Republicans don’t care about children. Republicans hate gay people. Republicans only go to war for oil. Republicans only care about the rich.

I’m sure you’ve heard this attempt by the Democrats to tell the American people what the other side “really thinks.”

While resorting to simple-minded slandering, the Left has sacrificed needed solutions-based discourse.

For example, Democrats have been maligning all the Republicans that voted against the recent State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill. They have attempted to portray this bill as a bipartisan effort with the only goal to ensure that poor children receive health care.

“President Bush should support the bipartisan SCHIP legislation for 10 million reasons — the 10 million children who will receive healthcare coverage should this become law,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

As Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) said, how can anyone be against children?

“It’s about kids. Who’s against kids’ healthcare?” he said.

The answer in fact to this question is that no one is. But the real question that should be asked is, how do we accomplish that goal?

After vetoing the bill, President Bush made the point that the “government ought to help poor children and to focus on poor children.”

The Democrats’ initial bill would have provided coverage to families making $81,000 a year.

“(The) policies of the government ought to be to help people find private insurance, not federal coverage,” Bush said. “That’s where the philosophical divide comes in.”

The philosophical divide is not between those who say poor children shouldn’t receive health care and those who argue they should.

“SCHIP is not merely a debate about yet another mystifying government program. It is all about free-market principles vs. government mandates,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), an opponent of the bill, and Regina Herzlinger, business administration chair at the Harvard Business School and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in a joint article in National Review.

He observes that for the same amount of coverage for children within the SCHIP program, private insurance would be $1,000 fewer per child.

So because there are reasonable arguments against a government-run health care program — and innovative ideas that result in better quality, yet more fiscally sound service — the Left has had to resort to questioning the authenticity and “true” intentions of the Republicans.

They can’t seem to debate the merit of their bill beyond the thought that Democrats are for children and Republicans are against them.

To a certain extent, Republicans can resort to emotional responses instead of sticking to discussing solutions as well.

Some think I did it in my last column, where I said that Democrats prefer defeat in Iraq.

Is this a mischaracterization of what the Democrats’ goal in Iraq is?

If you are referring to Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), who supports success in Iraq, yes, but if you are looking at the overall strategy of mainstream Democrats in the Senate, I don’t think it is.

The reason being the end result of the preferred Democratic strategy in Iraq is defeat by Al-Qaeda.

The Left has only recently — albeit with perfunctory performance — advanced the notion that the Iraqi parliament and armed forces will have the strength to sustain themselves if we withdraw our military.

Most foreign policy experts recognize what the Democrats used to acknowledge — that Iraq is a complex region, and violence will only get worse if we don’t provide some level of security.

If one is honest, it appears the Democrats’ foray into anti-war “pull out now” arguments is based more on political posturing than sound policy.

The ground for such an audacious allegation then is based on the inevitable outcome of the Left’s bad tactics, not a malevolent desire to slander the Democrats’ intentions.

They may well desire success in Iraq through withdrawal. They just need to explain how that happens.

Consider that fewer than one in four Americans approves of the Democratic-controlled Congress, and the president’s approval rating stands at only 31 percent, according to an AP–Ipsos poll.

The simple reason for this is that the American people have lost their faith in the government. We don’t believe that our politicians, Republican or Democrat, have the ability to actually accomplish the people’s business anymore.

And since few people actually analyze the implications of one policy or another, the Left can water down legitimate philosophical discussion to being as simple as either being for children or against them.

As we enter the first open presidential contest since 1928, both parties must refrain from judging intentions without first discussing the worthiness of the policy.

I am not trying to ignore the contrast between Republican and Democratic goals. Next fall, the United States will be voting on two very different visions for our future.

Even in this context, however, it is still far more efficacious to focus on communicating solutions, letting Americans then decide for themselves who has the best cure to solve our nation’s problems.

[Reach contributing writer Thomas Walker at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]