The Fall

(My Thoughts after a post election day off)

From many in the blog world to Sen. Arlen Specter they just don't seem to get it.

Allow me paraphrase: "Scandals, Iraq, Rumsfeld, move center, move right, taken to the woodshed, off message, on message, Bush helped, Bush hurt..."

The Wall Street Journal Editors get it. I hope the GOP leadership gets it quick as 2008 is right around the corner.

So far Rush and the National Review seem the only other national voices with a firm, unwavering handle on this: Republicans lost because conservatives felt sold out by the leadership in the House, to an extent, and to a larger degree by the Senate leadership.

Go back 1997-98 when republicans in a state of panic started the process of and ultimately succeeded in throwing Newt Gingrich overboard because they only had a 12 member lead in the House and 10 in the Senate after midterm elections; Think they would take that now?

After the 1998 election many republican leaders and even some evangelicals called for Gingrich's ouster, while many others started the drum beat for a retreat to the "center" on many issues. Remember, this is the same Speaker who presided over welfare reform, the balanced budget and the successful implementation of the majority of The Contract with America; in other words, promises made and kept on a conservative agenda.

Then in 2002 everyone from Don Nickles to National Review joined the call for Trent Lott to walk the plank to satisfy a political constituency that, a) would never, ever support a conservative agenda anyway and b) supported a party that then and now counts among its ranks a former klan leader with a documented record of racist remarks in years past and who was instrumental in the filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yet republicans and the conservative media ate their own for a stray remark rather than fighting back. (By the way, I don't mean to beat up on National Review, a magazine I first subscribed to longer ago than I care to remember and I read NRO on a daily basis; I simply try to show that even the best of us can sometimes embrace the short term to our detriment)

Many pundits, talking heads and republicans said Lott would damage the conservative agenda - it's done so well since under Bill Frist and company.

Two years later, Nickles announce his retirement and, despite denials to the contrary went on to found his own lobbying group.

Since the Denny Hastert and later Bill Frist eras began the republican congress transformed into a mark-up paradise with some republican members even holding up transparency legislation designed to better allow taxpayers to see where their money is spent. All levels of spending have gone through the roof and during this election cycle a number of representatives, senators and republican candidates ran away from President Bush and the war on terror. They may have fallen anyway, but I can't respect people who run from who they are or who they represented themselves to be when elected to begin with.