STILLWELL - Election 2006: What Went Wrong for the Republicans

The midterm elections are over and those who hoped for a Republican victory are still digesting the results. The usual pre-election mainstream media hype led many to the mistaken impression that the Democratic Party's much-vaunted success might not pan out. But in fact, the Democrats did much better than expected, taking the House and possibly the Senate as well.

Clearly, the Republican Party has in some respects lost its way. The dissension within the ranks over the last few years over issues such as runaway federal spending, illegal immigration, the Dubai ports deal, and corruption of both a moral and monetary nature (which to be fair, is not confined to either party) has undermined conservative support for the Republican Party.

The constant pummeling of the Iraq War by the mainstream media seems to have had its intended effect. Dissatisfaction has taken hold and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been its first casualty.

The Bush administration shares the blame for the growing impatience with the war by not fully explaining the stakes to the American people. By focusing on Iraq and denying the civilizational and religious connection to the wider Muslim world, President Bush failed to fully rally the post-9/11 public for the coming conflict.

The Democratic Party seized on this failing, among others, to sell its "vote for change" platform. And they pursued what turned out to be a very clever, if disingenuous, policy. Putting forward moderate to conservative candidates across the nation while keeping the left-leaning party leadership in the form of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Harry Reid, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, et al, on the backburner turned out to be an effective strategy.

Can you believe how much the national debt increased under GOP rule? http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm I'm not persuaded that the war needed to cost that much. Either way, cutbacks are needed and the Democrats can now get to deal with making or ignoring them, just as Bill Clinton and a Democrat Congress had to either punt or run with the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico at the end of the Cold War. At least we can rejoice that Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's now out of office and forced to look for a real job in Atlanta:

This is one of the most uninspired, childish, and boring articles I have read today, but I feel compelled to comment because of one line: the one that said Bush failed by not explaining his grand vision to the people of America.

What a complete load of bull. First of all, isn't this insulting condescension towards anyone that doesn't share their view part of why they lost? I'd say so.

Look, Cinny, sweety, lemme splain you somethin. The reforming the Mideast into one big peaceful democracy thng that they talk about all the time—not only will it never happen, no matter how long we stay in Iraq or anywhere else, but the people who pushed us into the war don't want it to happen. They want the Mideast to be a smoking hellhole. I would try explaining it to you but I'm just another idiot too stupid to grasp the grand vision, so I'll just leave you with a link that explains everything that has happened since 9/11, and it's even authored by your favorites: Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie, Feith, Perle, and all the other now defunct hitler youth you worship:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

It goes into detail about how we need to reshape our armed forces to stay the lone superpower in the world after the collapse of the USSR. But there are two lines that are especially revealing (they're in there, check)
"While the regime of Saddam Hussein poses no real threat to the United States, it provides adequate justification for establishing an American foothold in the Middle East,"
and
"Motivating the public to agree to such a campaign would require a Pearl Harbor-type event."

Originally written in 1993, submitted to Congress in 1996.

Even if those words didn't exist, it doesn't take a genius to see that rebuilding an entire region of the world at the expense of our soldiers and our entire treasury in the hope that it might provide security decades from now is not that smart. Also, lots of other people have tried and it has never worked, ever.

I think this is a bit self delusional. My own sense is that many middle-of-the-road folks who would normally be conservative and normally support a conservative president feel that the president went off on an ego trip with Iraq and did not have an end-game plan. That was a concern of Iraq war cautionaries from the outset, IIRC. More recently, word has begun to filter back-- like it or not-- that the Iraqi police and army have been observed to be less than effective, just as cautionaries had warned about earlier. Yet the official reaction seems often to have been marred by pride and scorn in place of concern. This arrogant style perhaps further alienates those who really might otherwise go either way on the issue.

It makes me wonder if alternatives to the current postwar plan were fully explored (if it is presumed that the initial decision to go in was fully justified, which is another nagging question), such as dividing Iraq into two or three nations... though perhaps that is overly naiive... alternatively, I could be all wrong on all of this (smile)...

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