At this point, I really don't see any qualitative difference between the Clinton Democrats and the Dubya Republicans. It's merely a choice of going to hell in a handbasket or in a limousine - either way we're all f__ked.
I’ve thought a while about how to respond to your position here, because it is a popular one. I’m not calling your argument stupid, senseless or anything like that. I am saying, however, that it is losing credibility with the GOP base.
After thinking about this for awhile, allow me to direct your attention to California, or, as the current governor would say “Kahl-ee-fornia.”
People got so disgusted with Grey Davis that some in the hard-core GOP base instigated a recall election, because they figured with Der Ahnuld indicating interest in the job, the GOP had a shot at booting Davis out and putting a Republican into Sacremento.
Trouble is, all of us who were cautioning the CA GOP that Ahnuld was no conservative and literally slept with a Kennedy were ignored. The results have been every bit as bad as if Davis had been allowed to remain in office with one very important exception: the GOP now gets the blame, because there is a “R” after the name of the guy the GOP put into the governor’s mansion. And the reason why the Republicans are going to get the blame is because the GOP just couldn’t step back and ask “Is this a situation we really want to own? Is this a political environment into which any true Republican can hold true to Republican principles with success?”
If the answers to those two questions are “no” and no better than “maybe”, then it might be best to allow the Democrats to own the blame, then pile the blame on higher and deeper, and hang the issues around the DNC’s neck.
So, to extend your argument: what should the GOP have done in California? Allow the DNC to own the show?
In my analysis, yes. Allow me to explain:
The GOP doesn’t sell ideas well. This has several causes, foremost among them is that GOP candidates, modulo Reagan, have always been very poor at communication in front of a TV camera. They don’t know how to hold themselves, they don’t know how to sound-bite an idea, and most importantly, they don’t know how to take down the competition with the artful quip that crushes the competition.
Ron Reagan did all of these things exceedingly well. That’s why we all miss him so: it wasn’t just that Reagan stood on the right side of history, it wasn’t just that he had a sunny disposition and was optimistic about what we could do in during a time when post-modernist pessimism was fashionable. It was because when you watch Reagan give a speech in a combative environment, he could come out with that one quip, that one joke, that one line that summed it all up so devastatingly well, the DNC guys had to laugh at how silly they were.
Given that we don’t have anyone on the national stage who communicates that well (Fred Thompson might be an exception, if his recent video response to Moore is any indication), what we should have done in California is allow Grey Davis to finish running the state into the ground and use it as a national foil in Washington DC. As in “The Democrats would like to do X, and we can see the results of X in California...” and just keep beating that drum relentlessly.
Eventually the California voters would have tossed many of the zanier liberals out of office, because they would have become a national liability. More importantly, the voters would have seen the inevitable results of what they’d been voting for all these years and realized “Uh, this ain’t gonna work. We’re going to have to at least listen to some different ideas.”
But no, the GOP decided that filling a seat with a mediocre guy in a state with a population that was merely voting their utility bill was a smart strategery. I think we can agree that it has been a disaster.
In 2004, if Kerry had won, the GOP would have made their hold on Congress more solid in 2006. The GOP always does better running *against* someone that in actually running the show, mostly owning to how many years the GOP was the minority party. When we’ve been an opposition party with coherent ideas, we’ve been able to hold the Democrat loony-toons in some semblance of check. Look at the 90’s under Clinton, or the GOP Senate in the early 80’s.
Instead, we’ve now lost Congress because we have far too many RINO’s and sell-outs, and without Congress, we’ve lost the power of the agenda, since Bush has shown himself to be a very, very poor domestic leader where agenda is concerned. In 2008, we will likely not retain the presidency, and the DNC will likely further cement control of Congress. In this situation, I now think it would have been preferable to let Bush go and keep the Congress, knowing that with some work and the natural mis-steps we could have expected from Kerry, that the GOP would have solidified their hold on Congress in ‘06 and ‘08. But no, we decided to allow the big picture to slip away from us, because we wanted anyone with an “R” after their name to fill the Big Chair.
This is just symptomatic of the larger issue here in the immigration debate today: The GOP Congress seems willing to sacrifice long-term viability on the altar of short-term press approval and winning elections. The GOP in the Karl Rove era seems utterly incapable of seeing beyond the next election cycle.
Since Newt has stepped down, we have no coherent party philosophy on issues. It has all been tactical positioning WRT to the Democrats and the press. That is no formula for long-term success. We need to regain a coherent epistemology that will guide the party in all issues, so that when some issue comes up, we already know what the GOP’s general position and desired outcome is. We need to find candidates who understand and agree (in broad outline) with this epistemology, so we no longer have RINO’s like McCain, et al. And we need to set higher ethical standards for our candidates: if we had done this, McCain wouldn’t been in office at all. Foley would never have been an issue, etc.
BTW — on the PBA ‘ban’ — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the way for the GOP to win on the abortion issue to to make abortion as plentiful, common and widespread as possible, and when doing so, cite the political eugenics the Democrats are performing on themselves in the last 30+ years. We should all gleefully offer to drive women who are registered Democrats to abortion clinics as often as we can, and do it with a smile and without any preaching. The GOP needs to quit preaching on this issue. No one likes being preached at by a politician, most of all because everyone knows that the pol is probably pretty iffy on morals himself.
If we give the DNC everything they want on abortion, with glee and assistance, sooner or later, the DNC will realize we’re serious about political eugenics and the DNC will dump NARAL/NOW/etc overboard like an anvil and then we’ll see the end of abortion.
Harsh? Yes. But then such things usually are.
Yes they would have.
GWB has almost singlehandedly created an entire generation of future Democrats. It would have been better for conservatism in the long run had GWB lost the election.
I would have much preferred the incompetence of Kerry or Gore destroy the Democratic party than to have George destroy the GOP.