Playing To Lose
With all due respect to Charlie Cook, his latest column for National Journal is an interesting read, but even he acknowledges at the end that it is pure nonsense. It is not the way politics is played in this country.
But this brings us back to the original point. Should Republicans want to win? If Democrats win the presidency and hold onto the House and Senate, how long will it be before they self-destruct?
Democrats had majorities in the House and Senate when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, and it took the party only two years to lose majorities in both. For Republicans, they already had control of the House and Senate when George W. Bush won in 2000. It took six years before they self-destructed, losing majorities in both chambers.
Lord Acton is famous for his line that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It is debatable how much is corruption, how much is arrogance and overreaching, and how much is sloth or growing out of touch, but the result is the same. Whether it is Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals, too much unchecked power is an inevitable problem.
A different way of approaching it is that every decade or two, a party has to destroy itself and be reborn. Like forests need fire to begin the regeneration process, from time to time, parties need the dead wood cleared out and space made for new growth to emerge. But to rise like a phoenix, you have to get down to ashes first.
I would argue that the Democrats didn't really reinvent themselves after their 1992 defeat. I'd say they more or less hunkered down and waited. But they still contested - hard - every election. Cook admits as much at the end of his column. It's actually more of a thought experiment than a real proposal. Still, he has a real point. The Republicans let their core values, forged under a truly unique, powerful leader, Ronald Reagan, bleed away while they were in power. The Democrats, of course, did the same after their once-in-a-lifetime leader, Franklin Roosevelt, passed from the scene.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Tuesday, 8 April , 2008 @ 9:33 pm
Going into the 2006 elections I believed that the GOP would lose the House narrowly but keep the Senate. I based this on the old saying, "You can’t beat something with nothing." All Democrats had was deranged hatred, and no amount of blue smoke from the MSM would completely conceal this fact. Or so I thought.
I was wrong. Nothing with MSM support can beat Something, if Something tries to pretend that it is Nothing.
Not much has changed in the last two years. The GOP continues to cower in terror at the sight of its own shadow. Republican Members of Congress continue to be among the worst porkers on Capitol Hill. The Democrat-controlled Congress has racked up the worst approval ratings in history, and yet the GOP may lose even more seats in November. Republican leaders for the most part still grovel and cringe when they appear on MSM "news" shows and are peppered with when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife-and-raping-your-daughter questions from MSM hacks. Don’t get me started on the Milquetoast in Chief, who continues to be his own worst enemy.
By TKelso, Wednesday, 9 April , 2008 @ 12:35 am
Hard to disagree. It’s deeply ironic that Bush has never given up on winning the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq (despite serious missteps to be sure), but has conceded issue after issue to the vicious left and the MSM. "Bush Lied" is a lie; yet the White House gave up long long ago. He walked away from Social Security reform without so much as a speech from the Oval Office. Certainly messaging and PR aren’t everything in politics, but much of what the moonbat left believes has seeped into the public consciousness as conventional wisdom. It didn’t have to be that way.That’s one good thing about McCain. While he’s got lots of warts from the view of this conservative, there’s a lot of junk that he just won’t put up with and if he’s elected, it will take the Dems a while to adjust their tactics.
By syn, Wednesday, 9 April , 2008 @ 6:08 am
From reading a little of Reagan’s history I understand the Conservative movement within the Republican Party had to work extra hard to achieve their place among country-club Republicans and after Reagan left the country-clubbers began reducing Conservative influence.
I highly admire President Bush for fighting the good fight defending our nation however I have always thought he was more of a JFK Liberal than a Reagan Republican and that the current leaders of the GOPers more Centrists than Conservative.
In other words, the Republican party becamse corrupt when they abandonned Conservatism and instead embraced their snooty egos.
That said, I would like to think that McCain won’t put up with the junk however he has already stated he would be ‘respectful and tolerant’ which is exactly how President Bush governed. Bascially McCain is a GOP country-club Centrist and will most likely reach across the aisle more than he will govern by Conservative principles.
Since there are very few Conservative leaders in the GOP perhaps McCain would want to have a pow-wow with Bobby Jindel to find out why Conservativsm rather than Centrism wins elections and is good for the nation.
By Granddaddy Long Legs, Thursday, 10 April , 2008 @ 1:25 pm
"I would argue that the Democrats didn’t really reinvent themselves after their 1992 defeat"I think you mean 1994.