’re trying to do the best we can but it’s going to take two to tango.

In simple terms the Republican argument comes down to those three points:

1) We’ve produced, we’ve voted and we delivered. The Democrates have done nothing in nearly 3 years and the president can’t even deliver a plan his own party would vote on

2) The Democrats are the party of no, they say no to everything even before they know what they are saying no to.

3) We may not always agree on everything but we’re ready to sit down, debate and negotiate. The Democrats will not even come to the table.

The problem is that the Democrats with no record to run on spend all their time working on messaging, something they are really good at. The Republicans while they have the facts and the record to back them up are disastrous when it comes to messaging. Just get your messaging right and you’ll do great. Maybe that should be the message the Republicans run on: “We’re so busy working for you we haven’t got the time to manipulate you”.

At the end of the interview Shannon asks him about the rumor that he might put go up against up Utah Senator Orrin Hatch in primary challenge. To which he responds:

I’m going to spend some time with my family, I’m not trying to be coy about it, I am seriously considering it, am leaning towards it. I think once football season gets kicked off then you’ll see us make some sort of announcement one way or another.

In other words, he’s running!

Watch the video: