Republicans pin their hopes on Cole in 2008

For Tom Cole, history always repeats itself.

Again and again and again.

For Cole, history isn’t a collection of dry facts and little-used figures, but a tale of action and events. Cole looks at the past to understand the culture, the emotion and the reasons behind human action.

Cole may be a consummate political insider, but he’s also a student of history; he embraces it, he examines it and — unlike many who play the game called “politics” — he actually learns from it.

And that, his opponents say, makes Cole dangerous.

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It’s no secret that, nationally, Republicans took it on the chin in 2006. An unpopular president, a congressional sex scandal, and a bloody, ongoing war cost the GOP control of both houses of congress.

It was a perfect storm, and it hasn’t subsided.

But for Oklahoma’s Fourth District congressman from Moore, it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

Because Cole has seen this drama before.

Chosen again to head the National Republican Congressional Committee, Cole will reprise his role as Republican field general for the 2008 congressional races. He’ll recruit candidates, raise money and help develop a strategy which, he hopes, will turn the U.S. Congress from blue back to red.

And while some pundits see the job akin to raising the Titanic, for Cole it’s yet another chance to repeat history.

Because he did the same thing in 1991.

“Tom Cole is an extremely skilled and experienced and he knows his way around politics both in Oklahoma and nationally,” says Cole’s friend and sometime rival Don Hoover.

Hoover, one of the state’s top Democratic political consultants, said Cole understand politics “as well as anyone (he’s) ever known.”

“I’ve worked both with him and against him,” Hoover said. “And he has a vast knowledge of politics, from both a modern and a historical perspective. Unfortunately, from my side of the fence he’ll do an outstanding job.”

But while Hoover predicts Cole will be successful as the NRCC’s leader, he’s just as quick to say the odds are not in Cole’s favor. “I don’t see that (GOP control) happening in the House,” Hoover said. “Unless there’s a vast change.”

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Armed with a political pedigree that spans most of his adult life, Cole has held almost every job a Republican can have in Oklahoma.

A former history professor, Cole is also a successful political consultant, a former congressional aide, the past executive director of the state’s Republican Party and a member of the Oklahoma State Senate. In 1991, he resigned his Senate seat to serve as the executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Four years later, he returned to Oklahoma as secretary of state under then-Gov. Frank Keating.

In 2002, Cole replaced fellow Republican J.C. Watts as Oklahoma’s Fourth District congressman; he was reelected in 2004 and 2006. Cole founded and served as president of the political consulting firm Cole, Hargrave, Snodgrass and Associates.

Today, he’s back at the NRCC.

“It’s déjà vu for me,” Cole said. “When I came in, in March of 1991, the committee had three straight losing years and was about $6 million in debt. I was part of the shake-up. It was a very turbulent political year.”

Fast forward to 2007.

Once again, the NRCC is licking its wounds after a major loss. Once again it’s millions in debt. And once again, it faces a tough upcoming election cycle.

And once again, Tom Cole is in charge.

“The committee was not, when I walked in the door, in very good shape,” Cole said. “It was $16 (million) to $17 million in debt; the largest debt I’ve ever seen a committee have and, certainly, the largest one in this history of this committee. We were down to nine staffers — normally we have 65 to 70. It was like a broken army after losing a war.”

A few things have improved.

Cole has hired staff, ramped up candidate recruitment and reduced the committee’s debt to just over $4 million. “Our debt went down pretty rapidly from the first six months of my tenure,” he said. “But the next six will be tougher.”

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In an Washington Post story published earlier this year, Cole gave three reasons for the Republicans’ defeat in 2006. He also said he wasn’t sure “they (Democrats) won as much as we lost.”

“In the sixth year of any eight-year run, it’s usually a pretty tough go for the party in power,” Cole told the Post. He went on to say the same happened to former presidents Ronald Reagan in 1986, Lyndon Johnson in 1966 and Dwight Eisenhower in 1958.

The second reason, he said, was the war.

“I think Iraq, no question,” Cole said. “It’s not a popular war and so politically, I think we paid a price for that.”

Cole said the actions of several members of the GOP like Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley was the third reason for the GOP’s loss. Those men, Cole said, “cast a pall” on the party and cost Republicans several seats. “Those three things came together and created a very difficult environment for us,” he said.

That environment hasn’t changed.

President Bush is still wildly unpopular and faith in Congress — on either side of the aisle — is at an all-time low. To make matters worse, Democratic presidential candidates have raised more money than Republican contenders. Even locally, county Republicans are working to distance themselves from their national leaders. Earlier this month, Cleveland County GOP chair Roger Warren said county Republicans wanted “to divorce themselves” from their national colleagues.

For the GOP, 2008 looks bleak.

But Cole is unfazed.

“You start with what your political positioning is, which won’t change,” he said. “And our positioning is very good. There are 61 seats in the country which George Bush carried and which currently have Democratic members. Sixty-one, and 47 of those he (Bush) carried twice; which means he even carried those seats when he lost the popular vote.”

That, Cole says, gives the GOP “a pretty good chance those seats will vote Republican whoever our nominee is.”

And to win, he plans to “play offense” in those districts.

“There are only eight seats that we hold, that John Kerry carried,” he said. “So if you look at the chances for offense versus defense, they’re pretty good.”

He’s also getting some unexpected help — from Democrats. The opposition, Cole said, is making far too many mistakes and the Democratic leadership is pulling its presidential nominees to the left.

“The country is evenly divided,” he said. “The Democratic base is extraordinarly energized, but very much to the left of where the rest of the country is.”

Cole says the Democrats’ budget and the call to phase out the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are giving Republicans “the kinds of issues we want to campaign on.”

But his biggest problem is candidate recruitment — and Cole is looking.

“Eighty percent of any campaign is the candidate’s ability to run,” he said. “A good candidate has to have a belief structure. Not my belief, but reflective of the people in the area the candidate serves.”

To illustrate, Cole again makes use of history.

“I remember years ago, working for Tom Daxon as his deputy campaign manager,” he said. “That was in 1982 and we lost all 77 counties to George Nigh.”

Two years later, Cole was working for the Ronald Reagan campaign — that campaign won all by three Oklahoma counties.
“That was in 1984. Now I don’t think I was that dumb in 1982 and I certainly wasn’t that smart in 1984.”

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Candidates and consultants, Cole said, are like horses and jockeys.

“It’s not really the jockey, but how fast the horse is and what the track is like.”

A good jockey, Cole said, can make a fast horse faster, but he can’t make a slow horse fast.

“The same thing is true for candidates. If I get good candidates and the year develops the way I think it will, then I believe we have to ability to make a difference.”

But right now, the future — like the Oklahoma sky — is gray and cloudy. “If the track is muddy,” Cole said, “then it’s gonna be considerably tougher. I think some people forget the lessons of the past — they don’t apply them.”

Some people, but not Cole.