GOP and the party of ideas

If there were any doubt the Republican Party is the party of ideas in the 2016 presidential race, the thought should have been put to bed with the Monday candidate announcements by former neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Carly Fiorina.

Carson, who was raised in Detroit in a single-parent household, offered the outlines of plans to eliminate the budget deficit and the debt, a flat tax for all Americans and an economic stimulus funded by repatriating overseas American profits.

Fiorina, meanwhile, touted her experience in the economic real world, in the use of technology and in executive decision-making.

Both Carson and Fiorina are long shots for the office, but they and the other declared Republican candidates appear willing to engage in the arena of policy. On the Democratic side, leading contender Hillary Clinton appears only willing to offer more of what the failed policies of President Barack Obama have wrought.

Suggesting ideas, getting elected and passing laws to enact policy are three different rungs on a ladder, though.

In this April 28, 2015, file photo, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina speaks during a business luncheon at the Barley House with New Hampshire Republican lawmakers in Concord, N.H.

No one is suggesting what Carson and Fiorina have said could pass muster if they were elected, but both candidates sense the need for broad changes in United States economic policies.

The tepid economic recovery of the last six years has seen the reported jobless rate slowly decline, but many of the jobs reported are less than full-time and countless other job-seekers have given up looking for work. Wages for most Americans have moved little since the recession officially ended in June 2009, and work is particularly hard to come by for young black men.

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won eight states in his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in 2008, is expected to announce his candidacy today. His current best pitch is that, coming from the state where Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, lived, he knows them well and knows best how to defeat them.

However, he may seem a little stale this time around to the conservative wing of the party since younger or fresher candidates like Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Scott Walker have announced or are likely to announce their availability.

New Jersey Chris Christie, who has not announced his candidacy, may have a difficult time making a go of it this time around. One former ally of his pleaded guilty on Friday, and two other former officials in his administration were indicted for their alleged roles in the Bridgegate scandal that has dogged him for 16 months.

He long was thought to be a potential moderate rival to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, but the son and brother of the 41st and 43rd presidents may have that area to himself now.

As the Republican candidates line up, Clinton is forced to continue walking a line between the far left liberal she is -- and where she must be to satisfy her party's base -- and the moderate she will pretend to be in the run-up to the November 2016 general election.

In a recent appearance before the 2015 Women in the World Summit, she suggested Americans need to change their "deep seated ... religious beliefs" to be more accepting of abortion.

"[Reproductive health care , or abortion] rights have to exist in practice -- not just on paper," Clinton said in the speech. "Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed."

That statement, which appears to portend the value religion will have in a Hillary Clinton administration, is an insult to those both pro-abortion and pro-life. It suggests that there is something inherently wrong with one's religious beliefs if they cause them to not favor the ending of a nascent life and that one cannot favor abortion and have religious beliefs that cause them to question the practice.

Although the statement was made as a sop to the abortion-on-demand crowd, it would have been much more humane and less insulting to say that she wanted abortion to remain safe, legal and rare as she did in 2008.

The little reported former secretary of state's remark is reminiscent of candidate Obama's arrogant 2008 speech about small-town Pennsylvania residents who bitterly "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them."

Of course, that statement didn't hurt Obama, who was not vetted by an adoring media, but Clinton, mired in scandal that even the left-wing media have been poking into, may or may not get a pass.

Nevertheless, her more abortion, more wealth redistribution and more "investing in education, infrastructure and communities" through tax code changes are just more of the same.

So as long as Republicans use their nomination race to foster a discussion of ideas instead of an arena in which to beat up their opponents, they should be well placed to be the only party to offer Americans a new way forward in November 2016.