Posted on 11/13/2006 6:46:36 AM PST by Small-L
Two months after Germany's surrender in World War II, British voters dumped the Conservative prime minister who had led the nation to victory -- Winston Churchill -- and replaced him with Clement Attlee, whose Labor Party had won the election in a landslide. Embittered by his defeat, Churchill spurned King George's offer of a knighthood. "I could not accept the Order of the Garter from my sovereign," he said, "when I have received the order of the boot from his people."
Last week, American voters gave Republicans the order of the boot, stripping them of at least 29 seats in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate, and once again making Democrats the kings of Capitol Hill. It was the GOP's worst showing in decades, and since Tuesday analysts galore have been reading the entrails. It is easy to be wise after the event. But consider the judgment rendered by one of the keenest minds in American politics, who explained nearly a week *before* the election why Republican candidates were about to take a beating: "The reason we are at this moment," former president Bill Clinton told a group of Democratic donors on Nov. 1, "is that they do not represent faithfully the Republicans and the more conservative independents in the country. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here tonight. This is a sweeping, deep, big thing." According to the nation's most popular Democrat, in other words, Republicans were about to be punished for having abandoned their Republican principles. Voters were going to demote the GOP not because its agenda had grown too conservative -- but because it hadn't been conservative enough.
Exactly.
Nov. 7 was a debacle for Republicans, not conservatives. Democrats gained power in Washington, but around the country there was no shortage of evidence that the nation's tectonic shift to the right is still ongoing. For example, another seven states approved constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage; only in Arizona was a marriage amendment narrowly defeated. The backlash against the Supreme Court's disgraceful 2005 Kelo v. New London decision continued as well, with voters in 10 states adopting new laws to protect property owners from eminent domain abuse.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was at once a brilliant conservative victory and a humiliating Republican defeat. By an impressive 16-point margin, Michigan voters said no to racial and gender preferences in state employment, education, and public contracting. But the Republican Party, which had joined with Democrats, big business, and the activist left in opposing the initiative, reaped no political benefit. The GOP had jettisoned its party's colorblind creed in the hope of dampening Democratic turnout. In the end, Democrats swept the Senate and governor's races anyway, while the civil-rights initiative that Republicans should have endorsed sailed to a 58-42 win.
The next speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a San Francisco liberal of the first water, but many of her party's incoming freshmen campaigned as avowed conservatives. Indiana Democrat Brad Ellsworth, for example, described himself as anti abortion, pro-traditional marriage, "a hunter who supports the Second Amendment," and a "local sheriff" who would fight "to protect our kids from violence and filth on TV and the Internet." He and other "blue-dog" conservatives will be tugging the new Democratic majority to the right, while the defeat of liberal Republicans like Connecticut's Nancy Johnson and Iowa's Jim Leach means that the Republican minority in the 110th Congress will move to the right as well.
Voters were fed up with Republicans, and they had every reason to be. In 1994, the GOP swept to power on its "Contract with America" -- a principled platform of fiscal restraint, smaller government, individual responsibility, and cleaner politics. A dozen years later, the contract forgotten, the GOP had become an embarrassment -- a party of soaring federal budgets, gluttonous farm and highway bills, and earmarks from here to eternity. Instead of permanent tax relief and Social Security reform, the Republicans delivered a vast new drug entitlement and the McCain-Feingold crackdown on political expression. Worst of all, the party that had held itself out as the antidote to Democratic corruption now reeked of its own scandals. Week by week, the parade of sleazy Republicans seemed to lengthen -- Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham. Voters finally had enough. Exit polls nationwide found that it was corruption and scandal, far more than the unpopular war in Iraq, that voters had in mind on election day.
Churchill's political career didn't end in 1945. He came back from his defeat, and Republicans can come back, too. "We did not just lose our majority," one GOP representative said the other day. "We lost our way." When they're ready to find it again, re-reading the Contract with America would make a good start. As Bill Clinton could tell them, the electorate likes Republicans best when they live up to their Republican ideals.
Essentially, our party couldn't think outside of the Washington establishment viewpoint, or believe that the rest of the country didn't see things as they do. Their solution, shortsighted as it may be is to give someone else a chance--gridlock may be better than what the GOP is doing.
Historic massive voter fraud???
"Rush Limbaugh says he feels relieved.
I understand him perfectly. It has been
difficult: people I do not respect
seized control of my party; but the alternatives
were frightening, and I did not want
to contribute to the possible disaster."
Jerry Pournelle, Wednesday, November 8, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Republicans once
portrayed themselves as adults
and 'Rats as children.
This is now reversed.
The mainstream and the fringe groups
on the Left see things
with their eyes open
and their brains, such as they are,
running like grown ups.
The Right's broken up
into a mainstream that won't
face the craziness
of its fringe groups and
fringe groups that think they're mainstream,
whining and crying
they can't make it so
just by telling each other.
I suspect eight years
under the rule of
President Hillary will
straighten out the nuts.
One more time:
Conservatism is not defined in this election by abortion, immigration, Iraq, taxes or anything else.
We do NOT have to speculate on why this happened. We have the data. The exit polls were accurate and they asked respondents what their number one issue was in the election.
It was none of the above issues. It was corruption scandals.
The GOP can devote attention to its excessive spending, and that's a good thing, but Iraq need not be changed. The media has jumped up and said IRAQ IS WHY THIS HAPPENED, but that's not what the exit polls said. Iraq was #3 in the exit poll measurement.
A conservative country will not tolerate corruption scandals. The GOP had a ton of them this year. All that needs to happen, NOTHING MORE, is to get squeaky clean candidates and get some indictments of Democrats.
Do that, we win. Do anything else, we are not assured of winning.
FReepers understand, but have you (or Bush) explained that to the American people? In many ways, they see us bogged down, spending money, and getting our guys killed to build soccer fields, schools, and sewage systems.
If foreign fighters are "flooding" into the country, why aren't we sealing the border with a buffer zone in which any truck, car, or human is a target for a preditor? Why do we let Al Sadr foment terrorists rather than serving as an aim point?
Winning their hearts and minds through soccer fields and water systems is fine, IF their hearts and minds are open to being won. Bombs on target help open hearts and minds.
I agree with what you said except (1) the extraordinary remark about abortion and (2) the characterization of Kelo.
We appear to agree that abortion should be a local matter. The federal government, in Roe et seq, has intervened massively against state and local governments and told them they may not regulate abortion in any way, shape, or form. So your characterization of the dislike for conservatives seeking federal intervention in "local" affairs seems to me to be 180 degrees off. The problem conservatives are trying to rectify IS federal intervention in local affairs. 95% of the thrust of the debate by conservatives is to get the federal government OUT of the dispute by appointing judges that will apply the actual constitution.
In the case of Kelo, the Federal Judiciary should have intervened in local affairs under the takings clause of the US constitution. A proper application of that clause would have held the takings unconstitutional. It was local action to which, I believe, you object. Thus, the Kelo decision was the federal government's refusing to interfere, when it should have, in local affairs.
Yes, I understand all that. I even think there is a chance we'd get the situation squared away in Iraq using the methods we're using now, given enough time. How much time, I don't know and I doubt that W knows either.
The point is that our inability to defeat the insurgents decisively and quickly has been an encouragement to both the terrorists and the Democrats.
The result was the victory we handed both of these groups last Tuesday. A major fubar, and rightly or wrongly, our people, starting with the President, have to take responsibility for it.
Yes, that puts it in a nutshell.
The ass kicking (e.g massive increase in collateral deaths) ain't gonna happen in Iraq. Hence, the kick ass or leave folks are well overdue for making a final choice. Come on guys, make a decision!
Spend a few days here reading my posts from the last 18 months.
Here' one post from 3 days ago.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
There are none so blind as those that refuse to see.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
"Thirteen out of every 100 voters who went to the polls Tuesday were under the age of 30, and more than half of them chose Democrats, experts say.
About 10 million young people voted, according to analysts who studied exit poll data. That's 2 million more than the previous congressional midterm election in 2002.
This year's youth turnout was perhaps the largest for a midterm election since 1982, said Mark Lopez of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. "
There's lots of "data."
The trick is figuring out
which data means what.
The important bits
seem clear: While the Right's fringe groups
were "protest voting"
by staying home, 'Rats
stirred up kids with Jon Stewart
and that kind of crap
and they did the job.
And now we have to live with
what the Right's nuts did.
IMHO, the actual scandals only entrenched an overall air of corruption. For example, I think people look at earmarks, not as individual items of corruption, but as a general climate of corruption. Some of the earmarks (the ones in my district) might be OK, but with 29,000 of them, someone is getting "paid off."
The same of Hastert's defense of William Jefferson. Jefferson was wrong, but Hastert contributed to the "climate of corruption" by insisting that the DoJ was wrong in investigating him.
There were as many Dems involved with Abramoff, but the GOP was in power when it happened, so they must have permitted or encouraged it, especially with the earmarks.
Medicare Drug Coverage, in some form was inevitable, but by abandoning their principles to pass it with the support of the drug and insurance industries, the GOP gave the impression that they were in bed with the big campaign contributors in the drug/insurance industry--a perception of corruption.
By voting for NCLB, the GOP again left the impression that someone bought them off--"I don't know who, but someone must have made a big campaign contribution to get them to abandon their principles and campaign promises."
Even the dragging on of the IRAQ war has the taint of corruption, Halliburton, oil companies, ...
You're (or the exit polls) may be right, but I suspect it is a general perception rather than a specific event.
When Churchill lost office in 1945 Britian wasn't faced by Islamic lunatics armed with nuclear, bio, and chemical weapons.
Yes and the country was tired of empire and tired of war and tired of conservative rule and basically, well...tired.
However, Churchill himself was popular. Wherever he appeared, people cheered. It was his party that was voted against.
Okay, you got me! Arrrgghhh!
The conservatives did score great victories in getting rid of rinos dewine and chafee.
Now in 2008, there are a lot of opportunities to get rid of more rinos.
Some rinos up in 08 are, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Warner, Lamar Alexander, Libby Dole, Smith from Oregon, that bridge to nowhere Stevens guy, Chuck Hagel, Sununu, and Domenici.
I don't know that we could take out RINOs in lieu of conservatives in northeastern blue states. But it makes sense in South Carolina, Nebraska, Virginia, Alaska, etc.
I totally agree with you Sam.
Actually, I think we agree. IMHO, most people feel that the abortion issue should be a local/state issue and that the SCOTUS overstepped the Constitution with Roe, and the ban on partial birth continues that abrogation. I think they see the Republican actions (e.g. partial birth, conservative judges) as attempts to impose the agenda of social conservatism (read Religious Right) on the entire nation, again overstepping the limits of the Constitution. Where I think the SCOTUS needs to make a ruling is on the definition of what a "human" is, i.e. when, by definition, life begins. From that, state laws could flow, just as they do with murder, rape, etc.
Kelo, I think falls in a similar category. Many view the Kelo decision as bad and allowing government to take without limit, but in fact, the Kelo decision told local/state governments that it was up to them to impose restrictions and not the federal government. Unfortunately, I don't think most voters saw it that way--they saw it as encouraging government taking. The good news is that many states (mine passed an amendment to the state constitution on the last election) have stepped up to that charge, and as states, we're better for it.
ROTFLOL!!! You're a laugh a minute!
A lie told often enough becomes the truth tactic?
You and the rest of the party hacks tried to pull this line of crap the last couple weeks leading up to the election.
The only corruption that ticked off GOP voters was the lack of investigations and indictments of the DemonRAT criminals sitting in CONgress. Hastert running to embrace and shield william jefferson, DEMONRAT, la is a prime example.
The lack of investigation into the despicable al-Murthawi and his dealings with the US Navy to transfer land to San Francisco. Land whose rights were owned by a company that had Laurence PELOSI, (yeah, her nephew) as an executive.
Or how about investigating the millions of dollars worth of earmarks in defense appropriations bills that went to companies owned by the children of fellow PA DemonRAT, Rep. Paul Kanjorski?
When can we discuss investigate and charge Pelosi, Reid, sKerry, Boxer, Kennedy, Nagin, Blanko, Schumer..........?
The answer is now NEVER! The corruption in the republican party is the fact that they did NOT go after the corruption in the RAT party.
FBI investigates Rep. Curt Weldon
McClatchy Newspapers ^ | 10-13-06 | Greg Gordon The Justice Department is investigating whether Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania traded his political influence for lucrative lobbying and consulting contracts for his daughter, according to sources with direct knowledge of the inquiry.
The republicans went gunning for their own, not the enemy.
Running all over FR citing "exit polls" (spit) and republican corruption as the cause of the shift in CONgress, is making you look like a fool.
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